Homeowner community with rental units

Hi-

I'm looking for some much needed clarification.

We are a small townhome community in IL that recently changed management companies on 1/1/23. Our prior management company (11 years) tendered their resignation as of 12/31/22. In October of 2022, we had a townhome that sold to an investment firm. Our current management company notified the Board in October of the sales price and that the new owners would be renting it out and provided the names on the lease. Nothing more. Immediately after that, I stepped down from the Board so received no further information. I was then asked back at the February 2023 meeting. During the time I was off the Board, I found out the former management company never obtained a fully executed copy of the lease (both owner and tenant signatures)only an email copy with tenant signatures. Also at the time of lease, a certficate of insurance was never provided (both our required per our rules & regulations) to rent in our community. Our new management company never followed up even though they were notified in January the new owners never provided a COI. Flash forward to end of March (now 7 months into tenants lease). After doing further investigation, I have now found out that our current management company still does not have a fully executed lease or COI on file so I've asked for an attorney letter to be sent to the investmennt company requesting both.

My question is: Does our former (and current) management company have any culpability for putting our HOA at risk by not doing their job by securing the appropriate required documents by our HOA for the lease agreement and that to date are still outstanding?

Thank you.
Board Director

You could make an argument that the board is also not doing its job of following up with the manager to make sure the necessary paperwork is on file. The board has the final responsibility for this - fortunately it should be an easy fix.

(Our attorneys' law firm had a motto: "Communicate, don't litigate." Life is much easier - and cheaper - that way.)

With others, leave it be. Still, though, your PM (not an attorney) should require complete info from the agent and cite your HOA docs on this point.