No HOA pres and non response from managing company

Started by BetsyD • 17 replies • 3059 views

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BetsyD (Texas)
Posts: 6

Posted:

We live in a community that has not had an HOA President for over a year and a half. We pay dues to our neighborhood quarterly (174.00) as well as annual dues for the main community we live in. When we built our house 5 years ago the builder told us that once the neighborhood was complete we could abolish the HOA. Our quarterly HOA dues include front yard care (although our front yard is the size of a pea) the rest of the money is noted to be going to various other codings. I have called the HOA and told them that my we (my husband and i) would take over the HOA pres duties so we can get stuff done in the neighborhood and hopefully abolish it as we are paying two HOA dues. She told me that we had to get with the previous president so he could sign off. We said fine. It has now been over 2 months and she still has not set up a meeting and we are still paying hoa dues. I called again yesterday telling her we are ready to get the ball rolling and to please call us to set up a meeting so the former HOA pres can sign off. No return phone call. Any suggestion on what to do? We pay over 700.00 in Stonebridge Dues as well as 174 a quarter for our neighborhood......ridiculous!!!!!
Help!!

GeraldT4
Posts: 1,022

Posted:

BetsyD - Please clarify, do you own two residences, one in an HOA Stonebridge and one in a completely different neighborhood?

BetsyD (Texas)
Posts: 6

Posted:

No. Stonebridge Ranch is the main community. Within Stonebridge Ranch there are "villages/neighborhoods" Stonebridge Ranch amenites include a Beach Club, aquatic center, tennis, lakes, fishing etc. That is what the 700.00 annual HOA due is. Our neighborhood/village is Grand Traditions. We pay an additional 174.00 a quarter to include lawn care as well as street matinence, neighborhood matienence etc.

RogerB (Colorado)
Posts: 5,067

Posted:

Betsy, check out your Declaration of CC&Rs. There will be two; one for the master association and one for your sub-association. Each normally will have their own Board of Directors. Once turned over by the Developer the master association may have 1 member from each of the sub-associations. Each sub-association (village or filing) normally will have its own CC&Rs and Board of Directors. You can not terminate either association unless your CC&Rs allow (which I doubt). And as long as there are two association's which cover your property you will need to pay assessments to each.

You can not simply "take over as President". You can volunteer to serve on the Board of your sub-association or master assocation. The master association maintains areas common to all sub-associations. Would it help if the Board of your sub-association approved maintaining all the pea sized yards

GeraldT4
Posts: 1,022

Posted:

BetsyD - Thanks for the clarification and detail. Wow, it sounds to me like you are getting a lot of services for your dollar. Annual dues of $1,396 for beach club, aquatic center, tennis, lakes, fishing, lawn care street and neighborhood maintenance, etc. In my neck of the woods, the fee would not be considered "ridiculous" rather a real bargain.

Depending on what your governing documents state, there's probably a procedure for abolishing the HOA, and with abolishing it will go the shared expense of the maintenance, and replacement costs of everything else.

Additionally it sounds like there is an HOA President, just that you can't get in touch with him/her. Typical procedure in HOA's is for a Board to be elected, so you need to review any and all governing documents you have for the structure and procedures of your HOA.

BetsyD (Texas)
Posts: 6

Posted:

Thanks for all of the information!!!
Actually we do have an HOA pres the problem is he quit, changed his number and does not want to be bothered. The management company finally got in touch with him and said that he has to sign over being pres to my husband. NOW the problem is the managment company wont get back in touch with my husband. In five years there has been NOTHING done in our community. They mailed us a detailed account of where all of our HOA dues is going and alot of that money is just sitting there. For instance, one account is for maintanence. We need new street lights etc. That money has never been used for it. 300.00 a yr is suppose to go to neighborhood events. We have never had a neighborhood event! We dont mind paying the two dues but we have nothing to show for it!!

RobertR1 (South Carolina)
Posts: 5,164

Posted:

Betsy,
Sounds like you have a mess. You are also going about trying to resolve this in the right way so far. You just need some backing from the neighbors in your sub association. You can really lay all the blame on them. This includes the president and all members of your board. Do not take over this president position by default. You must be elected by the members, otherwise you have no authority to do anything. I would immediately publicize a Town Hall meeting and drag everyone you can to it. This will take some shoving, but your HOA has a history, you need to find it all, from your incorporation paper to your assuming the Charter of your documents from the developer. A good place to start is the county court house. Explain this to the office people of your main organization and they will probably direct youi to specific place to find what you need. Your sub association should also be addressed in the Master Association Documents.

BetsyD (Texas)
Posts: 6

Posted:

Thanks Robert! All of that information is going to help us out alot in what to do next. One question though: We dont have anyone on the Board. I mean nobody!! The guy who is still president and the management company said that all we had to do was all meet, he would sign it over to us and then we can elect a board. Is this correct? We just feel that since the management property has not responded to us, especially when the HOA pres said he is willing to meet and get this over with, that they are not in hurry to do anything as they are getting 174.00 a quarter from every resident in our neighborhood! Thanks again for the information!!

MicheleD (Kentucky)
Posts: 4,491

Posted:

Betsy, do you not have a copy of your Deed Conditions, Covenants, and Restrictions? I can see where you might not have a copy of your by-laws, but before I took the PM company and the former president's "word" for it, I would read both of those documents to make sure it would be legal to just "sign over" board membership and/or president office to someone.

In addition, not many HOAs that I'm aware of can just simply "disband."

Some might. Yours might. But it sounds iffy to me.

RobertR1 (South Carolina)
Posts: 5,164

Posted:

Betsy,
You are probably right about what you say. However, before you can decide what to do it would be best and find out what they are going to sign over to you. I am not sure they have the authority to sign anything over to anyone. Now if this president gets with a legal eagle and draws up some papers that the association, represented by the president want to sign things over to you all, and I number you all as being all the owners names you can get to accept the documents, this might work. I expect this president is in deeper than he realizes and what may be easy to him may be very complicated. At the very least he can authorize who ever you have been paying your dues, to authorize the hiring of a lawyer to do tha action.
This is something you could find out and then when you have your meeting, you would have council to tell you what steps have to be taken and this is how you propose to set things right. I would also expect your members to want to formally appoint you and your husband as their official representative. So to that end I would make the meeting as formal as possible with minutes taken, purpose of meeting, etc.

SusanW1 (Michigan)
Posts: 5,202

Posted:

Are there ANY board members?

Usually the vice president steps into the presidents rold when the president has resigned. He does need to resign, either in writing, or by his not showing up for meetings, he probably can be just removed from the Board.

Your bylaws should tell how to fill vacancies and what happens when officers resign.

GeraldT4
Posts: 1,022

Posted:

As Betsy posted, the President quit. If indeed this is true and the President was an owner than he/she has no authority to do anything, and seeking his authority to pass the torch is a waste of time.

Betsy - I've checked out your community website and it is extremely impressive, very nice homes. There seems to be current inventory in Stonebridge Ranch. This could mean that the Developers and Builders could still technically control the Board. The President that quit may have been an owner and the power reverted to the Board (Developers/Builders).

While I'm not discouraging you from stepping up, I am cautioning you on the level of responsibility you will assume and the amount of time it will take to run things appropriately.

How many dwellings will there be in your neighborhood/association (Stonebridge Ranch) when everything is fully constructed? Seems like 39 homes from the map.

Did you locate your Declaration, CC&R's, and By-laws?

PaulM (Pennsylvania)
Posts: 1,347

Posted:

BetsyD: You need to learn if the community is still under DEVELOPER CONTROL.
If so, there is not much to be done UNTIL his control ends and turnover to residents has been established. Your official docs state at what percentage of units sold must turnover occur.

Learn if the ex-President was one appointed by the Developer. IF the developer is still in control, then it is he who pulls the strings and assigns those to hold positions on 'his' Board. Is the Mgmt. Co. one the Developer has a contract with and are they working on the developer's behalf? You need to learn these answers.

RobertR1 (South Carolina)
Posts: 5,164

Posted:

But I think I can say if the developer is still in control, then this whole mess is up to him and not anyone appointed by him to serve on the Board because they have not been voted in by membership. That is what makes this site so much fun. We can always just wing it and if there is a question, then we can say, "I didn't know that." (tongue in cheek).

I agree with what you are trying to get at and probably we will both end up at the same place. Just another example of having to guess what is really going on. I sometimes think the posters could present their concerns more clearly, then I think how woeful my description of what goes on in my place would be, if I had to explain it.

GeraldT4
Posts: 1,022

Posted:

RobertR1 - Let's wait for Betsy's response to my post. It seems to me there are 39 lots in her subdivision (Stonebridge Ranch), and some lots not closed yet. It could be that there was an election of an owner President due to a percentage of lots that closed and the requirement of an election of owners to the Board. Who knows yet.

BetsyD (Texas)
Posts: 6

Posted:

Gerald
There are actually 98 homes in our community (Grand Traditions) They finished building about 3 years ago. (i guess it is not current on the Stonebridge Ranch site) Stonebridge Ranch is the MAIN Hoa. For example there are probably40 communites within Stonebridge Ranch. Ours (Grand Traditions) being one of them. They are still building in Stonebridge Ranch, however our neighborhood is complete and is not under developer control anymore. We did not find our Declarations, CC&Rs and By-laws. I am going to place another call to the management company to see if we can get it.

The first HOA president, Maggie, signed over as being HOA pres about two years ago. She signed it over to Paul, who decided after he signed over for it that he did not have the time nor desire to run the HOA. This was all done with the managment company. I contacted Paul about a year ago to see if he would set up a meeting for the community to address concerns about new lights, fences etc. He said that he did not want to be pres anymore and had contacted the prop management company. Fast forward a year later and nothing had been done. I contacted the prop managment company and asked what we could do as we had a pres who was not active and that my husband/myself would be willing to step up. The prop management company told us that we had to meet with Paul and papers had to be signed. This was over a month ago and no response. There are NO other board members. Our neighborhood has had maybe one meeting and that was when the neighborhood was first being built over 4 yrs ago.

So, basically the prop management company is getting 68,208 annually to run our neighborhood. According to the budget that just came out only 30,000 is going towards lawn service. The rest is going to stuff that we should have some say so about, however they will not contact us.

We pay 700 annually for Stonebridge Ranch. We knew that going in building our house that we would pay that annual fee. Stonebridge Ranch has around 40 communties within it. Our community pays 696.00 annually. We were told when we built (our builder, Grand, told us this) that once the neighborhood was built up and not under developer control we could 1. have more control 2. get rid of it
even the prop management lady told me over 2 months ago "this hoa was not suppose to be like this or go on this long" however now they will not call us back. She also told me that i was not the first person to call and ask what is going on and that a lot of people had.

Sorry so long, just wanted to make sure i was clear on what exactly is going on!!
Thanks for all the advice!! As i said, we are very naive/unknowing about the rules etc of our HOA as there has only been one meeting in 5 yrs and nobody has stepped up to the plate to do anything about it!

GeraldT4
Posts: 1,022

Posted:

Betsy - Without the Declaration, CC&R's, and By-laws you can't draw specifics on how things are supposed to run. You must, must, must get a copy of these items. They may be on file with the county clerk's office. Present yourself to the Management Co. as an owner interested in assisting. As for getting rid of the HOA I don't see that as a realistic possibility. Perhaps the surrounding neighborhoods could absorb eachother into one master association Board. The street lights that need replacing are just one of the many common elements that an HOA Board must maintain, replace, and budget for. If you get rid of the HOA, who is going to accomplish the task of budgeting for maintenance and replacement of the common elements?

BetsyD (Texas)
Posts: 6

Posted:

Gerald
My husband actually just found our CC&Rs and I have a call in to the "higher up" at the property management company.
Thanks for all the advice and we will advise how this gets resolved!!
My husband will also be posting as he needs some info that regards to for sale signs in an HOA. He is a real estate agent on the side. He is selling a house in Providence. He check the HOA bylaws and there was nothing in there about for sale signs. He put his sign up. The HOA took it down and said that he had to get a sign and here is the name of the company that will make them. He cant get his sign back and they wont call him back.
We are having HOA nightmares!!

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