How to deal with a litigative homeonwer?

Can someone suggest a clever way to deal with one homeowner who is firmly on a path of legal vendetta with the board, generating constant stream of complaints and demands. It started with the Board denying her request for an exception from our bylaws that forbid renting out the property. Since then it's literally a new legal complaint or request per week. Our community is not very large, about 50 townhomes (Illinois), and this activity is both expensive, every her request being handled by our attorney, and putting unseen before strain on the board members who have deal with her. I was thinking about either starting to simply ignore her new requests (what happens if we do?), or perhaps adopting new rule imposing a penalty for the excessive unfounded requests - but I suspect these steps are not very "professional". Would appreciate any practical hints to stop her.

Answer every legitimate request timely, and try not to use your lawyer unless absolutely necessary. Unnecessary attorney fees will just magnify your angst. Make sure everything is in writing. Don't give a member a valid reason to sue the association/board.

The main problem is with the frequency of her demands. Just the most recent incident: she filed hardship request. Her request was heard at the meeting, and after that her neighbor who attended it made a sarcastic remark to her. 2 days after she sent a letter to the effect that hearing it at the meeting was privacy breach that violated Condo Act, and

"I expect a detailed explanation of:
How this breach occurred
What immediate steps will be taken to prevent further unauthorized disclosures?
How the Board intends to address the damages I have suffered due to this breach of fiduciary duty and invasion of privacy under Illinois law
What measures will be implemented to restore my right to quiet enjoyment of my property
Because of the serious nature of this privacy breach, the documented threatening behavior, and the continuing impact on my personal and professional well-being, I need a comprehensive written response within five business days to address all points raised in this letter."

Seems like this needs to be analyzed by the attorney; but even if not, assuming that we have to respond (do we?), someone definitely has to spend nontrivial time. And like I said - a letter like this about _something_ comes every other week, if not every week. We simply don't have enough time to respond, and it's very clear that her goal is to maximize the burden on the Board.

Your governing documents or your state law should define what matters must be discussed in a confidential setting or executive session. It seems a request for an exception to the rental policy would not be a confidential matter.

First of all, do your governing documents or state law allow for a variance/exception from the Bylaws? I doubt it. Are your Bylaws consistent with your Declaration in forbidding rentals? If your governing documents and state law do not allow exceptions/variances then the member could be informed that the board has no discretion to deviate from those. As long as the member had no right to confidentiality. And as a last resort there is always a civil harassment restraining order.

I have no doubt that we will find the way to respond in this particular instance, having spent hours and possibly $$. But in 1-2 weeks there will be another. And another. And another. How to stop it altogether?
I think Cathy's suggestion is the way, thank you Cathy.

"Thank you for your comments."

For an issue that the board has already responded to: "We have received your communication dated xx/xx/xxxx." (This was our lawyer's advice.)

If I bump into a complainer outside of a meeting:

"Please put this in writing and send it to our manager so that the board can consider it."

"How are you? Isn't this weather great/something else? Got an appointment, gotta run."

When I'm on the board, I never discuss association issues one-on-one with an owner unless it's something that has a short, factual answer - for example, "the meeting is this coming Thursday at 6 PM" or "that info is on the website". The danger with more substantive conversations that that the owner will hear your comments as "the board says" and will act on the information. It's especially important with owners who are looking for reasons to criticize the board. You don't want to say something that gives them ammunition, and that's more likely to happen if you haven't had time to think about your response. And you don't want to encourage owners to bend your ear every time you stick your nose outside. This tends to happen to board presidents, it's unfair to them, and is a reason that the capable board members burn out. It's in the community's best interests to keep the good ones around as long as possible.

In general, homeowners who are confrontational take control of the communications with their behavior. The board can't control the behavior, but it can control the interaction by controlling their piece of it. Someone who tries to provoke a fight doesn't determine whether the fight happens. The potential target does - if target walks away, no fight. Sometimes this is easier said than done, since bullies may escalate. Targets (in this case the board) need to plan out ahead of time how to respond. Your goal is to bore the cookies out of the bully. Never let a trouble maker provoke you into saying or doing anything that you have not thought through ahead of time.

The good news is that this approach becomes second nature after a while.

(And it goes without saying that the board needs to thoroughly know their CC&Rs, bylaws, state law, and other things. This will help prevent mistakes, and it will help the board recognize BS when they hear it.)

Why would every request have to go through your attorney?

The board is supposed to know the requirements of the declaration and interpret the sections. If the board is not clear on the text, you should simply ask your attorney for clarification.

When an owner goes off like this, I suggest you acknowledge the receipt of every complaint and advise the board will consider the complaint at the next board meeting. For requests, the request is either allowed or it isn’t. Approve or deny requests as you do for any owner.

In the OPs first post, it appears they have an attorney involved who has advised them on the renting issue and every issue there after with this owner. Why would the attorney have an interest in advising the board improperly? Or are you suggesting their attorney is incompetent?

Hi Ellen welcome back.

I agree that the board needs to dig into its docs and really understand it and the state laws to see what exactly is the renting issue. A strong board is an informed board and you get more better quality legal advice if needed if you know your stuff.

I am just repeating other responses that the docs and state law really needs to be looked at and we look forward in hearing what your docs have to say.

I recommend ignoring her and either having the attorney ignore her or have the attorney inform her that she's responsible for the legal bills associated with excess requests.

There is no requirement that HOAs acknowledge nuisance.

Do CCRs ever include language to cover "nuisance requests" from homeowners asking for excessive information from the Board? Sue

If the requests are for records, the reason given must be reasonably related to the person's interest as a member.

I agree.

Dean calling out a person and stating what they writing is BS is not called for.

I have some dealing with about three lawyers on a condo case. Also I have a neighbor who went through a costly legal case in their condo.

I will state this from experience when you go to trial that means someone lost and someone won. Regardless of who won or lost the lawyers are making money.

An informed board will get better legal advice and actually can make better decisions. The OP board which the OP sounds like they are a member of is weak.

VADr we are talking in the air over here. You will need to provide documentation which you can type into the chat on the bylaw or the master has. Being on this discussion board they have taken me to school to understand my docs and I am better for it.

I rather have a non-NJ person to describe where to look in the docs so he or she can do some searching. Our NJ docs have different names and I don't want to confuse the OP.

Good suggestions.

In that particular case, I don't know but I do have personal knowledge of several other examples.

No need to apologize. Our experiences are just different.

Yes, differences experiences. Mine were as a board director with two difference general counsel (GC) Our Board dismissed one for two different reason. I thought he was not strong enough in his advice to our Board. Our the- president b/c of a purely personal reason. After a set of meeting minutes had been approved by the board, I noticed a significant error in the approved posted version . I wanted to place it back on the next one meeting agenda for the Board to rescind this error and vote to insert the correction. The prez insisted that once minutes are Board-approved they cannot be amended.

Although our PM always was in the room when the president phoned the CG and often a director if it was their concern or question, the president phoned him privately. Our HOA, via the president does have 15 minutes phone calls included in our annual retainer. He told her that approved minutes cannot be amended in the future.

By then I'd checked Robert's Rules of Order and found that minutes certainly may be amended by Boards (Robert's "assemblies"). And though our Board is not required to abide by Robert's, we use it from time to time in these types of situations. I read the relevant Robert's section. The approved minutes were rescinded at the following open meeting and a correction was approved by the Board. The president was very embarrassed. A couple of months later, she put interview other GC firms, on the agenda which we did and hired a different firm.

My 3rd direct experience was as board member and chair of a Board executive committee in our construction defect legal action. Our developer owns about 5% of our HOA and so has a permanent seat on our Board. Back then this commercial board member had a lotta clout with some board members . He also was a Prof Eng. so "knew" a lot about our buildings. The defect team did not trust directors to be free of his charm and knowledge so advised an Executive Committee be of 3 of us newer owners w/o these cozy ties to the developer. We met with the attorneys frequently and alone. They also met a lot with the entire Board minus the developer.

At the end of the legal action period and due to some sort of legal deadline that I cannot recall, our attorneys presented everything to the entire Board (minus the developer) in very long and difficult meeting. Our choice was to continue to trial to seek a much higher amount than settlement would likely provide. They presented the risks. They made it clear that a settlement would not cover the cost to repair/replace all of the defeats. It would most likely cover the major ones.

Obviously they would have earned hugely greater fees if we'd go to trial. We voted for the settlement approach and my lived experience is that the team was exceptionally balanced in its presentation of obstacles to us.

But I would never state that my experience (which I don't think Terri posses) with three HOA attorneys is sufficient "evidence" of anything One, imo, should never generalize from one or a few cases.
I'd read an article about this topic if posted.