Unauthorized expenditure

Over 4 years ago a previous board President had several trees removed from a community. She was told by the management company. There were no funds to pay for this work and not to have it done. She proceeded to have it done anyway and paid for it with her own money. Now four years later she’s asking to be reimbursed the current board says no because there was no approval of her getting that work done. Is this something that is legal? Are we obligated to reimburse her for expenditure? She was told not to spend because of lack of funds.

Why did the trees need removal?

I am assuming the trees are on HOA owned common area. If this is not the case, please explain.

For starters--

First, the HOA has no legal obligation to reimburse this person. This is because the board never voted to approve the work.

Second, this woman's actions amount to a trespass on common area. She risked the HOA being liable for any harm from any mishap that resulted from this work.

Third, if I were on this board, then I would vote not to reimburse her for the above reasons and also to serve as a deterrent to others thinking of hiring workers to work on the HOA's common area.

If the she hadn’t paid for the tree removal, would the HOA have approved the expense sometime in the last 4 years?
Was the cost reasonable for the work performed?

If you answer yes to both questions, I would vote to reimburse the expense.

Or past boards said no and this is a new board so they wanted to try again.

Depending on the OP's response to my questions, I might support reimbursement, for the reasons DeanJ gives and other reasons. But I would also read the aforementioned riot act to this person, explaining how she held the HOA out to liability.

I do not have a problem with the past President asking for reimbursement. It's the response that matters.

Why didn't the Board consider a special assessment? Too bad the manager was not smart enough to make such a recommendation.

We also seen far too many HOAs where nothing gets done because the HOA is broke. Lack of funding is more a sin than what the pres did in this instance in my view and represents total board disfunction.

"lack of funding" however wrong or bad, gives no president the authority to spend whatever she wishes without board authorization.

Posted By KerryL1 on 06/01/2025 4:46 PM
"lack of funding" gives no president the authority to spend whatever she wishes without board authorization.. Right, elle, Dean wrote it was an issue..

Can a Board lawfuly reimburse for a "donation?" I'd agree that they cn place it on an agenda an disucsscuss and vote on such reimbursement. But so far as e know the former prez is not saying that her expenditure WAS a "donation." Why even. introduce such a scenario?

Similarly, we don't really know to what extent there, to use Elle's language,, there WAS a "problem" in the common area. Unless creating a hazard in some way, we don't even know if these trees were dead, or diseased.

The Board can lawfully deny the request because the former president, not even then-prez* at the time she contacted for tree removal, was not authorized to make this contract nor expenditure by the then-Board so far as we know.

* Even if president at the time, the Board must have authorized contracts and expenditures unless the then-Board very mistakenly let a then prez do whatever she wants. We've also seen too many boards give in to bullying presidents forgetting that the entire Board and even HOA cna be liable for the presidnet's s solo, arbitrary decisions. This also, btw, is not the PM's decision.

By the way, trees generally get bigger every year and therefore more expensive to remove. It is usually good to remove trees as soon as possible when they are smaller. Maybe the former prez did the HOA a favor and saved the HOA money by removing the trees four years ago?

Juli, it would help to get better answers if you can come back andanswer the questions and fill in the back story.

Okay, in that case I hereby withdraw my post, although in my defense I left it as a question?

Trees grow 12 – 25 inches per year, so in four years that would be four to eight feet. It is more significant if they were a hazard (as you noted) or large to begin with, since they are also growing in width and volume.

We get a lot of volunteer mulberry trees, which are quite hard to remove even when they are very small. As a maintenance principle, it is better to remove trees when they are small.

As a former board president, she knew the protocol, so if she felt the trees should go, she should have made a stronger case. Maybe the trees were a hazard, in which case, the board could have had an arborist inspect them and make a recommendation. If it was a beauty issue, but the rest of the board outvoted her, that would be the end or she could take her case to the homeowners and perhaps a majority would have agreed with her and say so to the rest of the board. Apparently, she chose not to do any of these things.

We see posts on this website all the time about homeowners who ignore the difference between common area and what's on their property. When board members do it, it's more obnoxious because they are supposed to be community leaders and know better, or at least act like they're acquainted with things like setting an example.

And now she waits 4 years and decides she wants a reimbursement? If it was that important, why bring this up now instead of pursuing other options at that time? Why should she be paid for something the board didn't approve? Nope, nip this in the bud - if she thinks she's right, she can go to mediation or court and take her chances.