Voting Issues? On what and who?

If a builder in my neighborhood owns 3 vacant lots, is he considered a "member" of the HOA as far as voting? I assume so as I assume he pays dues. We also have 2 neighbors who have built houses here but they haven't sold their houses in other states so they are not living in our neighborhood. Are those 2 members? Guess yes again if they pay dues? Our by-laws state: "Ownership of such Tract shall be the sole qualification for membership."

What can be voted on in an HOA? Can budget appropriation be voted on? Our bylaws state that the budget is created by the treasurer and only needs to be "presented" to the members. If neighbors vote to have part of their dues go to something that is not currently a line item on the budget, is that a valid vote or is the budget non-votable (I think I just made up that word!).

Heather,

It should be specified in your bylaws that all property owners are members of the assn. Actually this is a requirement for an association to be a mandatory one, which most HOA's are.

As for members being required to vote on the budget, this should also be outlined in your gov. docs. Since yours only say "presented" to the members, I would say the members do not have to vote. There may be a requirement for the members to vote on any expenditure that exceeds a certain amount; however that has nothing to do with requiring them to vote on the budget.

BTW, you may "have" made up a new word! When my oldest son was about 5 yrs old he said his dad was a "computerist". We thought that was so funny because there was no such word. Today, "computerist" IS a word!!!

It doesn't say anywhere that the budget has to be approved by anyone in our documents. Just that it has to be put together by the treasurer.

I guess I can ask members to vote at a HOA meeting? I did a ballot and 98% of the members/homeowners voted yes to allocate funds to something but not sure if that's valid. For the ballot, 6 out of 7 of the board members also voted yes to direct funds to that as well.

Just because you vote to spend HOA dues on something doesn't mean it is legal to do so. Say you decided the Board needed transportation to and from meetings and you convinced the voting members that you needed this transportation and they voted to pay for it. Does that mean you can go out and purchase a car with HOA dues? No. I know that's an extreme example, but "drives" the point home. LOL.

I think Heather is wanting the membership to vote to spend money on something that is not already in the budget, something outside a usual expenditure for an HOA; like a holiday party maybe?

Well, then I think it goes back to the issue of whether HOA dues should be spent for parties.

Thanks, ladies. You are all correct in what I am trying to do.

I can't find the law in SC but I found it in NC and often our states are similar (not always, though):

Question: As a homeowner, am I entitled to participate in the budget process?

Answer: Yes - This right is contained in the following provisions of the North Carolina General Statutes(NCGS).

NCGS 47F-3-103 (Planned Communities)

Within 30 days after adoption of any proposed budget for the planned community, the executive board shall provide to all the lot owners a summary of the budget and a notice of the meeting to consider ratification of the budget, including a statement that the budget may be ratified without a quorum. The executive board shall set a date for a meeting of the lot owners to consider ratification of the budget, such meeting to be held not less than 10 nor more than 60 days after mailing of the summary and notice. There shall be no requirement that a quorum be present at the meeting. The budget is ratified unless at that meeting a majority of all the lot owners in the association or any larger vote specified in the declaration rejects the budget. In the event the proposed budget is rejected, the periodic budget last ratified by the lot owners shall be continued until such time as the lot owners ratify a subsequent budget proposed by the executive board.

http://www.hoa-sc.com/faqs.aspx?fid=9ad6590d-394b-46a4-904f-5095b2171967&vtype=r

Not unusal wording. Our state law and or governing docs say something similar.

The key here is that the budget is RATIFIED by the homeowners, not APPROVED. In other words, it is similar to a veto. Also, note that to reject the budget it takes a majority of ALL the owners, not simply a majority of the owners attending the meeting. So, for example, suppose you have 100 lot owners and only 50, or fewer, show up at the meeting. Even if all 50 (or fewer) owners attending the meeting vote to REJECT the budget, the budget is ratified because 50 is not a majority of ALL the homeowners.

In parliamentary law, abstentions are not counted. In this case however, because of the way the law is worded, an abstention has the same effect as an approval. The message is, if you don't want the budget to be ratified, you'd better attend the meeting and vote to REJECT it.

You have the idea right, but I think your math is little off or else you hit the wrong key.

If you have 70 lots (homeowners or members entitled to vote) a majority is "more than half" which would mean that 36 members would have to attend the meeting and vote to reject the budget.

I think budget ratification is often set up this way because many associations have so much homeowner apathy that it would be difficult to get enough homeowners to attend meetings and pass, or approve, a budget. So, it "passes" (gets ratified) sort of automatically unless enough people show up and vote to reject it.

Hather - this is getting confusing.

Do you want to get the votes to DENY the ratification of the proposed budget?

Or --- do you want to make a motion for some kind of new spending, get that approved, and then let the budget get ratified, by default?

If you get the votes to NOT ratify the budget, the OLD budget is still inplace. That's not what I understand you want to do.

BEFORE the vote to ratify the budget, simply make your motion for your project's funding. A vote will be taken on that, then you go on to the ratification of the proposed budget.

Sorry to confuse you!!! It's hard for me as I'm still learning.

I think I quoted the one I want. The ballot asked "do you want 5-10% of your current HOA dues to go to neighborhood activities and events?" All of our neighbors think that these events are important to our community and are shocked that no money is allocated for it. This includes the neighbors that do not attend the events.

So, the ballots I collected do not represent a valid poll, right? I guess I still need to make a motion at the HOA meeting? The only issue like I said is we average about 10-15 households at those meetings and we'd need 36 so more than double the average to get a majority that way.

But, considering my current board is completely clueless on HOA practices and our own bylaws and C&R's, maybe in this case I can use that to my advantage and present the ballots as a valid vote. They'd never know the difference.

May I suggest the following:

You and other like-minded people get together and decide WHAT activites you want to put on for the year. Develop the entire program, and determine costs for each event. At the meeting, propose this event calendar and ask for the funding amount. You may be sent back to a committee, or they may find some $ for even part of your plan.

This should have been done a while ago, BEFORE the budget was formulated and up for ratification by the Members. But they may be able to squeeze something out for you. Even if you did one major event, it would be a good start.

Your poll or "ballots" (whatever that means) don't mean much, but maybe you can site your survey results to show that there is interest in these kinds of activiites. (There have been many discussions on here on whether or not the HOA should pay for social activities.)

Good luck.

What do your covenants say about funding social events?