Board of Directors not following bylaws

Because your not on the board and you have very specific questions that apply to "your" association it sounds like you need to have a conversation with your board. You need to visit the next meeting and ask questions or write a letter with your concerns.

Your board may have valid reasons that you are not aware, then again, maybe not. But you'll never know without communication.

Laura,

I would say, yes it is a legal board and they have the autority to conduct the business of the assn. If there were only enough candidates running to fill the vacancies, then the board should have the authority to appoint the 7th board member. Your bylaws should spell out the procedure to fill vacancies on the board. However, if there were more candidates than vacancies, then the person who had the next highest number of votes should be seated. A community-wide vote has already been undertaken, IMO, another one is not needed.

Well,
Let me throw this out. They have 200 plus homes, vacancies occur in the Board due to term expiration. The Board set the slate for election, seems plausible,
the board is to vet the candidates before they put them on the slate. Elections were held to elect three new members. How many candidates was on the slate? any write-ins, any nominations from the floor. Day of election the votes were vetted and counted? The Board proclaims the winners and the three with the most votes wins and is seated. Then someone says one electee is ineligible. Does this invalidate the whole election, Seems to me it does.
The votes made their choice based on the slate........all of it. Would they make the same choice if there had been a different person on the Board.

I think Laura has cause for concern, but she is not going to beat city hall, and she probably knows that. I would suggest she nose around and see what the prevailing sentiment of the membership is with regard to this election. The other legal question might be: How can you claim a person was replaced for cause when he was never a legitimate owner to begin with, hence, never a board member. If this last is a legal question, it could be that Laura may not be off the Board because her position was never filled by an election.

Your real question is: "How do I force an errant Board to follow the Bylaws, etc.?"

If you are lucky, your county allows you to sue in small claims court to enforce such actions. You will have to pay all the fees yourself, prepare your case yourself, show up to all court dates and convince a judge to intervene. If you are unwilling to put in the effort, nothing will happen.

Otherwise, your only option is to hire a private attorney at your own expense and sue in "real" court. If you are unwilling to pay, nothing will happen.

Most states have no ombudsman or other mediator to force HOAs (or other organizations) to comply with their own Bylaws, etc. Of the states that do have them, I've consistently heard that they are powerless or do nothing.

You can complain in this forum, print out all the supportive responses and show them to your Board. That is doubtful to work.

Unless I miss my guess, elections will be tainted or never properly held.

If her Board really is errant, they won't let elections get in their way.

I agree with Robert: lots of forum posts do devolve into how to control a Board that ignores Bylaws, elections and the law. If we developed a solution for that, we'd probably solve a lot of problems.

I'll also grant that we get a lot of stories with only one side: the poster's side. There is usually a fairly simple initial post and then a later post reveals a series of punch-and-counter-punch exchanges between the poster and the Board. Instead of being a fencing bout, it turns out to be an Old West bar fight with everybody throwing chairs and empty guns at each other. The poster's facts and impartiality become doubtful.

Perhaps winning the next election will fix the problem. Perhaps a recall will fix the problem. Perhaps small claims court or civil court will fix the problem.

But, it seems that we often waste the poster's time. Elections and recalls are long and ultimately can be ignored by the Board. Nobody's crazy or cares enough to sue in court and, even if they win, the court's decision is a piece of paper that a Board can just ignore.

Thanks for alll the responses- still haven't heard from any legal people familiar with Colorado HOA law- read through our meeting minutes from the annual meeting- the one where the community was to elect 3 people to open positions on the Board by "written secret ballot"per covernants and guidelines. As it turns out, only one person actually got any votes, and this by a show of hands, not per ballot as stated in governing docs- one person on the ballot was not a homeowner, but got put on the ballot and voted in by a show of hands anyway, totally against our gov. docs, one person was not at the meeting, so the BOD said in the minutes, " we didn't want votes for him taken, we are asking him to come to the next board meeting and we'll interview him and see if we want to ask him to be on the board." Seriously, this was in the minutes of the annual meeting, and two other people had submitted "resumes" to be on the board and were never contacted or put on the ballot. I have asked the Board since December 09 about this and have never gotten a response- have gone to the past Board meeting, 8 months of not hearing from the Board - a little ridiculous- and repeated my questions, and was told I was being "nit pickiy, we never heard of those rules, we don't have time to read all the covenants, we shouldn't have to know all the rules,etc." I recorded the meeting and was amazed at the answers I received- then the Board said I could set up an appointment with the HOA attorney and hash it out with them-I am really concerned- the oard seems not to care what the covenants are - so from this experience I guess if I were to get the required 16 signatures to remove them from office- would they even listen to that? Who would I take it to if that was ignored, our management company? If they are so ignorant and non caring about the gov. docs- can we even remove them??

As an aside- Colorado has adopted 2 new laws 1/2006 Senate Bill 100 and 4/2009 HB 09-1359 that both stipulate voting of the exectuvive board members be by secret written ballot and they can not themselves vote into office board members- only can appoint people to open positions due to resignations- so how do we get this board to comply?