no volunteers

if you are incorporated you will have to go into receivership ... hold a meeting and explain the resulting costs ... you WILL get volunteers ... how qualified they will be????????

Glen,

We need Board and committee volunteers.

Barbara

A meeting to explain receivership may not result in any action. It is easy to duck or ignore the issue, hope somebody else with step forward, hope that it will just go away. Still, it is worth a try.

If the meeting doesn't work, as an alternative to receivership, I suggest putting together what Board that you can and go with a high cost/minimal maintenance approach (sort of a DYI receivership). Raise fees every year to the max allowed, make a list of the bare minimum that needs to be done to keep the HOA legal and hire a bunch of people to do even the simplest jobs at the highest cost. The goal is to hire full-service people (i.e. highest cost) and have the Board do the bare minimum that can't be hired out.

Pro: Cheaper than a receiver (no need to pay receiver's salary or legal fees). Can be reversed more easily. People will get involved when fees go up, up, up.

Con: You'll still be on the hook for a small amount of work, complaints and lawsuits.

Barbara when an association is improperly operated and the members are non-responsive, any member or creditor can petition the court to appoint a receiver to operate the association. If proof is made to the satisfaction of the Court, the judge will appoint a receiver to take control of association assets and to impose emergency special assessments if necessary. While a Board may stagger needed repairs to spread the costs out, a receiver would have the power to enter into contracts for all of the necessary work. The Association must pay all the resulting expenses, including the receiver's hourly fees. The receiver has broader powers than the board and will strictly enforce the rules and finances. Members lose their right to vote and have no input into the operation of the HOA. With the receiver's fees and the court costs, it could add thousands of dollars each month to the association's normal operating costs. All of which must be paid by the homeowners.

The receiver will likely be an attorney, a bankruptcy trustee, an accountant, or a similar professional who has expertise in property management. The Court will usually require the receiver to be bonded to guard against misappropriation of Association assets with the cost of the bond passed along to the Association. The court will require periodic reports from the receiver and the receiver most likely will stay in place until the problems that prompted his or her appointment have been solved. There is no set period of time for a receiver to stay in place; it is not a permanent fix but can last for several years.

If at all possible the Association IMO would be better off to hire a Management Company to run the day to day stuff and have the Board meet a couple of times a year to take care of the corporate stuff.

(Not legal advice, you should consult an attorney familiar with Florida statutes.)

Ummm... its not quite that simple. Its not like buying a hamburger.

Depends on the size of your community, people needed to run it, what needs to be repaired, legal issues, etc. The list could go on forever.

I read one case where it cost homeowners a special assessment of $3,000 per month for a year on top of their association dues. Ouch.

Barbara, you're singing to the choir - in my case, we have 156 units (also townhomes) and I've been on the board since 2003 (I moved to the community in 2001). Our homeowners are so indifferent that we couldn't even hold elections for the board (one director was running for re-election).

When our secretary announced her resignation at last week's meeting, our president (who'd taken a short leave of absence earlier this year for health issues) announced she's done after the September meeting - just when we're beginning to prepare the 2011 annual budget.

Whenever I read other posts on this message about board members running amok and people wanting to recall this or that director, I wonder how things would get if we got to the point where one or two people were the only ones running the show.

Glen, we have a management company (good thing, given the circumstances - we'd be a hot mess if we didn't!)

I read your earlier suggestion to Barbara about hiring people to do as much as the board's work as possible and charging the maximum fee increase allowed (5% under our bylaws). It's a good idea and I will bring that to the next board meeting to see if we might try that first, giving homeowners 6 months or so to see the light.