Should the HOA Board comply with the By-Laws?

How important is it that the board of directors complies with the By-Laws of the HOA?

Are the By-Law and the Covenants just "suggestions" for how the HOA is to be run?

Can the board pick and choose which By-Laws it complies with (and which ones it ignores)?

Can the HOA President just make decisions and announce them, as if the board had decided?

How does the Board "decide" anything? 

Here's how it should happen. A board member makes a Motion. Another board member seconds the Motion. After discussion (and there should be discussion), then the board members vote. And the Motion and vote get recorded in the Minutes.

How many months has it been since "the board" decided anything, even just approving the Minutes of the past month's board meeting? While the Minutes state that the board approved the Minutes of a past meeting, the fact is that "the board" did not approve the Minutes. Justin merely stated that "The Minutes are approved as mailed." So the Minutes are a false record.

What should happen at the pre-board meeting? Is this an official meeting? A secret meeting? Are decisions considered and made out-of-sight? Are there Minutes of pre-board meetings? Where are they?

The owners are 2,500 homes are affected by the actions of the board. 

Does the board ever get legal advice from its attorney? Written legal advice? Is the advice recorded in the Minutes? Some say, "If it's not written down, it never happened."

What is the function of the Auditor? Does the Auditor follow the GAAP* of the AICPA**?

If the Treasurer wanted something done a certain way that wasn't strictly correct, should the Auditor go along? Hint: the correct answer is "Absolutely NOT". Has that happened in the past? How many times?

Why won't other established HOA management companies even submit bids to manage The Summit HOA? Justin said at a past meeting that they wouldn't submit bids because they wouldn't do business the way The Summit HOA wanted. 

Isn't that a huge red flag for the way that things ARE being done? What is CAMS willing to do that other professional HOA management companies won't do?

*   GAAP - Generally Accepted Accounting Principles
** AICPA - American Institute of CPAs

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Annual Meeting, Barony Place Neighborhood - continued to 5/4/2024

Barony Place Neighborhood (Barony Place I and Barony Place II attempted to hold a Neighborhood Meeting this afternoon. Of the 78 homes, seventeen (17) homes were represented, and that was not sufficient to meet the quorum requirement of 26. The meeting was continued to Saturday, May 4, 2024, 1:00PM, at 44 Barony Place Circle. An effort will be made to have at least 26 homes represented in-person or by proxy. Three homeowners have volunteered to be on the Neighborhood Committee: Tracy Manderino (Barony Place II), Della Glynn (Barony Place II) and Gwen Hayes (Barony Place I). If a quorum is present on May 4th, those present, including by proxy, will elect the Neighborhood Committee. Once the Committee has been elected, it will select one of its three committee members to be the Voting Member for the next 12 months. The other two members will be Alternates. A new announcement will be distributed to your newspaper box, along with a proxy. If you will not attend Saturday's meeting, plea
Read more

Open Letter to Barony Place "Voting Member"

An open letter to the "Voting Member" of Barony Place Neighborhood. Good morning, Billie, If you and/or an Alternate attended last night's board of directors meeting, will you please send out a recap of the meeting to Ann Stirlen and me (and to all the homeowners and residents in Barony Place)? About a dozen homeowners from throughout The Summit showed up for the board meeting  at the church  last night, only to learn from one person that it had been switched to Zoom, which allowed the board to meet in secret. Many of them had not received the email from the office that the board was (illegitimately) closing the meeting to homeowners. There are only about 1,800 (73%) email addresses of the 2,480 Members in the website database. I attempted to join the meeting on Zoom, as I am Attorney-in-Fact for Ann Stirlen, but I was not admitted to the meeting. The HOA's attorney has quoted a section in the By-Laws that she believes allows the Board to close the meetings. That spec
Read more

Special Assessment Possible?

How would you feel about a $3,000 Special Assessment levied by the HOA against you and every other HOA Member (homeowner)? Article X, Section 4 in the CC&Rs allows this. Are you aware of that? Should the Board do everything possible to eliminate the possibility of such a Special Assessment? What is the Board doing that might just lead directly to such an Assessment? The HOA, by actions of the President (Justin Martin), the Treasurer (Vernell Butler, and the Safety Committee Chair (Dennis Rybicki) entered into a contact with the Richland County Sheriff's Department, effective February 1, 2023. They arranged for special patrols in the Summit at a cost of $48.00/hour. In the Special Duty Agreement is a Liability clause. It reads,  "The Requestor will hold harmless the Richland County Sheriff's Department from any and all claims or liabilities resulting from service and indemnify RCSD for any loss due to any injury of its employee unless there is a determination of neglige
Read more