HOA battle, need some advice

[dgambler]

It's taken us a few years, but we have finally started mobilizing like-minded homeowners in our neighborhood and have them fired up. We successfully obtained over 33% "no" votes on a current resolution (quite a feat in that we live in a VERY large neighborhood).

So, the questions I have are thus:

* Our annual elections are in a few months, what sort of dirty tricks can I expect from the current board and management company to try and remain in power?

* Any good advice, tips, or websites that anyone knows of on how to get control of the annual meeting via Robert's Rules? Our by-laws clearly state that they must be followed at the meeting.

* We highly suspect that our board is getting kick-backs and are trying to setup a foreclosure scam, what's the best way to start investigating both? If we discover that they are, what is our legal recourse?

* What are the warning signs that a HOA is "going bad"?

 

[jharris352]

I'm in Georgia, I've been on HOA boards and I have been in real estate for 15 years. I think your last question especially is too broad to answer.

1. If you have 33% of the homeowners even SHOWING UP you will have control of the meeting.

2. Get a copy of Robert's Rules. I would be furious if they tried to use the rules to shut down legitimate argument.

3. The best way to investigate nefarious goings on is to have the HOA audited by an independent organization. I'm sure there is something in your by-laws about that.

I hate HOA's for very much this reason.

 

[pw47617]

HOAs are corporations! Two-thirds of the membership of a HOA can dissolve the corporation. A corporation is NOT a country club and once I educate all of you homeowners that common areas are nothing more than land use created by a developer who is a corporation who turned over the maintenance of common areas to another corporation called a HOA versus turning it back over to the county who approved the development and zoned it RESIDENTIAL. Amazing how y'all think that a HOA can stop me from painting my house PINK with PINK flamingos in the front yard. By the time a house wife who is a BOARD member could figure out what to do, I will be dead and buried. BOARD members are running a corporation and sueing them for a breach of fudiciary duty is how I will win my Circuit Court case in the Commonwealth of Virginia.

 

[yaya57]

Hello, I live in a Condominium Community in which I am a Homeowner and been living 18 yrs. and not very happy ever w/ hoa their are 80 units and of which according to the by laws everyone is entitled to 1 garage their are 1 ,2, and 3 bedroom units and I live in a 3 bdrm and their a lot of extra garages and the 1 and 2 units have the extra garages no extra charge. And I pay 225.00 and they pay 182 and 197 . Their are only 8 ,3 bdrms. And since they used to be appts. They are not dist. right when it comes to the garages. The president of the assoc. has been on the board forever and when the garage doors where put up she decided that the 1 and 2 bedroom units get an extra garage . And I do not think it is fair but recently her nephew sold and now there are extra 2 extra garages and now they want to rent the extra garage to me and another homeowner. And I think that the others should also pay if they want me to pay as well for all these years all these people have benefited w/the extra garages free and I feel I am being discriminated against. I was always harrassed into parking in my 1 unit garage when all these people do not even use the garages to park in them they use them for storage... the majority especially all these people that live alone.
s

 

[mikerr]

HOAs are terrible!

Yes, HOAs and Condos are a joke on us all.
They are nothing but tin pot tyrannys that provide lots of conflict and strife in our lives.
Conflict and strife happen to be profitable though.....so the whole thing is perpetuated by those who profit from it.
It is getting worse and worse as well.
There are more people who live in HOAs than there are African Americans living in the US.
There are more people who live in HOAs than there are Hispanics living in the US.
Yet we are routinely denied rights of Constitutional dimension just because of where we live.