New Board Questions

Started by LynnE • 8 replies • 1359 views

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LynnE (North Carolina)
Posts: 2

Posted:

We are a new Board in NC. I have two questions. Our attorney tells us that we need to have the budget ratified by Homeowners. How do we go about this? Our Annual Meeting has to be held in July each year and the budget starts in January. Also, this being our first year, we need to file important documents for this year. Should everything be hard copy or can we put it on a disc?

MelissaP1 (Alabama)
Posts: 13,836

Posted:

The budget is usually presented to the members to view openly once created. You can do this several ways. It really depends on your setup. I would bring it to the month before meeting to both announce and review it. It would be at the next official meeting it would be put up for a vote of all in attendance to accept. This way you all have 30 days for people to setup times to review the budget and suggest changes by next meeting. If you have email, then it may be done electronically if the members choose to want to look at it. The actual vote shouldn't be taken online though.

It's a mixture of hard and electronic copies. That again depends on how tech savvy your members are and how they want the records presented. We produced a select number of hard copies of the expenditure and collection reports. The collection reports ONLY went to the board members. We printed more copies of the expenditure reports so the general membership could review and keep them. The number of copies depends on a typical attendance of members. It costs money to produce these copies so limiting them may be necessary. Otherwise, many records can be kept electronically through any software programs used.

Is this a new HOA or just turned over from the developer? Just curious...

Former HOA President

BruceF1 (Connecticut)
Posts: 2,535

Posted:

Quote:

Posted By LynnE on 11/02/2011 5:56 AM
We are a new Board in NC. I have two questions. Our attorney tells us that we need to have the budget ratified by Homeowners. How do we go about this? Our Annual Meeting has to be held in July each year and the budget starts in January. Also, this being our first year, we need to file important documents for this year. Should everything be hard copy or can we put it on a disc?

The procedure for ratifying your budget should be in your governing documents: either in your CCRs or your bylaws.

We typically have our annual meeting in November during which we elect directors for whatever seats are becoming vacant, and the homeowners are also asked to ratify the budget for the following year.

If your documents don't specify a homeowners meeting specifically for the purpose of ratifying your budget, you could call a special meeting for that purpose. Present and explain the budget to the homeowners, and then hold a vote for the purpose of ratifying the budget. The budget is ratified or not ratified in accordance with the procedure described in your documents.

The safe assumption is that whatever documents you need to file should be on paper, unless the filing requirements state other forms are acceptable. I would expect that the instructions for filing those documents would indicate what is acceptable.

LynnE (North Carolina)
Posts: 2

Posted:

Thanks for your input.

SusanW1 (Michigan)
Posts: 5,202

Posted:

I wonder why your financial year does not end closer to your annual meeting?

(Ours ends March 31, our annual meeting is first Sunday in May.)

You could end your financial year June 30.

SusanW1 (Michigan)
Posts: 5,202

Posted:

Also - ratify means to confirm. The board can operate in th€e budget and the ratification simply means that Members are confirming their recommendation. Budgets can be revisited, anyway.

DavidW5 (North Carolina)
Posts: 565

Posted:

Quote:

Posted By SusanW1 on 11/02/2011 12:25 PM
I wonder why your financial year does not end closer to your annual meeting?

(Ours ends March 31, our annual meeting is first Sunday in May.)

You could end your financial year June 30.

Our annual meeting is May 10th and the board elections are held then. Our fiscal year runs from Jan. 1st to Dec. 31st. This presents no problem with respect to the budget for the coming year. Our budget preparation (by the finance committee) begin in July with guidance from the recently elected board. We have a draft budget ready for the board's initial review in early September and our bylaws require that the budget be completed and adopted by the board by Nov. 1st.

Our governing docs do not require a vote on the budget by the members. The meetings of the finance committee are all open to the membership as are the board meetings where the draft budget is reviewed. The budget requirements are solicited from the standing committees (e.g Facilities & Maintenance, Grounds & Landscaping, etc.) which are made up of homeowners.

LindaF6 (Colorado)
Posts: 1

Posted:

In colorado how many votes do we have to have to recall our board members, our bylaws don't state anything, does anyone have the proper prodedures for a recall in Colorado of HOA's?

SusanW1 (Michigan)
Posts: 5,202

Posted:

Linda - start a new thread. with your question.

Your question is buried in another issue.

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