Filing Complaint about HOA

Hi,

I was wondering if somebody could point me in the right direction to file a complaint against my HOA.
I live in Broward County, FL.

There are just too many things going wrong here and even though we have 2 new board members, the president is just keeping everything to herself. Refusing to give any information to the new board members, doing everything herself, she is even paying her own book keeping company for doing our books. I'm not sure, but I believe that is against the law. Even though she is not paying herself, but her company, but I heard that the laws in Florida have been change so that board members cannot have any financial benefits from the position on the board, not even if the association is paying a company in which the board member is part owner in.

I appreciate any help.

Thanks

Karl

That's of course an option, but as you said there is power in Numbers. And numbers is the keyword here. Not many of our home owners want to get involved. So hats why I'm looking for an official way to take care of the problem.

Susan,

here a little background to my situation.
The current president of my HOA has been on the board for I believe 10 or 15 years. In the past she scared 2 management companies away. Yes, she scared them away. They quit, because she was such a bitch. The past 5 years There were only 2 really active board members. One was her and the other one was my wife. I was announced the as an adviser to the Board of Directors and was at least as active as the president if nor more.

This June we had our annual meeting and 2 new board member were elected. Now we have 4 board members. The two new board members to the position of Secretary and Treasurer. The treasurer is asking for the financial docs now for months and hasn't receive anything yet. The secretary is asking for paperwork and instructions and doesn't get anything. My wife is now VP and doesn't see any paperwork or documents regarding the HOA. Our president is hoarding everything in her house. The only docs and paperwork in the clubhouse are from about 8 years ago.

People complain about landscaping vendor and the president said she will get estimates and nobody else. We have a homeowner who is selling the house and contacted the secretary to get all the necessary HOA docs and instructions what to do, so she sent an email to the president and cc'ed all the other board members. The president wrote back that she is not to call or contact anybody. She (the president) is doing it. At the same time she is complaining and accusing everybody that nobody is doing anything. Currently my wife is the only one who can co-sign checks with the president. So in the past the president dropped checks of at my house, my wife signed them and I brought them back to her. That took normally less than 24 hours. Now she is giving them to the secretary, she has to bring them to my wife, my wife has to bring them back to the secretary and the secretary brings them to the president. Now the president is accusing my wife that if a vendor is putting a lean on the property (not sure if they even can and on what property that would be) that my wife is responsible for paying the lean, because she said once that she wouldn't sign a check for the landscaper, because they haven't done the job. My wife wanted the amount reduced and the president refused to do that.

She is going nuts. I believe she is afraid that she is losing control or losing her power. She is paying herself (or better her company) $450.00 a month for book keeping. I heard that is against the law since 01/01/2011. She said our attorney, who gave us this information doesn't know what he is talking about. Yet, I insist for about 2-1/2 years to switch attorney, because they don't act fast enough and screwed up several foreclosures, but she refuses to switch attorney. We got 3 new proposals from 3 attorneys, but they are sitting at the house and she refuses to present them to the rest of the board.

I could go on and on, but then I would probably sit the whole night and write and you would get tired of reading this BS.

I hope that sheds a little light on my situation.

Cheers
Karl

@Glen I understand the difference between the position and the board. And yes, we are one of the rare but not unheard of HOA who elects trustees and the trustees elect or appoint the officer positions. So in our case, since we have currently 4 board members, it should be farely easy to remove her from her position as president.
Thanks Glen.

GlenL - EXACTLY! Most HOA boards can remove and shuffle officers by simple majority vote. They cannot kick a director off the board without jumping through tons of hoops.

You can do this quite easily if you're ready to fill the presidential void - which will happen since the existing president survives despite poor customer service.