Annual HOA meeting, a quorum was not established

Started by KeithH7 • 4 replies • 2478 views

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KeithH7 (Florida)
Posts: 20

Posted:

At a recently held HOA Annual Meeting, a quorum was not established – short by 20 votes.

What should be noted is that during the voting, it was evident that members were arriving late, mainly because the section of the annual meeting that dealt with the confirmation of minutes and old business etc., was hastened.
1. Would it have been unconstitutional for the Nomination Committee Chairman to delayed the process and allow for late arrivals, instead of having the meeting adjourned?
2. Is there another course of action that should have been considered?

TimB4 (Tennessee)
Posts: 21,047

Posted:

Unconstitutional? No.

Typically the annual meeting can be delayed until a quorum is reached.
Not having a quorum doesn't prevent a meeting from happening. It does prevent voting or approving motions from happening. Therefore,many times, board members will start the meeting but not vote on anything (including approval of minutes). This allows the meeting to continue and end somewhat on time.

If a quorum was never reached, no voting could have happened.

Options would depend on how your governing documents are written. Typically, a meeting can be adjourned for a short time so neighbors can be contacted and show up in order to make a quorum and then restarted.

If voting or motions did occur without the quorum requirement being met then if the results are challenged IN A COURT OF LAW the association would lose the challenge. If the results are challenged but the member doesn't want to take the issue to court - then most likely the results would stand [it's not right but in reality this is what would likely happen].

Tim

JohnC46 (South Carolina)
Posts: 14,265

Posted:

In a prior HOA, when a quorum (51% of the homeowners or proxies for such if memory serves me correctly) was not reached at our annual meeting, the Covenants dictated what happened. Basically they called for another meeting (within 30 days if memroy serves me correctly) in which the amount required for a quoram decreased by 50%. It sometimes took us several annual meetings (51% to 26%, etc.) to get a quorum.

Rarely did we get a quorum unless there were issues. I only remember one time in 8 years was a quorum established at the first annual meeting. That was because we had issues and several homeowners had mounted a campaign to change things, which they (we) did.

It was frustrating having more then one meeting but overall seemed fair to me.

JeffR7 (California)
Posts: 251

Posted:

Last time I checked US Constitution there was nothing mentioned about HOA or how meeting should be conducted. A total oversight of our Founding Fathers, in my opinion, but we survive.

It's very typical for a meeting to be delayed by a short time to allow late arriving members to join. There is nothing wrong with this practice unless, of course, it's explicitly prohibited in your governing documents.

Another interesting note, that if a quorum is reached and a meeting starts, it's ok for people to leave even if it drops to bellow quorum. All business can still be conducted as normal.

HankV (Florida)
Posts: 29

Posted:

In the future you may want to Recess for a specified length of time

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