apathetic homeowners-dysfunctional board

I am a board member in a 34 unit Illinois Common Interest Communtiy where none of the homeowners want to serve on the board. The majority of the board, who have been in office for 15 or more years do not comply with the by-laws and CC&R's and I alone am helpless to resolve this. Annual audits are not undertaken,treasuer reports and minutes of the meetings are not circulated to HO's The 2011 income and expense report presented at our annual meeting last Friday, shows a possible $2,331.00 shortage in funds.When I question this, I was brused off and ignored, and as usual said the issue of the discrepancy in funds will be explained later, but later never comes in any issues And the apathetic homeowners are no help. Their attitude is the board doesn't pay attention to them,
Short of hiring legal counsel,is there any solution to this, like an Illinois public agency who monitors HOA's?

I take the stand of if you want something done do it youself whwn it comes to HOA's. Why expect someone else to do it? A HOA is ONLY run by it's members FOR it's members. Your are a member...Why not take some initiative and make a web page or post the minutes yourself? What do you think is preventing you from doing this and get over it?

Not to sound harsh but it is necessary to enforce the mindset of change is to just do it...Who is going to vote you out since no one wants in? Just make sure YOU are operating withi the rules yourself...

Like Tim and many others, we all have faced apathy and crazy rule breaking run of the mill boards. My success was not measured in how much I straightened out my HOA rule and financial wise. It was measured by the "Bigger fish" theory...By the time I was ready to move on and out I had a mutiny created against me...Meaning I had so many people wanting to be on the board and in office they it violated the number of board members we had shrunk our rules for. We originally had a 9 but went to 5...Apathy had finally been cured! The irony is that I had made the job look so easy that it created a sense of security that created an interest. Attendance had been so low I had meetings in our pool in my bathing suit!!!

It was hard and had to take over from a con artist who ripped the HOA off...However, I was able to gain success, enforce the rules, fix thing maintenance wise, and increase our house values several thousands of dollars. Just had to pull up my boot straps...You can to!!! Good luck!!!

Time to seek legal council we have much the same problems if nothing else maybe it would be a WAKE -UP call to EVERYONE , but on the other hand your board may do as ours has done they have not informed the homeowners of the law suit that has been filed.

Thanks to for all the responses and suggestions. Our CC&R's do require annual audits. Having worked in the accounting field for years, there is little doubt about a discrepancy in funds. The opening balance of 2011, plus the annual income less the expenses do not agree with what is stated as the closing balance for 2011. There is a difference of $2,331.00, which may stll be explained.Anyway, I have taken the suggestion of notifying as many HO"s as I can about this and will see what happens.
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I am a new member to HOATalk and want to start by thanking all involved for providing a great forum to search, ask, and receive information regarding HOA’s.

My problem somewhat falls in-line with this discussion...I think. My wife and I purchased a new townhome this past year where we came to find out later had no active HOA board, never has had (development is approximately 5 years old). Wanting to help, I along with two other concerned owners, volunteered to occupy the townhome board. Our townhome HOA which consists of 34 luxury townhomes has its own CC&R’s and bylaws, but is also part of a master HOA within a subdivision of approximately 70 conventional homes (townhome owners pay dues to both). Having an HOA board within a HOA board makes communication and cooperation between the two extremely critical. Needless to say we have neither, and it isn’t due to the lake of effort on our part. Another issue for our townhome board is the master does not enforce the CC&R’s and bylaws in the subdivision; our board does within the townhomes.

My question: Is it possible for our townhome HOA to dissolve our relationship with the master to avoid HOA payments to the master? It would be an absolute last resort for us to take this action but would like to use it as leverage to induce some activity within the master board.

Thank you for your time.

Brad, you may receive a larger number of replies if start a new post with a subject line that's specific to your issue. Good luck.

Brad,

When there is a master Association there is typically something provided by them (pool, clubhouse, roads, etc.).

You need to find out what is provided.
If the thing provided is a necessity (like roads, water, etc.) then you probably can not break away.
If they only provide amenities - you might be able to break away.

The problem will be that the master association will see it as a loss of income. Therefore, they will resist.

Hope this helps.

Tim

Marie,

The balance in resetting a board's operations is implementing massive reforms without the reforms exposing the existing, long time, board members as incompetent or bumbling. No one joins an HOA board to prove they're not up to the task. That's a slow process that involves giving board member's credit for ideas they didn't conjure nor really implement.

The audit is highly intimidating if the board isn't good with budgeting but is, otherwise, working in its version of "best faith." Of course, gross, purposeful or malicious financial negligence should be publicly outed in a "facts-only" manner.

Good luck on a very slow journey. Tim's right. Expect a couple of years. It took my board about three years to reach a smooth running and professional atmosphere of handling business. Perspective gets lost when boards are too familiar.