A Binding Vote???

Started by DonnaS • 3 replies • 6651 views

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DonnaS (Tennessee)
Posts: 5,671

Posted:

Hey everyone,
Get your thinking caps on because I have something that I cannot find an answer to. By the way, we are waiting for a reply from our Board Attorney but I wanted to excercise all of your brains before he gets on board.

We have 3 sub associations and the Presidents of the 3 are seated on the Master Board along with the Developer and a Rep from the golf course, so the Board is 5 members. The community is surrounded by many acres of common grounds and some of the subs are responsible for the common grounds within their individual gates. Then there is some common area outside of the gates and golf course.

One of the Master Board members and President of her sub association is very unhappy because of a study into the common grounds that the Master was paying to landscape and care for but thru a relook at the original platt, it was determined that the Sub assoc. was responsible for this area, not the Master. It is a couple of thousand feet long and requires alot of care. Naturally, the sub doesn't want to spend their money for this so here lies the problem.

She is going to make sure that the Master meeting establishes a quorum thru proxy ballots, which is a good thing as we need 170 proxies and members to have the quorum. Then she is going to request a vote from the membership present, to change the decision on the common area care and demand that the Board remove the P.M because of a conflict in personalities.

She said that she would demand a "BINDING VOTE" My question is, what the heck is a binding vote from the membership mean? I have searched our Statutes and our Not for Profit Statutes and do not find using that term anywhere. I am not a dummy and know what a binding vote means but it certainly does not fit in this application. So, anyone know?

DonnaS (Tennessee)
Posts: 5,671

Posted:

I forgot to add, this is about $30,000 to 50,000 annually to care for. Mulch runs about $8,000 per application

GeraldT4
Posts: 1,022

Posted:

DonnaS - A binding vote is one that binds the membership to a decision. Sounds simple, but in order for a vote to be binding the method for holding the vote, the percentage of owners in attendance by person or proxy must comply with the governing documents to the T. Not sure why a vote is necessary to get one sub-association to maintain what it is required to maintain. That to me seems like a Board decision, and honestly something that was an oversight. Curious if reimbursement for the $30,000 to $50,000 for all the time the wrong sub was maintaining the common area will come up?

DonnaS (Tennessee)
Posts: 5,671

Posted:

Gerald,
This is an ongoing problem with this sub association leadership. There is no vote to be had as there is no decisions to be made by the membership.. The Master Board voted at a meeting to rectify the error in who maintains and owns that particular piece of property thru the platt map and from the Developer, who also sits on the Master Board. The Developer had missed a couple of meetings and this sub President at that time was the President of the Master Board, therefore she made motions for care of her property and the 3 other Board members did not and had not done any homework to find out who owned the area in question. Therefore, they voted to pay for the landscaping. Now the new President has the platts and the Developer with the proper designation of who owns what.

Because she does not like that decision, she has stated that she will call for a binding vote, which I say is not going to happen as it is irrelevant to what is going on and there is nothing up for a vote. All 565 members are our voting membership, not just her 212 houses. I believe that the reimbursement is what is scareing her and her sub members. The new President wants some kind of reimbursement for the 3 years that all of us have paid but that is down the road for now.

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