HOA election fraud

Started by YoshimiZ1 • 21 replies • 3979 views

💬 Join us to post & get advice from 50,000 HOA & Condo leaders.

⚡ Takes 30 seconds

Already a member? Log in

YoshimiZ1 (California)
Posts: 16

Posted:

This about fraud created by the management company and the board member tied too close. Some of them I describe would be hard for you to believe and it may caused by my lack of explanation, so if you ask me questions, I'll follow up with more detail.

About the management company:
It is run by one person who hasn't shown any credential or business license for the qualification. She's been doing the job for more than ten years now. Every time I ask her and the board members, the answer is "Yes, she does but we don't need to show you." I suspect she may have a criminal record for getting caught at the other place from I see the way she operates it so skillfully.

About the size of the HOA:
400 units, each unit pays $240.- ea ch month, that makes the yearly revenue well over one million dollars.

How the association operates:
Communication among the common home owners are effectively prohibited by the management company, saying "It's too expensive to send. But you can send it with your money." I suggested online communication such as this forum which cost very little, their response is "Nobody use it." The board members won't answer any question from the common owners publicly, saying "We'll answer you at the meeting." At the meeting, there are hardly any owners except the board members and the management company. The answers you get usually are typically "That's ridiculous." meaning they don't want to answer. Even if they answer something with a hint of wrong doing, we can't do anything to let other home owners know.

How the election is run:
Elections are organized by the management company. As you can guess, the management company takes a full advantage of it, effectively makes it meaningless. I had been a candidate past several years not from the ambition to control the association but just getting my hands on the record otherwise kept secret to the other home owners. My candidate messages had never been delivered to the voters(home owners). I ran my campaign based on a few things which are, better communication and involvement of common home owners by using Internet, open debate between the candidates, board member term limit(life time job at this time. In the past, they did different each year, such as edit the candidate messages severely, from original one page to merely three lines, without permission from the candidate nor notification. When you find out, it's already sent to the voters. It won't be translated to Spanish even though all the correspondence from the management company comes in two languages. "You can pay for it." that's what they say. Send my candidate message back to me just a few days before the ballot forms are sent with a message saying "The message is not acceptable and need to be edited. Resubmit." effectively eliminate the candidate from the list.
Once you get elected and being liked by the management company, you get help from the management company to re-elected forever. Thanks to their effort, voter interest are as low as it can be and usually no opposition would run the campaign.
Quorum and vote counts are manipulated in quite obvious way. Again because of low interest among the home owners, they hardly send their ballot, so easy to find out. In this situation, you'd be surprised if the election runs clean.

People's attitude:
Big majority of home owners are ignorant. Many thinks association is governed by the special people who send them bill each month and themselves are not a part of the association. I have met a few people who were (like me) suspicious about how the association runs, saying "I'll help you. Call me when you need me." When I asked them to the meeting, at the last moment, they all refuse to come. They don't want to take side which has no chance of winning and get into a trouble. Only one neighbor had come to the meeting because she didn't have the car so I took her to the meeting. Next thing I know she started getting violation letters.

How's law makers reacting:
I contacted quite a few places from desperation. Even though, we have a law called Davis & Sterling in California http://theranchoversight.com/davis_sterling_act.htm it has no legal effect, nobody enforcing it nor no penalties to the offenders. The reaction from the attorney general (Jerry Brown) "It's a private matter. Call the lawyer." and no mention of the law. And how can I afford to hire a lawyer all to my cost and the risk of losing, also the risk of not getting the money back when I win while other 400 home owners are not even asking?

The management company is holding the key points to protect herself and the defense seems to be solid. I believe this is not entirely her own idea and this has been going on commonly among the property management industry. They work on the strategy 24/7 using out money while we are not.

And with the protection strong such as this, who wouldn't want to take advantage. Common home owners don't have access to the record but at least I know, she hires contractors she already knows, like her son who does electric works and we don't even know if he's legitimate contractor, without bidding, which means she maybe handing him a blank check.
================
I don't expect lot from this forum, and I'll appreciate any information about this.

EllenS1 (Florida)
Posts: 1,148

Posted:

Yoshimi,

I have been having computer problems so couldn't read all of your mail. Without hesitation I would contact whatever agency has control of licensing for management companies. In Florida ours is the Department of Professional Regulations. Same one that controls realtors, etc. Ask if they are licensed and let them know your concerns. If you get nowhere it may be helpful to contact your local newspaper. If they are doing this to you, you may not be alone.

SusanW1 (Michigan)
Posts: 5,202

Posted:

You don't mention the CCRs or the Bylaws and what they say about the election procedure.

It looks like the management company is taking care of the candidate's profile. How are the elections conducted? By mail ballot? By in-person vote at the Annual Meeting?

Did the residents get an end of year Financial Report from the Board?

How about the Board? How many members are there? Are they having meetings?
Have you talked to any one on the Board about your concerns?

What is it that you want to do or want to know?

EllenS1 (Florida)
Posts: 1,148

Posted:

Yoshimi,

Just another thought...but a large amount of work. Our hoa members at one time thought they were not allowed at board meetings..we changed that thinking but still get few to attend. Perhaps a flier with volunteers who would be willing to place them at owners' doors specifying what your concerns are. And I might add interest grows when owners find out they are being assessed ridiculous amounts without getting their money's worth. Do the owners know that this board can call for special assessments and manipulate votes to get their way?

We had that situation where I live but we only have 100 owners. Two people on the board called for a big assessment and in fact went door to door to solicit votes BEFORE the meeting. I resented this and immediately printed out some fliers letting owners know what was going on..we had the largest turnout at the special assessment meeting. The special assessment did not pass. Good luck. But your best bet would be contacting whatever regulatory agency is involved.

EllenS1 (Florida)
Posts: 1,148

Posted:

Susan,

Surely you are kidding..from what I've read this management company's action are bordering on criminal and should be reported to the appropriate agency.

YoshimiZ1 (California)
Posts: 16

Posted:

To EllenS1:
Yes, the appropreate agency, that's what I want know and haven't found any. It seems like non-existent. When the attorney general of California recommends no agency, it probably doesn't exist.

Davis and Stirling is merely a sample rules, it's not a law as far as I can see. When I received the new election rule based on Davis & Stirling, I sent an Email and ask, "What about the penalty section and who we can turn into?" The management company's answer was "Hire an attorney." Of course, she knows that only possible offender are the management company and the board members. I think they are getting good coaching from the association lawyer.

And another thing I forgot to mention is "Petition" is useless in this association. We have many gates between the houses which is very unpopular among the residents ever since the association built without our knowledge. I collected some signature and brought the list to the management company office. She didn't even look at it or ask how many, then flatly denied that "Signature collecting is not going to change anything."

It seems like you don't need to have any license to run a property management company in California. I searched the business name and the name of the owner in the Dpt. of Consumer Affair web site, came up empty.

YoshimiZ1 (California)
Posts: 16

Posted:

Davis & Sterling(I miss-spelled it above)
It's a set of rules describing how the election should be processed.

Here's the description of how it should be enforced. Does anybody understand?

I asked one attorney who is specialized in D&S about who I can turn this to and he sent me a reply saying "You have a big problem, hire an attorney." which means even he doesn't know who's enforcing it.

===============
CIVIL CODE
SECTION 1354

1354. (a) The covenants and restrictions in the declaration shall
be enforceable equitable servitudes, unless unreasonable, and shall
inure to the benefit of and bind all owners of separate interests in
the development. Unless the declaration states otherwise, these
servitudes may be enforced by any owner of a separate interest or by
the association, or by both.
(b) A governing document other than the declaration may be
enforced by the association against an owner of a separate interest
or by an owner of a separate interest against the association.
(c) In an action to enforce the governing documents, the
prevailing party shall be awarded reasonable attorney's fees and
costs.

YoshimiZ1 (California)
Posts: 16

Posted:

In this case, the way our association normally runs, the board member would just approve it in secrecy and tell nobody before nor after. They don't inform us anything, what's on the plan, which board member voted for what issue etc. Only report we get are the annual phiscal report and it doesn't show a big detail.

Quote:

Posted By EllenS1 on 08/04/2008 3:17 PM
Yoshimi,

Just another thought...but a large amount of work. Our hoa members at one time thought they were not allowed at board meetings..we changed that thinking but still get few to attend. Perhaps a flier with volunteers who would be willing to place them at owners' doors specifying what your concerns are. And I might add interest grows when owners find out they are being assessed ridiculous amounts without getting their money's worth. Do the owners know that this board can call for special assessments and manipulate votes to get their way?

We had that situation where I live but we only have 100 owners. Two people on the board called for a big assessment and in fact went door to door to solicit votes BEFORE the meeting. I resented this and immediately printed out some fliers letting owners know what was going on..we had the largest turnout at the special assessment meeting. The special assessment did not pass. Good luck. But your best bet would be contacting whatever regulatory agency is involved.

RobertR1 (South Carolina)
Posts: 5,164

Posted:

YoshimiZ,

I don't know if you are ready for good advice, but here goes.
Use your intelligence and not your feelings of "Poor me, I am all alone."
What you are seeing, if factual, and I believe some of if is, and have no idea about some of the rest, goes on all the time. You are about as helpless as any other single person in this country. You got a lot of problem......we agree on that. You KNOW you can not do this on your own.......that's plain and not because of any effort you have made so far, but because it's not a one person job.

So, educate and learn your governing documents. Absolutely vital. If it's printed in Ebglish, learn English. Sure you can, you wrote your post, and it is no different than anyne in your spot, and I had no problem understanding what you are saying, and you said it clear.

While you get comfortable with you documents, and you should have copies of your association stuff, start thinking about putting up your own web site, only don't do it alone, get some supporters that will help themselves.
Open a bare bones Web Site, write out an use as your Home page, a mission statement (what you want your site to be), put a comments section on it. DO NOT allow it to be uncontrolled or a place to go for people to bitch. Monitor all posts and delete those abusive, whether it is your team abusing the management or their team abusing you. Let all post about your association, the good, and bad. Get people talking, put out a few discrete flyers, nothing controversal. Build your e-mail list from your responses, you need support, you will get it, use them wisely and listen to them. You can ignore the management other than to say you are attempting to develope community spirit, community awaresness, and to serve as a sounding board for all members. You sound smart enough to know instinctively what I am tlking about. Don't suggest changes, don't blame personally, just open up a place your owners can vent (controlled by you to start), see what people are saying. Then quickly get a few other people to voice support of your site, but make it worthy of support, and conduct yourselves better than you have ever done. They will be watching, if there is a "They." Invite the Board and Management to post on your site, and don't damn them if they don't, you can understand that.

Last, don't go too far afield, stick to your community and get folks who are concerned and will voice there concern and desire for a better community. On this site, use the "search" feature, there will be other comments, use them like you would a book, learn from them. Check out the links on this site, there is more information available a click away that will prove invaluable. VERY IMPORTANT, give yourselve at least a year of hard work, you will be surprised at how hard it is, and take baby steps, and nibble away like a rat eating an ear of corn. In three months with 400 owners, you will have your plate full. Remember what my shrink said. "Just because you are paranoid, doesn't mean someone is not out to get you." A joke, but true, in my case anyway.

MicheleD (Kentucky)
Posts: 4,491

Posted:

I agree, this is going to be one, long uphill battle.

I commend you for trying year after year to get on the ballot.

One thing you might just have to do is realize you are going to have to spend a little money, and probably a lot of sweat, to get into the position you want.

400+ homes is a lot, but it has got to be possible to not only go door-to-door to collect signatures on a petition, but to put your ballot bio out there.

Do a postcard size thing, so you can get two per page, then simply go door-to-door and deliver your message.

You don't need to wait until the actual election time. In fact, I probably wouldn't.

You need to form a communication relationship with homeowners long before election time.

Put on your bio an easy way to reach you if they want more info or if they want to help you in any way.

Good luck to you!

RobertR1 (South Carolina)
Posts: 5,164

Posted:

Michelle,
I think it is important and necessary to do as you suggest.
In addition, knowing there are 400 units, how much credibility doe our poster have if he dosen't have any name recognition and more important, and supporters to stand behing him You and I both know, if you make a loud enough noise at annaul elections you could very well find youraelf on the Board, and that is part of the goal here. A bigger part of this equation is to be ready to do something constructive when you get there.
Better be prepared for getting what you want, it might happen.

SusanW1 (Michigan)
Posts: 5,202

Posted:

1354. (a) The covenants and restrictions in the declaration shall
be enforceable equitable servitudes, unless unreasonable, and shall
inure to the benefit of and bind all owners of separate interests in
the development. Unless the declaration states otherwise, these
servitudes may be enforced by any owner of a separate interest or by
the association, or by both.
(b) A governing document other than the declaration may be
enforced by the association against an owner of a separate interest
or by an owner of a separate interest against the association.
(c) In an action to enforce the governing documents, the
prevailing party shall be awarded reasonable attorney's fees and
costs.

_ _ _ _ _ _

a) this basically means that the CCRs exist for the benefit of all owners and are enforceable either by the association or by an indivudual owner who wishes to bring it to the attention of the board or to an outside agency (court of law).

b) means that there can be other documents, such as bylaws, Standing Rules, Rules and Regulations, etc. that MAY be enforced by the associaton or by an owner against the association (for example, an owner can take the board to task for not enforcing the CCRs or bylaws)

c) means if this goes as far as the courts, the prevailing party shall be awarded attorney fees and costs.

RobertR1 (South Carolina)
Posts: 5,164

Posted:

Susan,
I think you are saying in this instance our poster has the right to enforce covenants on his on for his our right and don't need anyone else to help him. I think you are right, and certainly appreciate you tearing th clause apart for us and breaking it down. I like that.

Speaking from experience I can only say it is a lonely job to decide you are going to take on city hall simply because you have a right to. The general reaction to this is, "what's his problem," and the Boards reaction in my example was, "He's out of line, I don't hear anyone else making a fuss." So you learn to pick your battles, your lean to wait, and you learn to find out what you are talking about other than reading a clip from a covenant. You learn to have a tough skin, and you learn to let people know how you feel and why. His chances of making a big difference alone is slim and none, and his chances of making a change with support might be 60%. We have to remember as time passes, nothing remains the same in any HOA, it is in a constant flux and events unreleated to anything you are privy to, can change things overnight. Say like, throwing the President in the slammer for some misdeed. Bad example, but you get my point.

YoshimiZ1 (California)
Posts: 16

Posted:

Thanks SusanW1 for the help.
For the note, this is not about CCR created within a community but a law "Davis & Sterling Act"
http://theranchoversight.com/davis_sterling_act.htm
Which is made by the California state lawmakers and made effctive last year. I was simply thinking if it's a law, it must have penalty to the offenders. I was wrong. It explains what to do and what not about election process but not provision for what to do if you find someone violated this law. As you see it here, only thing you can do is to hire a lawyer and sue them. Why they had to make it a law if the end result is a law suit? I don't know.

For those of you suggesting me to get more names and help in the neighbor, I did try and quite a few times, for the election campaign and petition for the elimination of the gates, which I had a positive reaction from people that they want to remove it and got quite a bit of signatures. But to get volunteers and ask them to be more visible, it's just impossible. At least it's much harder than other condo community. Here's why...

Large part of the community are rented which means I don't get to talk to the owners. Majority of them are Spanish speaking. I had hard times getting kids to translate to Spanish when I was walking around knonking on the door for the petition.
Another reason is, because of aggressive violation letter sending by the Mng. Co. people are kind of afraid of retaliation if they stand out of the crowd. They just kept sending for any reason to make use of people, example, "Clean up the gang graphiti on the fence, if you don't, we'll fine you." "We saw a bicycle laying around near your property, if we saw it again we'll fine you." etc. At least they stopped doing it now.
Another reason, people came from poor countries seem to think board members are something ranked higher than the rest of owners the association is owned by them, and the rest can only obey. They don't seem to believe we are the owner of the association and we have the rights.

Besides, even if I get enough people to go against the Mng. Co., what we are going to do? She already told me "No amount of signatures going to change anything." That tells you she doesn't care about how many of us come to her. It's her life. When the first step cumbles, her career is over and she knows it. She will defend to death even if it takes something illegal, and she already committed a few.

Talking about election cheating, for those of you interested..

Quorum cheating:
First meeting after people sent in their ballots. Amount of envelopes, about 40 something(I asked and saw the stack of envelopes one of them holding).
Second meeting(a month after), amount of envelopes, still 40 something. It looked un-changed too.
Third meeting, miraculously the requirement(100) of the quorum was met and the stack was twice higher than the last time. During this tiome, we(as a common home owner) recieved no additional encouragement to send in their envelpes, not at least publicly.

Ballot count cheating:
Before the election, I knocked on neighbors door and asked them to vote for me. I got name and phone humber from some of them who promised to help me. When the votes are counted and announced by the board member, number of votes I got was lower than the names on my list. I went home and called them up. They told me they did vote for me. When I was walking around in the neighbor I had people I never met before recognized my name and told me they voted for me last year. That means there are other people voting for me but not on my list. If they are counted, it should be higher than vote counts from people on my list. Each election are decided by very small numbers out of 400 owners. About half of the envelops(total send in 40 something) people send actually includes their ballot, the rest count only as quorum.

No matter how hard I campaign, when the Mng. co. has the power to manipulate at the end, what's the meaning of election? What would you do if you were in my position or any homeowner outside the board member who is trying to get elected? I suggested once, to have third party to conduct the election process. It was denied, or course, "It's ridiculous!" "I'm so insulted!" said Mng. co. owner.

I'll post more as I come up with some more facts to help you visualize and better understanding what's going on in our HOA. My intention is not to make an argument in here but to get useful information from you. And give you some idea how bad the association can be when the people with wrong idea take control of it.

MicheleD (Kentucky)
Posts: 4,491

Posted:

This whole story just makes me very sad and frustrated for you.

Instead of collecting "signatures on a list" can you not collect actual PROXIES, which are, basically, sort of the actual vote itself, only it's given to you instead of them and you can turn them in at the meeting yourself?

SusanW1 (Michigan)
Posts: 5,202

Posted:

For the next election, do your pre-campaigning. Plan to get proxies, like suggested. Be sure you use an official proxy form, if the HOA demands it.

Send out a campaign flyer to everyone (get someone to translate it into Spanish.) Keep it short.

Be sure you have read in the bylaws and CCRs HOW the elections are conducted.
Make sure your name is on the ballot. You are going to have to do your own campaigning. Don't rely on the ballot from the Board to do that.

Bring a real estate lawyer with you to the meeting. Just before the election, stand up and call a Point of Order. Present your proxies to the Secretary. Request that the president tell you how many other proxies are going to be used for the election and if they have been "validated." Your proxies need to be validated, also.

Ask the president to motion to have someone in the audience be the "Teller" - the counter for the results of the election. Insist on an additional two-member team to witness the counting in a private setting. The results should be given to the president to announce.

The real estate lawyer is an outside witness to the events that will take place. If you file a lawsuit, this person will be your independent witness to the events.

You are charging the Board AND the management company with manipulation of the election process for Board positions. That may be difficult to do, with them holding the proxies. You need to get the election away from the manager.

You need to get as many outside witnesses there as possible to watch the election.

Good luck!

RobertR1 (South Carolina)
Posts: 5,164

Posted:

Yoshimi,
Read somee of the other posts on this discussion page, research some of the archives on this page, look over the links on this page.
Believe me my friend, they all tell the tale of what is going on out there. Sad to say, your association is one of many, maybe the majority of associations are screwed up, who knows, but you can be sure they all have some of the problems you do. You are may be heading in the right direction. Just don't burn ourn out and look at it like you would if you were to run a marathon, not a sprint. Given half a chance you will win.

YoshimiZ1 (California)
Posts: 16

Posted:

Thanks, MicheleD and SusanW1.

JaneK (California)
Posts: 175

Posted:

We here in CA have big problems. There are plenty of laws, but absolutely no way to enforce them. As you said, start writing legislators, I am.

The association is required by one of the few enforceable laws to provide you with a list of members. You can then contact the owners of rental units. If they don't provide the list, you can file a complaint here:
http://ag.ca.gov/consumers/general/homeowner_assn.htm
Jane

YoshimiZ1 (California)
Posts: 16

Posted:

Member NancyL seems to know who we can write to, see below. But she hasn't posted the name of the person or committee.

We should have the information available here, so any member from California can send a letter to. And also a original draft of the letter which focused on two things, licensing of the PMC and the penalty to the Davis&Stirling Act offenders, so it'll be eaiser to whoever wanting to send the letters. More letter to the committe, the better.

Quote:

Posted By NancyL4 on 08/26/2008 9:23 AM
George
It covers all sizes. I guess that would be from 2 to several thousand. The CLRC (California law revision commission) realizes that many of the provisions in Davis-Stirling should not be as strict for smaller associations. They will begin addressing issues once again in November 2009. I have written to them and was on their agenda seeking some relief for smaller associations. I will begin writing to them again in 2009.

Quote:

Posted By JaneK on 08/31/2008 2:50 PM
We here in CA have big problems. There are plenty of laws, but absolutely no way to enforce them. As you said, start writing legislators, I am.

The association is required by one of the few enforceable laws to provide you with a list of members. You can then contact the owners of rental units. If they don't provide the list, you can file a complaint here:
http://ag.ca.gov/consumers/general/homeowner_assn.htm
Jane

JaneK (California)
Posts: 175

Posted:

You can contact the California Law Revision Commission here:
http://www.clrc.ca.gov/H850.html
I believe the commission head is Brain Herbert

You can find your CA Legislators here:
http://www.legislature.ca.gov/legislators_and_districts/legislators_and_districts.html
Jane

NancyL4 (California)
Posts: 60

Posted:

Jane has given you the info. If you are interested in the pending legislation, you can check out echo-ca.org. There is a lot if useful information on that site.

🎯 You've read this entire discussion

Join the conversation with 50,000 HOA & Condo Leaders:

✓ Ask follow-up questions
✓ Share your experience
✓ Get expert advice
✓ Access 350,000 discussions

Create Free Account →

⚡ Takes 30 seconds

Already a member? Log in here