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SherrillJ
(Colorado)

Posts:2

08/05/2008 4:12 PM
Our board president quit and has refused to give the board all her documents pertaining to the board. Including but limited to a const defect arbitration settlement huge stack of documents. The board is currently barely able to function as a result as she made multitudes of decisions on her own. Does anyone know if any rules/laws exist to force her to relinquish all those documents??

SusanW1
(Michigan)

Posts:2316

08/05/2008 4:59 PM
Give her 24 hours to give up the corporation's paperwork. Then get a county sheriff to accompany you to his/her house to gather the materials. She is holding these things illegally. P.S. Make sure you add a bylaw amendment or Board passed Rule that says ANY replaced officer must turn over all records within 24 hours to the new officer.

KirkW1
(Texas)

Posts:1190

08/05/2008 5:03 PM
I would also make another change. There should be copies of most of these things provided to each board member. Along these lines it could be well worth the investment to purchase a good, fast scanner and software to go with it.

RobertR1
(South Carolina)

Posts:2513

08/05/2008 5:33 PM
SherrillJ, What is your stake here Sherrill? Are you Board members or what? The results will be the same but the approach maybe different if you are not a Board Members. First, let me say, this is aBoard matter to act on. If you are not a Board member, you have the same obligations to protect your associations, only your route will be through the Board and the Boards may well be through the courts. No doubt what she has done, if real, is a strong no, no, and she could well be answerable to a court of Law. But, pause for a moment and see if you can get the document any other way. A letter from your lawyer comes to mind, a suggestion to a good friend of hers might help, no threats, a invite to discuss the whole matter in open session of a special Board meeting is another. If all else fails then file a complaint through your lawyer. You may be able to do it by sheriffs order, bujt someone has got to sign the complaint and if that someone has authority, so much the better. I would also try to solve this ASAP and move on, don't drag it out and don't Monday morning quarterback, decide what to do, do it, and move one. If she is going to deny she has the documents, go Lawyer.

MicheleD
(Kentucky)

Posts:1866

08/05/2008 6:05 PM
One of our former treasurers did this. We ended up having our attorney send him a letter requesting that he bring them to the lawyer's office within 48 hours of receipt of the letter. The night that he would have received the letter, a box of documents showed up on the president's doorstep. That included the checkbook, by the way. However, there were no deposit slips. Oh well.

RobertR1
(South Carolina)

Posts:2513

08/05/2008 6:15 PM
Michele, Interesting. My first thought why didn't you get all the records and what did you do about it. Then I think for a moment and have to recognize you did a good job. I really don't have to know the outcome, and that was a solution you were capably of handling. No doubt it made you all a better community and better prepared to meet more problems coming down the track.

MicheleD
(Kentucky)

Posts:1866

08/05/2008 6:30 PM
Robert, the deposit slips I was referring to were the blank forms, not the deposit slip receipts, fortunately. That really didn't matter, because we changed banks immediately anyway. We really don't know what happened to him, but in going over the checkbook afterwards, we noticed a lot of minor "irregularities" (checks made payable to himself to "reimburse" himself for paying our utility bills out of his personal account, and the actual hard copies of those invoices not to be found anywhere). In total we think he may have "redirected" something along the lines of about $200. A small amount in the scheme of things, but certainly enough to justify never allowing him on the board again. He just STOPPED attending meetings one day, and not responding to emails or phone calls. The president tried repeatedly to talk to him in person, and we were suddenly getting late notices for the water bill or other bills. Then one day he just resigned. By email. We tried for about 3 months to get him to turn over the files he had: all homeowner payment records, electronic files, our insurance binder, so many items that we really needed, not the least of which being the checkbook. We finally just had the attorney write the letter. The material (minus any blank deposit slips and a handful of older invoices from the electric and water company) just showed up on the doorstep. TO this day we don't know what happened. But this is the treasurer who we discovered had never filed any taxes on our behalf, let our annual report go unfiled for 2 years, and was paying our landscape guy with cash instead of checks in some months.

RobertR1
(South Carolina)

Posts:2513

08/06/2008 12:01 AM
Michele, At lot of water under the bridge, I think we agree. It's not like you missed the last problem you are going to run into, there will be others and fast approaching. The trick is, I suppose, as always, in the end; know the job you picked out to do.

SusanW1
(Michigan)

Posts:2316

08/06/2008 5:41 AM
Michele, a Finance Committee of 3 people, plus the Treasurer, would have caught all this mess. That Committee keeps its eye on the money and does an on-going audit review of all revenue, expenditures, A/P and A/R and specical accounts. I keep harping on the necessity of several eyes on the finances, because my feeling is that one person in control over the checkbook, deposits, and reporting is a bad thing. Everyday we pick up the paper and read where some person has embezzled money out of a kid's sports fund, HOA, or the church coffer. I have no sympathy for groups who let this happen. Get your financial department structure in order.

MicheleD
(Kentucky)

Posts:1866

08/06/2008 8:16 AM
I know you keep harping on that, and I can appreciate your stance and, in theory, its validity. However, you can't materialize people out of thin air. We are lucky most years to have a board of 5. We all share Ach Committee responsibilities. We have no welcome committee, no social committee, no finance committee, no any other committee at all. We have 4 to 6 people who, year after year, step forward to try to run the HOA. Two of us have been on the board since it's inception (at turnover) and we have 2 others who have been here about 4 years. From time to time we get one or 2 additional a year to "help out," but they usually disappear after the first 6 months and never run again. When we talk to homeowners to try to get some involved, we always here the same thing: You guys are doing a great job. No need to fix what ain't broken.

GeorgerwilliamsW
(Indiana)

Posts:768

08/06/2008 8:59 AM
Michele, I agree with what you said about committees. But don't you wish it were different . . .

MicheleD
(Kentucky)

Posts:1866

08/06/2008 9:01 AM
Posted By GeorgerwilliamsW on 08/06/2008 8:59 AM Michele, I agree with what you said about committees. But don't you wish it were different . . . . . . indubitably. . .

BonnieE
(Illinois)

Posts:176

08/06/2008 10:28 AM
I agree, Susan, that having the committees you outlined, and for the reasons given, is an excellent idea. Unfortunately, as with other HOAs (Michelle and George in this thread), we are barely able to keep a full BOD (we currently have 4 seats of 5 filled). The one good thing we have going for us is an excellent MC – who takes care of budget preparation (initial draft), paying the bills, finding contractors, etc. Our BOD has done the work of such committees since takeover - arch. control, landscaping, finance, enforcement. Good luck, Sherrill, in resolving your issue. I agree with the advice given by Robert and others. Bonnie

SusanW1
(Michigan)

Posts:2316

08/07/2008 5:48 AM
Someone said: "However, you can't materialize people out of thin air." I have found that the BEST thing is to simply ASK i.e "volunteer" people. Do you know the talents in your subdivision? Do you know about the retired accountant, carpenter, or administrative secretary living in your sub? Have you done a resident survey lately? A recent study for charities revealed that the reason why most people didn't volunteer was that they had not been ASKED! A short job description of the task and a Board liaison to each committee make the job clear and under some kind of guidance. Even something like: we need one person to weed the front garden for the month of June. All supplies provided. See Joe Blow for more details. Worked for us . . .

MicheleD
(Kentucky)

Posts:1866

08/07/2008 6:21 AM
Posted By SusanW1 on 08/07/2008 5:48 AM Someone said: "However, you can't materialize people out of thin air." I have found that the BEST thing is to simply ASK i.e "volunteer" people. Do you know the talents in your subdivision? Do you know about the retired accountant, carpenter, or administrative secretary living in your sub? Have you done a resident survey lately? A recent study for charities revealed that the reason why most people didn't volunteer was that they had not been ASKED! A short job description of the task and a Board liaison to each committee make the job clear and under some kind of guidance. Even something like: we need one person to weed the front garden for the month of June. All supplies provided. See Joe Blow for more details. Worked for us . . . No offense, Susan, but you act as though we've been doing this for 6 months instead of over 12 years. We canvas the neighborhood regularly. We send out all sorts of pleas and requests. We get people to "volunteer" for various things, then the day of the event or after one meeting they never show up again. Like I said, we get people to step up to the plate occasionally, but when they actually see all the work involved, or that the meeting times might conflict with watching "Survivor," they disappear into thin air again. One of the things I learned in the corporate world is that people will show up most anywhere for free "stuff," even if it's crap "stuff" and "stuff" they don't even really need or want. It's free. They'll show up for that. So we also have had what would be the equivalent of "Job Fairs" where we have tables set up themed for the various things we need done, like welcome committees, arch committees, lake cleanup (though we call it Adopt-a-Lake, and offer "reserved seating" for various areas around the lake - the only "catch" is that they agree to clean up around their "area"), and have had free giveaways and drawings for items that local businesses have donated to us. So while we can get a handful of people (and it's always the same "handful"), for various push-comes-to-shove things, like a spring clean up around the common area, or prepping the flower beds, it's a much different story getting reliable people to commit to any specific long-range or repeat-effort thing, such as a committee. Even when we had a rash of break ins last year, all of the board went door-to-door and met with each homeowner, to talk about the need for a blockwatch, let them know what happened in the area (beyond what was reported in the paper), and to talk about any other things they needed to talk about. We got a lot of names on a list, but when the first formal blockwatch meeting was set up, 5 people showed up. When the second one was arranged, 1 person showed up. When we did a phone tree back to the list to try to work out more compatible meeting times, everyone just had too much going on. Anyway, again, your comments are dead on, but the reality is, it just doesn't happen. Even in those communities where the board does not sequester itself into some ivory tower, people today are just too busy and too satisfied with the status quo. It's just the reality.

BradP
(Kansas)

Posts:1742

08/07/2008 6:30 AM
I would agree with Michele...the only way I have known to get multiple volunteers is to go buy cardboard cutouts and place them around the table. My only warning here is if they start talking back to you please seek professional help. We invite, we encourage, we ask and one of three things happens...1) no response, 2) response of yes I will but then they don't show up or follow throught, 3) response of yes, follow through but see it is not much fun and leave.

SusanW1
(Michigan)

Posts:2316

08/07/2008 2:10 PM
No . . . a little more than 6 months - try 25 years on various boards. This has to be the same philosophy as Walmart of Mcdonld's uses. Get 10 people and hope that 3 show up and hope for 1 good person. Keep trying.

SherrillJ
(Colorado)

Posts:2

08/07/2008 4:53 PM
I am the board treasurer and the last standing board member in the middle of a multi-million const defect reconstruction project and the newest member of the board and have no documents from the last 3 yrs, thank you all for your imput. I am going the attorney route first but she has continually declined. I am not entirely sure who to contact in Colorado to see if I can actually charge her with theft or holding hostage documents. All of this seems so absurd, what ever happened to grown ups

RobertR1
(South Carolina)

Posts:2513

08/07/2008 5:15 PM
Sherill, We do have several folks that post here and Colorado is there home so maybe they can help. You mentioned your lawyer declined to help. Have you approached her with a formal letter for her opinion in writing. Frankly, if she declines that, I wopuld get together with whoever is helping you run the show and talk about getting a new lawyer. If she has those documents or was reponsible for thme, she needs to cough them up, they do not belong to her. As to help, try a local representative, get a personal meeting. Try legal aid. Write you State attorney General for an opinion. He will tell you to get a Lawyer but it's worth a shot. Go to your local county council, or Police department. Work the phones, get names and suggestion as to who can help you. And log it all down, at some point you will find a crack. I am not saying you should not take your lawyers advice, I am saying consider what is best for you and your association first. Maybe a little different mindset on your part might open a door, and I don't know your mindset, but it is still a valid consideration.

MaryA1
(Arizona)

Posts:2498

08/08/2008 7:20 AM
Posted By SherrillJ on 08/07/2008 4:53 PM I am the board treasurer and the last standing board member in the middle of a multi-million const defect reconstruction project and the newest member of the board and have no documents from the last 3 yrs, thank you all for your imput. I am going the attorney route first but she has continually declined. I am not entirely sure who to contact in Colorado to see if I can actually charge her with theft or holding hostage documents. All of this seems so absurd, what ever happened to grown ups Sherrill, I'm surprised the attorney has declined to write a letter. The board needs to obtain new counsel! The best course of action is to have an attorney send a letter to the former board president demanding return of the assn records. These records belong to the assn not any individual board member. If need be, the assn can take the matter to court, but I don't think it would go that far. A letter from an attorney, with the threat of a legal action, will most likely do the trick.

MicheleD
(Kentucky)

Posts:1866

08/08/2008 8:20 AM
I'm not exactly sure Sherrill meant that the attorney has declined to write a letter. I think maybe that the person who still has the material has continually declined to return it, even after Sherrill has gone the attorney route. Maybe she (the one holding the docs hostage) fears larger things than just an attorney letter asking for the material. Maybe she fears that there are things in the material that could show either unethical or illegal things that were done. In which case, she probably, illogically, believes that what they don't know and can't find out, won't hurt her.

MaryA1
(Arizona)

Posts:2498

08/08/2008 4:41 PM
Michele, If what you speculate regarding the board Pres and the docs she possesses, all she has to do is remove any incriminating info that might be contained in the records and return what's left. Would anyone know what was removed or even that anything was removed? How could it be proven that she removed anything? Well, we could speculate til the cows come home and still not know the real story, right? I really thought Sherrill was saying the attorney didn't want to send a letter.

MicheleD
(Kentucky)

Posts:1866

08/08/2008 4:46 PM
Well, we know that, but if she were smart to begin with she probably wouldn't be in this position! Who knows, maybe it's taking her this long to go through and scrub her tracks. I dunno. I watch too much CSI, I think. You could be right about what Sherrill was saying. I really don't know. I just read it the other way, that the "she" who declined was the former president.

NicoleO4

Posts:0

08/09/2008 8:22 AM
Posted By MicheleD on 08/05/2008 6:30 PM Robert, the deposit slips I was referring to were the blank forms, not the deposit slip receipts, fortunately. That really didn't matter, because we changed banks immediately anyway. We really don't know what happened to him, but in going over the checkbook afterwards, we noticed a lot of minor "irregularities" (checks made payable to himself to "reimburse" himself for paying our utility bills out of his personal account, and the actual hard copies of those invoices not to be found anywhere). In total we think he may have "redirected" something along the lines of about $200. A small amount in the scheme of things, but certainly enough to justify never allowing him on the board again. He just STOPPED attending meetings one day, and not responding to emails or phone calls. The president tried repeatedly to talk to him in person, and we were suddenly getting late notices for the water bill or other bills. Then one day he just resigned. By email. We tried for about 3 months to get him to turn over the files he had: all homeowner payment records, electronic files, our insurance binder, so many items that we really needed, not the least of which being the checkbook. We finally just had the attorney write the letter. The material (minus any blank deposit slips and a handful of older invoices from the electric and water company) just showed up on the doorstep. TO this day we don't know what happened. But this is the treasurer who we discovered had never filed any taxes on our behalf, let our annual report go unfiled for 2 years, and was paying our landscape guy with cash instead of checks in some months.

NicoleO4

Posts:0

08/09/2008 8:25 AM
Posted By MicheleD on 08/05/2008 6:30 PM Robert, the deposit slips I was referring to were the blank forms, not the deposit slip receipts, fortunately. That really didn't matter, because we changed banks immediately anyway. We really don't know what happened to him, but in going over the checkbook afterwards, we noticed a lot of minor "irregularities" (checks made payable to himself to "reimburse" himself for paying our utility bills out of his personal account, and the actual hard copies of those invoices not to be found anywhere). In total we think he may have "redirected" something along the lines of about $200. A small amount in the scheme of things, but certainly enough to justify never allowing him on the board again. He just STOPPED attending meetings one day, and not responding to emails or phone calls. The president tried repeatedly to talk to him in person, and we were suddenly getting late notices for the water bill or other bills. Then one day he just resigned. By email. We tried for about 3 months to get him to turn over the files he had: all homeowner payment records, electronic files, our insurance binder, so many items that we really needed, not the least of which being the checkbook. We finally just had the attorney write the letter. The material (minus any blank deposit slips and a handful of older invoices from the electric and water company) just showed up on the doorstep. TO this day we don't know what happened. But this is the treasurer who we discovered had never filed any taxes on our behalf, let our annual report go unfiled for 2 years, and was paying our landscape guy with cash instead of checks in some months. But this is the treasurer who we discovered had never filed any taxes on our behalf, let our annual report go unfiled for 2 years, and was paying our landscape guy with cash instead of checks in some months. It certainly sounds as if there was NO follow up or questions place upon the treasuerer by either the board or the HOA memebers kind of like carte blanche.. do what you want we won't ask anything.. that is frghtful. . That is too bad as I feel it's part of the financial reports and annual taxes that we review as a board and are monitored by our PM....

NicoleO4

Posts:0

08/09/2008 8:29 AM
Also the volunteer method of providing services on grounds by homeowners actually has been brought to our attention at one point. Our atty ( property ) strongly encourages us NOT to do this for liability reasons.. all vendors ( yes even homeowner's ) who wish to volunteer thier services must be licensed and bonded in the even to a slip and falll incident without we are at a liability as they wouldn' t be covered by our own insurance. I guees only LARGER HOA's do this.. but it was really encouraged by our atty not ot have homeowners do any maintenance or up keep. It is just asking for trouble.

MicheleD
(Kentucky)

Posts:1866

08/09/2008 11:29 AM
Posted By NicoleO4 on 08/09/2008 8:25 AM It certainly sounds as if there was NO follow up or questions place upon the treasuerer by either the board or the HOA memebers kind of like carte blanche.. do what you want we won't ask anything.. that is frghtful. . That is too bad as I feel it's part of the financial reports and annual taxes that we review as a board and are monitored by our PM.... No, that's not what happened at all. This was in the early years of the organization and we had no idea that the HOA was supposed to file taxes. In fact, he is the one who told us that we didn't have to because we were a non-profit. He was also working as the treasurer for one of our local churches, so we figured he knew what to do. He always had great charts and graphs and very pretty "reports." We didn't know what we didn't know. We also did not have monthly meetings at that time, either, and we suspect that as we got to the point where we were asking for more and more receipts and more and more back up of things that were on the "financials" but not supported by docs, that he just stopped coming to whatever meetings we were having. The head of the Arch Comm was also a board member at that time (the Vice President, I believe) and he was the next door neighbor of our landscaping "contractor." They had worked out a system where he would provide the treasurer with the landscaping contractor's "invoice," and would request the payment in cash. They two of them knew that the landscaper was not filing taxes on the income, but the rest of the board didn't. That's again why we think he just walked away from it as we were getting closer to uncovering their nifty little operation. The head of the Arc Comm also resigned a few months after the treasurer. That was the year I became president and started developing policies and procedures on the board for various things to increase the visibility and accountability. One of the policies I put into place was that only one board member was allowed to pick up the mail at the post office box. That board member would open the mail and create an email to everyone describing each correspondence. If it was the bank statement, he would list each item on the bank statement. Only after the "mail call" would the mail be disbursed to the board members. The treasurer, then, would not be the first or only person to collect the bills or bank statements, as was happening. In addition, any Arch Comm request for approval HAD to be presented in writing, and the committee chair would scan and email a copy to each board member. The approval would then be provided IN WRITING, and an inspection date scheduled to review the project at completion to ensure the project was built in line with the contingent approval. Prior to that the Arch Comm chair would simply give a verbal "okay" or "no way," and file the request away and never once check back to make sure the project was built per the approval specs. Some people he would deny simply because he didn't like them. In fact, he would brag about that in board meetings. But until I had the opportunity to be president, no one every challenged him on it. The former president and the other Arch Comm board member were very close friends with him. As I said, we've had some issues over the years, and much of the early period, not a one of us had ever participated in an HOA before, much less as board members. There was a definite learning curve, an opportunity for a few difficult personalities to do some unethical things, but as the other board members became more knowledgeable about it, those less-than-satisfactory board members drifted away.

RobertR1
(South Carolina)

Posts:2513

08/09/2008 12:41 PM
Michele, You of course realize that that this scenerio plays out daily across the country and the world beyond. It restores your faith to find out there are dreams fullfilled by caring and hard work. I just hope we can catch up before it becomes so bad there is nothing worth chasing.

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