Fl 720.306

Jim,
Help is on the way.

The secret to understanding Statutes 720 is to locate the "magic words" That will be "UNLESS OR NOTWITHSTANDING". In the case of #306, the word is UNLESS!!

720.306 Meetings of members; voting and election procedures; amendments.--

(1) QUORUM; AMENDMENTS.--

(a) *****Unless*** a lower number is provided in the bylaws, the percentage of voting interests required to constitute a quorum at a meeting of the members shall be 30 percent of the total voting interests. Unless otherwise provided in this chapter or in the articles of incorporation or bylaws, decisions that require a vote of the members must be made by the concurrence of at least a majority of the voting interests present, in person or by proxy, at a meeting at which a quorum has been attained.

What this means is that your bylaws CAN use a lower number if stated and properly voted on by the membership. Are they wanting to lower the number from what you already have? If that's the case, you must use your current quorum number to get the vote and then IF it passes to a lower number, then you use that lower number in the future.

Thank you DonnaS....JudyZ how's that. I have a person who thinks like me.

I think the other association knew they were not going to get the required number so they fudged it. They have a voting membership of 426 and only had 59 bodies show up and had additional proxies that did not make the 33% as required in the bylaws.

Too bad......Thanks Donna.....Jim

Mary,
According to what Jim posted about "the other association", they did not have the required 33% so they "FUDGED IT" He states that this is another association? Not sure why he gave us that info but you are so right. Florida Statutes say 30% for a quorum UNLESS the governing docs state otherwise. It can be more or it can be less than 30%.

This is one of those Statute numbers that I have not a clue why they even add it to the books. Can be more, can be less. HUH??? What they should say is that bylaws need to have a written quorum requirement. period. I know of an association that uses 10% and another one uses 50% .

Donna,

you said: "What this means is that your bylaws CAN use a lower number if stated and properly voted on by the membership. "

While I agree with your comments on "can use...", I don't see anything requiring the membership to vote on using the 30%. If that were a requirement, what would the quorum be for such a vote????

peter

Peter,

I'm not quite sure what you're asking. The topic pertains to a quorum for holding a meeting. Donna posted the FL state law which says: "Unless a lower number is provided in the bylaws, the percentage of voting interests required to constitute a quorum at a meeting of the members shall be 30 percent of the total voting interests." To interpret: the law says a quorum to hold a meeting shall be 30%, but if your gov. docs. require a lower % the assn can use that lower % requirement. Actually, if the gov. docs have a % lower than 30, the state law is a moot point. I would think the law was written to address those assn's that have extremely high % requirements making it near impossible to hold a meeting.

I have sort of a similar situation. Our annual meeting is next week. Current Bylaws are silent about annual meetings of the membership. They have yet to be amended or revised altogether. Nothing has been done in the past 3 years. So my guess is that we'd have to meet the 30% of "voting interests" or the board will have to call for a 2nd annual meeting, which by the way previous boards have failed to do. They didn't even know FL Statutes 720 existed until recently. Now, what about homeowners who are delinquent ?? or, those who have refused to comply with violation letters ??? FL Statutes does not say "eligible voters." And, our Proxy does not say anything about eligibility nor about percentage of votes to meet a quorum.

Peter,

IF your bylaws say 50% for your quorum, then it must be 50%. The only way that you can go down to a 30% quorum is by an amendment to your bylaws per a vote by the entire membership. ANY AMENDMENT (change to your cc&rs, articles of inc and bylaws) must be an amendment by a vote.

The States 30% is just a reccomended number that they created, figuring that it was an aceptable number.

Susanna,

Below is the Statute from 617, which your HOA was or at least should have been incorporated under. You are telling me that your Articles DO NOT have this included in them? WOW! LOOK AT (d)

Title XXXVI
BUSINESS ORGANIZATIONS Chapter 617
CORPORATIONS NOT FOR PROFIT View Entire Chapter

617.0202 Articles of incorporation; content.--

(1) The articles of incorporation must set forth:

(a) A corporate name for the corporation that satisfies the requirements of s. 617.0401.

(b) The street address of the initial principal office and, if different, the mailing address of the corporation;

(c) The purpose or purposes for which the corporation is organized;

(d) A statement of the manner in which the directors are to be elected or appointed. In lieu thereof, the articles of incorporation may provide that the method of election of directors be stated in the bylaws;

Donna,

Sorry, but I don't interpret the statute that way. Here's what you posted earlier:

"(1) QUORUM; AMENDMENTS.--

(a) *****Unless*** a lower number is provided in the bylaws, the percentage of voting interests required to constitute a quorum at a meeting of the members shall be 30 percent of the total voting interests. Unless otherwise provided in this chapter or in the articles of incorporation or bylaws, decisions that require a vote of the members must be made by the concurrence of at least a majority of the voting interests present, in person or by proxy, at a meeting at which a quorum has been attained."

The way I interpret this statute, is that if the assn's quorum requirement is less than 30% their gov. docs. prevail. For any other assn the quorum requirement is 30%.

In answer to the question of whether or not the members not eligible to vote are counted to ascertain the quorum: With regard to a quorum, this statute says "a meeting of the members", not "eligible members" or "members eligible to vote". As for voting, the statute mentions a "vote of the members" not the "eligible members" or "members eligible to vote". I interpret this to mean the quorum and the majority vote are based on the total number of members in the assn, whether they are eligible to vote or not.

Well Mary,
The system ain't perfect and that particular Statute has been argued to need updating. When that was written, there were no considerations written for members NOT in good standing. There is another section that states members not paying assessments can lose their right to vote. So there is a lack of consistancy in this section with the other.

Statutes 720 were written in 2000 and prior to that the Statutes 617(Not For Profit Corps) were the governing documents. This is the Statute on quorums

Corporations Not For Profit

617.0725 Quorum.--An amendment to the articles of incorporation or the bylaws that changes or deletes a greater quorum or voting requirement must meet the same quorum or voting requirement and be adopted by the same vote and voting groups required to take action under the quorum and voting requirements prescribed in the provision being amended. (there is no reccomended %)

Now after reading that, do you wonder why older associations had such a difficult time knowing what number to use for quorums? Developers used numbers all over the place. Many of these HOAs have not updated to 720 but they are governed by it

Mary,
Florida has 55,000 plus HOAs with a huge majority of them in exhistance prior to the year 2000, when the oh so wise State wrote Statutes for HOAs (720) and condos (718) along with mobile home and time share laws. Prior to that, the Non Profit Statutes were what was followed(617).

Some brilliant legislatures decided that new Statutes were needed. So now we have these massive amounts of Statutes that needed to be seperated according to what type of living situation it was .

So the HOAs were and still are sometimes confused because of a lack of Boards, Attorneys and P.Ms knowing what the changes were and are and getting those updates into the individual documents for their associations.

Each year the State is still trying to fine tune and add to them, making it more complete. MAYBE SOME DAY**********???? And when that happens, I hope they translate them into user friendly english.

Susanna,

Au Contraire Mon Amie,

I do document for my 55+ community and still am vocal and involved in what is going on. It''s my right to do so. I do care and will always care as long as this is a large investment for us. And believe it or not, I have many friends/ fellow owners who we do communicate with on all HOA matters. Remember my saying?? "There is power in numbers" and keeping in tune with my fellow owners gives me that power.

Right now, this association is working to pass an amendment to the CC&Rs, regarding the roofs. Currently the association pays for all repairs and owners pay for replacement. Needless to say, these side by side villas hav a large roof area which has cement barrel tiles covering them.

We just mailed out a survey with 3 options on care and or replacement responsibilities by owner or association. I have done many e-mails, explaining the options to some of the older folks who do not understand what each of the choices will entail. I was very objective in doing a simple explaination. I hope that one day someone will take the time to help me understand as well.