By Deborah Goonan, Independent American Communities
Ok, today’s headline is a bit provocative. But, unfortunately, it’s the absolute truth: generally speaking, there is no legal requirement that the people who serve on your homeowners’, condominium, or cooperative board have any personal or professional qualifications whatsoever.
Oh, in Florida and perhaps a handful of other states, state law prohibits convicted felons from serving on the HOA board. (see section 9(b)) But, at the same time, those state laws do not require an annual background check, and state officials usually won’t step in to enforce the law, either.
But aside from a criminal history, there are plenty of other undesirable qualities that make for bad leaders. For example, your HOA board members might not even bother to balance their own checkbooks, yet they are in charge of managing your community’s budget of tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars, or perhaps even millions.
And did you know that, depending on how the governing documents have been written for your HOA, board members are not even required to be residents of the community? Sounds unbelievable, but it’s true.
Then, of course, there are countless examples of bullies and hotheads who manage to get themselves “elected” to the board, perhaps by dubious means. And those are often the type of board members that fight tooth and nail to remain on the board, despite efforts to recall them or elect someone else with common sense and a heart.
The article below was forwarded to me by a reader. In this case, the HOA board member is politically connected to the city Mayor and his daughter, who just so happens to live in the same gated community. A local newspaper has been writing about a corruption investigation involving the Mayor. But when the local newpaper delivery person was distributing copies of the paper exposing alleged corruption coming from the Mayor’s office, HOA Board member Eddie Garcia allegedly physically threatened and abused the delivery person.
A real life soap opera. Read for yourself.
Commerce Resident Threatens Hews Media Group Newspaper Delivery Driver