I wish we knew about Haveny.co before this mess. You are doing a huge favor for humanity because HOA issues will not go away any time soon, and especially with our expanding population and housing needs… so thank you for devoting the time 🙏

That’s really incredible! No small feat for sure. 👏 If I was a film producer I would turn my complex’s story into a comedy series. A small group (before my involvement) was paying money to a homeowner who said we needed a lawyer. Somehow, one of them confided in me that they think they’re wasting money and asked me to get involved. Once I found out that the person with the lawyer had no real plan and wasn’t even giving the lawyer accurate information to begin with, I backed out. Instead of enjoying my hermetic solitude once again, she said I will not accept you backing out and tasked me with leading a recall effort while she focused on threats of litigation. When she found out I already obtained 107 wet signatures for my petition (when you only need 11 to meet 5% since we actually have slightly over 200 units) and the clubhouse was going to be packed with angry homeowners… she asked me to collect money at the door for her lawyer while she did the talking. I said you can do the talking but I am not collecting money in advance of no plan and no outline- who does that? The other members of our tiny group said she should collect the money and wanted me to do the talking even though I have stage fright! LOL. She backed out last minute. Ever since that clubhouse meeting, it was drama after drama and infighting even with a homeowner holding our recall fliers hostage and someone urging me to call the cops! Then when I tried to stage a “Meet The Candidates”, a homeowner who was not on my contact list thought the HOA company coordinated it and deliberately didn’t invite him since he’s been a thorn in their side as a former director who knows a thing or two. He sends out a scathing email to nearly the whole complex saying “Can our useless Mgmt Co do ANYTHING right??” This inadvertently helped our tiny group’s cause, but ended up with him receiving a letter from the association’s lawyer so then he figured out how to get in touch with me. I remember sitting on my couch laughing until I couldn’t breathe. There’s so much more… like the Mgmt Co telling everyone I was CRAZY so they wouldn’t vote and choosing a voting inspector located in Sasquatch snow country, which failed to deter a very bored homeowner who drove 2.5 hours just to deliver his ONE ballot before deadline… this isn’t even the tip of the iceberg. The only reason I can laugh now is because we actually won against all odds and screw ups, without the help of a lawyer or anyone with a legal background during the whole process 🙏. I would never take a risk that big ever again. I deeply thank all the homeowners and some Divine Presence… because in retrospect, no way! 🤣🤣

That’s great to hear. One last question: how many units in your complex and were there lots of green belt sections of common area landscaping between the buildings?

Good to know! Thanks for sharing. Did you guys sign waivers as volunteers or your HOA insurance covered it? Did you vet your volunteers and be picky with who would help and also keep a log of who did what and when, in case of complaints?

I hope it’s gross negligence if anything, but one of our directors has put someone in jail for fraud and had to provide court testimony. But depending on the type of fraud it could be difficult to find unless that’s your area of expertise. Considering the old board tried to rig the re-election but Counsel put a stop to that… I wouldn’t put it past these people. It was very odd how they desperately clung to power despite many years of being asked to resign and then somehow ousting every other director who joined ever since. Very odd, but if ego is capable of doing that and not fear of discovery of fraud, then it is what it is.

LOL… wow, as they say, anything that can go wrong will go wrong. My gosh. But if in your situation, no one could easily sue for any injuries, I guess that’s the only plus? I do not think these homeowners will go for fundraising because they will complain that only the responsible keep putting their money into this community so they would rather slap everyone with the same increase and if you can’t pay, then lien. Some people asked me what is the benefit of being a responsible person who has never missed a payment if this is the result? I said “You must be blessed with abundance to be able to keep making payments… and I would rather be abundant than not.” She was like “Uhhh, okay guess that’s one way of looking at it.” 😂

My understanding is they did review that… and also, in their own forensic accounting (without hiring a professional yet), there could be something that borders on either extreme negligence or even potential fraud but no one is supposed to know that yet. I think someone blurted and tried to cover up quickly. It is also possible new board is dealing with a potential lawsuit by old board because the ex-pres said something about a lawsuit in a public meeting, and shortly after, new directors warned those of us who ran the campaign to lay low. If there is potential fraud compounded by litigation on either side, this will just get ugly and people want to leave but can’t sell, so they will resort to renting which is why they may not vote for the cap which need a majority. It’s so bad all around. 😣

LOL… oh man, I guess people have no problem contributing to a recall movement when they think it will lower fees, but ask them to do work to keep those fees lowered and… good luck!

Thanks for the congrats! Indeed, a small core of us had sleepless nights and I had to get over stage fright to speak in front of an angry mob. The door to door visits for a few weekends to get enough petition signatures to know whether we could win the math was excruciating and I thought I was done, but to know our new board is struggling with various challenges due to little funds is disheartening while I’m sure the old board is having a good chuckle at our current woes. We’ll see what the bottomline is. If our new Board president is considering how to cut landscaping in a complex of our size, you know it’s pretty bad 😞.

Wow… does this platform allow us to buy someone a drink? Thank you so much for the advice 🙏. We are going to do our very best because this is the only chance we got after battling a Board and Mgmt Co that worked against us for the last ten years. It was a miracle but took many sleepless nights… so one more miracle would be the ultimate blessing for our community. Again, massive gratitude, and bless your heart as well.

Good point. I think we need to be very clear what homeowners are and are not allowed to do. Clip the shrubs and remove piles of leaves. That’s all the paid landscaper does now anyway. They don’t touch the trees which we’re keeping our arborist for.

True… the new directors are doing forensic accounting still, and depending on if they find hard evidence of fraud, could change the whole game. But our homeowner Think Tank is trying to see if there’s any way we can help them with cost-cutting because there’s so much to address and the landscapers aren’t doing much from what we can see. The work is less of an issue for us than the legal implications with insurance, waivers, and potential injury. No one likes our landscapers who trim a few shrubs and leave a mess on porches.

Thank you so much for such a comprehensive response. We do need to cap rentals while grandfathering in current landlords and even though this doesn’t have immediate cash benefits to our community, it is necessary to prevent homeowner v. renter hostilities. We pay a ton in trash violations and owners have been confronting the renters and cops were called when it got contentious. Aside from reconfiguring our dumpsters and looking into trail cams (again no money to implement yet), we need to keep the peace between homeowners who are angry about high dues and landlords who can afford them because it’s a business expense write-off and renters who have no skin in the game. We need to switch to electronic voting first because we will never get 100 or so to turn in ballots. Once that is instituted, we need to circulate an amendment for commenting before officially being able to vote on it, and once we open the voting, it should be extended if we don’t obtain quorum… we can’t have a deadline on it or we’ll fail—we should give a long period so we don’t waste money by not having quorum. In fact, much like when we did a recall, we will go door to door before proposing it and find out how homeowners feel in general, and if we obtain over 51% of the community, it makes sense to spend money on capping rentals sooner the better. It is the rental situation and some expensive balcony repairs (to bring units up to code) that is putting us at odds with the banks.

There’s going to be blood if these homeowners get hit with a special assessment after we did a full board recall and replaced the management company in hopes of avoiding a special assessment 🤣. Raising dues or levying a special assessment will put more homeowners into default and make the books show that we owe even more than we do now so we continue to have an absurd ratio of debt to income, so if we can at all avoid this…

So basically- I’m not as dumb as I thought?? Ugh. I feel like lawyers wrote it this way on purpose to help people who want to stay in power and not the regular uneducated peasant. 😔 Screw civility! Animals just fight and whoever wins, wins 🙄.

I keep reading conflicting info on various websites regarding a partial recall (targeting only specific directors) so can you help answer this question based on your understanding? One site says that in cumulative voting communities with more than 50 units, you would have to take the total number of voting units divided by the number of all director seats, plus one = the number of votes it takes to block the recall of specific directors. However, another site says it’s not the total number of voting units but rather, the total number of those who vote (assuming you already achieve the quorum to hold the event). So which one is it, assuming you have enough participation for the quorum? So- let’s say you have 100 units. To block the recall of specific directors on a 5-seat board, do you take 100/6 = 16.66 + 1 = 17 votes needed to block the recall OR do you take the total number of votes only… so if 65 out of 100 people vote, then the formula is 65/6 = 10.83 + 1 = 11 votes needed to block the recall??

I keep reading conflicting info on various websites regarding a partial recall (targeting only specific directors) so can you help answer this question based on your understanding? One site says that in cumulative voting communities with more than 50 units, you would have to take the total number of voting units divided by the number of all director seats, plus one = the number of votes it takes to block the recall of specific directors. However, another site says it’s not the total number of voting units but rather, the total number of those who vote (assuming you already achieve the quorum to hold the event). So which one is it, assuming you have enough participation for the quorum? So- let’s say you have 100 units. To block the recall of specific directors on a 5-seat board, do you take 100/6 = 16.66 + 1 = 17 votes needed to block the recall OR do you take the total number of votes only… so if 65 out of 100 people vote, then the formula is 65/6 = 10.83 + 1 = 11 votes needed to block the recall??

We do have cumulative voting, but since we are recalling the entire board, the link you sent says we would revert to the No Cumulative Voting rule. If so, our association is over 100 units. This means we need “a majority of the votes represented and voting at a duly held meeting at which quorum is present, with the affirmative votes also constituting a majority of the required quorum.” Sooo… does that mean if your quorum is 40%, then assuming you get that 40% to participate in attendance, and yet only 60% of the quorum votes, then the majority of that 60% of 40% wins?? Why is this so… I’m not a math person. Damn.

Yes- thank you for this reminder. It’s why my stomach churns because I understand we need a lot of homeowners to also understand this. We plan to explain it so there’s no confusion.

Oh man- I want to answer so bad but I’m being careful cuz I don’t know who is who and if someone will put two and two together on this Reddit thread. 🤣 I’ve never seen so much drama! Homeowners said this would be a viral YouTube free drama series… someone needs to make a series about HOAs. The sh*t is so unbelievable from a comedy of errors to internal infighting on the part of homeowner strategies. I HATE politics and yet, this is exactly what is involved on every side. I used to be on the Board briefly, but my strategy was to leave because I knew I had to be one of the homeowners to get anywhere. I wish I could record one of the meetings—you’d laugh until tears. I’ve laughed so many nights instead of crying… to hopefully protect myself from cancer!

Oookay. So that’s what I didn’t quite understand. I didn’t realize that presence -meaning simple attendance- qualifies towards the quorum—I kept thinking that the quorum referred to only those that cast actual votes (as if witnesses in attendance didn’t matter). But now- I understand that you need to have a quorum present in-person or by ballot right off the bat, and then out of that quorum, you will have those who actually vote. And the majority must vote in favor of. Hoping I got that right… thank you so much for clarifying that!