HOW MANY MEMBERS SHOULD BE SEATED ON THE BOARD?

By Jan Bergemann

Published January 19, 2018

There have been many fights over the issue of the number of members that should be seated on the board.

Since many bylaws are very vague  -- most say something like “three to nine board members" – many boards are fighting over the actual number of board members that should be seated.

If the actual number of board members is not designated by the bylaws – FS 718.112 states that 5 (five) members should compose the board.

In daily life five seems to me a reasonable number. Three is definitely not enough – imagine one of the three is ill or on vacation – and seven or more often create chaos because they can’t agree on anything. Remember the old saying: Too many cooks spoil the broth!”

But no panic if your board has more or less than five board members. You can’t just change the number because you found out that the number of board members seated in the moment is wrong. If you’re the president of the board you can’t just say: We found out that we have too many board members according to FS 718.112 – and we need to remove a few – meaning Max, Jim, Jane and Joe have to go.

In order to avoid arbitration – or even court – you need to wait until the next upcoming election announcement in which it should be stated that the number of seats on the board will be limited to FIVE – and only five of the candidates will be seated.

Makes sense? It should!


HTML Comment Box is loading comments...
 
Jan Bergemann Jan Bergemann is president of Cyber Citizens For Justice, Florida 's largest state-wide property owners' advocacy group. CCFJ works on legislation to help owners living in community  

associations. He moved to Florida in 1995 - hoping to retire. He moved into a HOA, where the developer cheated the homeowners and used the association dues for his own purposes. End of retirement!

 

CCFJ was born in the year 2000, when some owners met in Tallahassee - finding out that power is only in numbers. Bergemann was a member of Governor Jeb Bush's HOA Task force in 2003/2004.

 

The organization has two websites to inform interested Florida homeowners and condo owners:

News Website: http://www.ccfj.net/.

Educational Website: http://www.ccfjfoundation.net/.

   
We think that only owners can really represent owners, since all service providers surely have a different interest! We are trying to create owner-friendly laws, but the best laws are useless without enforcement. And enforcement is totally lacking in Florida !


Join the 

CCFJ Email List
Email:  

For Email Marketing you can trust