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ARE YOU TOUGH ENOUGH TO BE A BOARD MEMBER?
By
Eric Glazer, Esq.
Published August 24, 2015
There are all kinds of Board members and all kinds of reasons to
want to become a Board member. Maybe you think expenses are too
high. Maybe you think there’s not enough transparency. Perhaps
you want to bring some diversity to a Board that has basically
been the same group of folks for the last decade or two. Each
of these reasons are reasonable for wanting to become a board
member. No problem so far.
Some of you however may want to become a Board member because
you want to bring some peace back into the community. You’re
tired of the fighting, the lawsuits, the warning letters and the
fining. You’re tired of the screaming matches at Board meetings
and believe in the theme song to Condo Craze and HOAs……Why Can’t
We Be Friends?
You know why we can’t be friends? Because some people are just
jerks, that’s why. Some people have no problem stealing from
your community. Some people have no problem being rude and
noisy neighbors. Some people have no tolerance for living with
any rules in the community. Some people don’t care if their
unit or home looks like crap and negatively affects your
property values. Some people don’t care that they live in a no
pet community; they’re going to have one anyway, even if they
have to get a fake doctor’s note and you’re afraid of their pit
bull dog. Some people are not only lousy neighbors, they’re
miserable human beings.
And that’s just the people you live with. We also can’t be
friends with contractors who promise everything and deliver
nothing or managers who say they know everything about
everything but have no clue about how to manage.
Sometimes, while your intentions of bringing peace to the
community are honorable, you learn quickly that your peace
offerings are ammunition for your opposition in the community.
It’s taken as a sign of weakness and simply opens you up to more
lawlessness in the community from all the parties I previously
mentioned. Sometimes the only way to get to peace is to wage
war. Bad employees need to be fired. Rowdy deliberate rule
breaking owners or tenants need to get kicked out or
restrained. People who stole need to be reported to the police
and contractors sleeping on the job need to be woken up fast or
have their contracts terminated.
Often times new Board members are simply not ready to take on
this roll. They think by playing nice with these cast of
characters, they will eventually see the error of their ways,
come on over to the Board’s side and utopia will be restored. I
have news for them…..it won’t happen. Some people just live to
create havoc, rob, and get away with whatever they can get away
with day in and day out. Ignoring them or playing nice won’t
make them go away. This job is not for everyone. I understand
and appreciate that. But, if you’re not ready to fight back for
your community and take on the bad guys, you’re in the way and
should let someone else steer the ship.
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About
HOA & Condo Blog
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Eric Glazer graduated from
the University of Miami School of Law in 1992 after
receiving a B.A. from NYU. He has practiced community
association law for more than 2
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decades and is the owner of Glazer
and Associates, P.A. a seven attorney law firm with offices in
Fort Lauderdale and Orlando and satellite offices in Naples,
Fort Myers and Tampa.
Since 2009, Eric has been the host
of Condo Craze and HOAs, a weekly one hour radio show that airs
at noon each Sunday on 850 WFTL.
See:
www.condocrazeandhoas.com.
He is the first attorney in the
State of Florida that designed a course that certifies
condominium residents as eligible to serve on a condominium
Board of Directors and has now certified more than 10,000
Floridians all across the state. He is certified as a Circuit
Court Mediator by The Florida Supreme Court and has mediated
dozens of disputes between associations and unit owners. Eric
also devotes significant time to advancing legislation in the
best interest of Florida community association members.
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