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APATHY
CAN BE MORE DANGEROUS TO A COMMUNITY THAN YOU THINK
By
Eric Glazer, Esq.
Published June 30, 2014
We always talk about
apathy in community associations.
Nobody wants to run for the Board.
Nobody wants to serve on a committee.
Nobody wants to even vote in the annual election.
Usually, apathy is more prevalent in communities where the
populace believes all is OK.
If the place generally looks good, the assessments are
stable and the cable never goes out, owners believe there is
simply no need to get involved with the headache of running the
community by serving on the board.
In fact, they are happy that there are others who are
willing to step up and take the responsibility.
Here’s
the problem with that way of thinking.
Most community associations who have been stolen from
were thought by their owners to be operating smoothly and
efficiently for years on end.
Then, all of a sudden, massive theft is uncovered by
someone, and it happened because of apathy.
It happened because nobody was watching.
Nobody cared to actually take a look at a bank statement.
Nobody bothered to ask to see a copy of the audit.
Nobody bothered to ask how the assessments are being
spent.
I
recently became involved in a high profile case here in South
Florida. The bottom
line is that decisions of a prior board put the community in
harm’s way. As a
result, the entire community was slapped with a massive special
assessment to pay a legal settlement.
The new Board allowed every attendee to speak at the
special assessment meeting.
Many owners were rightfully upset that they had to now
pay for the wrongful actions of a few prior Board members.
More than one swore never to pay the assessment.
The interesting part of the meeting came when one of the
owners stood up and said that it was too easy to blame the prior
Board for the financial mess everyone is now in.
Instead, she thought the blame lied elsewhere.
She thought the blame lied with all of the people in the
room who were now at a board meeting for the first time in
years. She looked
everyone in the face and said that if everyone routinely showed
up to meetings like they did that night, the prior Board would
never have been able to take the actions they did.
A part of me believes she is right.
Apathy
can be very costly, even when it appears all is well.
Has apathy harmed your community?
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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 is currently entering his 20th year as a
Florida
lawyer practicing |
community association law and is the owner of
Glazer and Associates, P.A. an eight attorney law firm in
Orlando
and Hollywood. For the past two years Eric has been the host of Condo Craze and
HOAs, a weekly one hour radio show 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 7,500 Floridians. He is certified as a
Circuit Court Mediator by The Florida Supreme Court and has
mediated dozens of disputes between associations and unit
owners. Finally, he recently argued the Cohn v. Grand
Condominium case before The Florida Supreme Court, which is
perhaps the single most important association law case decided
by the court in a decade.
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