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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!
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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
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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
!
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