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NON-MEMBERS ON ASSOCIATION BOARD?
By
Jan Bergemann
Published October 13, 2023
Honestly, I think it’s real bad idea for more than one reason.
Non-members
have no real personal interest in the welfare of the community.
Any decision made by the board will not affect them personally.
They don’t have to pay the higher maintenance fees or the
special assessments.
Non-members on the board can open the doors for fraud and scams.
I remember the case of a condo association in Miami, where the
management company claimed that the election result put new
members on the board. When owners looked for familiar names
among the board members they couldn’t find one. It later turned
out that the management company got some “friends” on the board
in order to rule the community. It took the owners quite a while
and a big legal fight to get rid of these board members and the
management company.
The statutes carry quite a few restrictions for members
volunteering to be candidates for the next board election – just
look at the statutes. The statutes give a sitting board quite a
few options to eliminate unwanted candidates. So, if the
governing docs so allow, they rather put “friends” on the ballot
sheet – friends who are not even community owners, so they can
run the community as dictators.
If you live in a community association make sure that the
governing documents of your association carry the necessary
language that will only allow owners in good standing to be
elected to the board. It will definitely help your financial
welfare!
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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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