Death of HOA Candidate Prior to Ballot Mailing
An HOA Board candidate passed away 1/24/2022. The ballots were mailed out with the deceased candidate listed sometime after 1/30/2022 (Board doesn’t specifically state when). I received the ballot this Friday or Saturday. Assuming the ballots were mailed out 1/30/2022. Was the HOA Board obligated to update the ballots to not include the deceased candidate before mailing?
Another issue is the HOA Board excluded candidates for not completing a background check form that was not currently member approved in the HOA Bylaws. What latitude does an HOA Board have in that type of situation?
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jancbooth,
The association was not obliged to correct the ballot before it was mailed out, they probably did not know of his passing. But once they are aware of that fact, they are obliged to inform all the members that the ballot contains the name of a deceased individual and to not waste their vote on that individual.
The bylaws are allowed to establish qualification requirements for board members. Some require ownership, some require residency most require that the candidate is not delinquent in assessments, and some require that the candidate not have an open violation, But I’ve never seen one that was so trivial that it required a background information sheet to be filled out. While helpful is should never be a condition for qualification.
Sometimes you just can’t fix stupid.
While the bylaws can establish qualifications requirements the board cannot modify those qualification requirements in the bylaws under Arizona law. If they in fact did that then that provision is invalid.
Dennis