Carol,

Minutes should be taken for all meeting of the board and of the members of the community.
Elections should be held every year for any board member who’s term has expired. If your community likes that board member than he/she will be reelected.

There is nothing more dangerous to your community than an entrenched board that believes that they are not accountable to the community that they serve and that they hold that power over the community with immunity.

Arizona law requires that a meeting of the members be held at least once every year. Not just called but actually held.

Dennis

THANK YOU DENNIS for your quick and insightful response.

I have done my best to bring light on this blatant HOA BOARD’S MISUSE & ABUSE OF POWER and motivate fellow residents to take action before it is too late. But, most are AFRAID OF RETALIATION!

The magnitude of damage that’s already been done and is coming is terrifying! It involves a potential of +$500,000 in extra expenses past down to our current residents!

Most of us would have nowhere to “MOVE” as we can’t afford to live or move anywhere else. We bought in long ago when prices were low enough to afford and are now on fixed incomes. So, moving is not a solution. It seems there is NO SOLUTION for many of us.

I am only one person without resources trying to take on a deceitful BEAST with multiple arms and hiding in the dark!

I believe most of the board members are both new residents and naive followers, causing severe consequences just the same. They are definitely not acting in our best interest.

The President of the HOA and our present Treasurer however, have INTENTIONALLY SOUGHT to “Personally-Benefit,” ENCOURAGED & ALLOWED “Conflict-of- Interest,” and taken calculated actions to DELIBERATELY IGNORE and unempower our CC&Rs and Bylaws.

In addition, the Treasurer has continued to ARBITRARILY HARASS and DISCRIMINATE RESIDENTS, he dislikes, with our rules.

The President just quietly & mysteriously sold her home last month and left the state. She literally hid from residents and refused to speak to everyone who came to her door with questions. She slid away in the night, without saying goodbye or having given any clarification to residents before she left.

IF THIS IS WHAT HOAs CAN “GET AWAY WITH,” THEY SHOULD NOT BE LEGAL NOR ALLOWED TO OPERATE! Too many HOMEOWNER’S INVESTED MONEY is HIGHLY VULNERABLE TO CORRUPTION!

I apologize accidental typos.
(Ex. changoling=> changing)

Tanya,

I’ve always said that even if you like the situation in your condo or HOA community you are one board member away from total living hell. That is why the concept of so much power in the hands of amateurs is flawed from the beginning. Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

As for the CC&R’s the board has absolutely no authority to change the CC&R’s without the approval of the members. Any attempt to do so is null and void.

The only solution to all of this is transparency and engagement of the community members in their own communities. The one power that homeowners have is the power to remove any board member that is not acting in the best interest of the community as a whole. Please remember that no board member or collective board will ever make everyone in the community happy with their decisions, and that is not their job. Their job is to act in the best interest of the community as a whole. Favoritism and selective enforcement is a common feature of just about every community, the only way to end it is to hold the board accountable to their actions and recall them from their position of power.

I cannot do this for you it must be done by the members of your community. Even if i could get more laws changed to better protect homeowners association, management companies and the attorneys that represent them both will continue to ignore those laws because that no-one is around to enforce them other than homeowners who cannot afford legal battles against the association that uses your money to defend themselves.

You basically have two options work to get your neighbors engaged in addressing the issues in your community or move.

Dennis

Joie,

You are absolutely correct, i stand corrected. The number is the smaller of 25% or 100 votes for associations smaller than 1000 homes.

Dennis

Thank you….I saw your response under the comments in another post.

I live in a community where the association owns the streets. We have a parking policy in place that is not and cannot be enforced because we do not have parking decals. Our board voted to have management provide resident and guest decals over a year ago and we still have not received them. In addition, our parking committee was recently disbanded by the board. Our community is overrun on weekends by hikers and bikers and their vehicles are rarely towed. We have people parking in our lined street spaces, calling uber, and going on vacation. Just last week, I counted three vehicles without registration plates that still aren’t towed.(Can I contact Phoenix police directly on those vehicles?) All this in a community that has 1.5 spaces for each home! We are collecting signatures to recall the board president, but it is a small community and we need 100. People are reluctant to get involved because management has “arbitrarily” enforced CC&Rs in the past with board support. Is there a quicker route without the $600 cost of filing a complaint? Thank you

Follow-up question… anyone know of any firms that specialize in facilitating director recalls? Want to ensure any attempts are legitimate and productive.

Then the follow-up to the follow-up – if we hire someone to manage the recall, can we homeowners then sue the board to recover the cost of the recall?

Thx

Thanks for the confirmation. Didn’t want to start down the path only to realize it was a doomed journey from the start.

Daniel,

Unfortunately HOA’s have broad latitude relative to maintaining the ascetics of the community. While technically they would have to have established some type of standard relative to consistent window sizes to make such a request the arguments of they are simply trying to maintain the ascetics of the community that is part of their charter. While week most courts have deferred to the decisions like this by the ACH or the board. You have two options, first since you noted that your project has nothing to do with the bedroom typically Scottsdale will only look at code upgrades for areas being affected by the specific permit. Why the size of these windows is being considered relative to a totally unrelated project is a mystery to me. You may be able to go back to Scottsdale’s one stop permitting office and convince them that these windows are totally unrelated to the project, and ask them to remove this condition for permitting. Now if you are adding another bedroom to the house then that could be reason for them to question the code compliance for all existing bedrooms. While it is never bad to try once a condition is applied to a permit application Scottsdale is not likely to change their mind.
The second option is to see if any other home in the community has dissimilar windows as part of the front facia of the house. If some exist than what you are proposing is not inconsistent with the standards of the community, already approved by the association. You would ask to have a hearing on your request directly with the board and try and convince them to drop this unnecessary requirement and expense. Make sure that the hearing before the board is held in an open meeting of the board, and get as many other homeowner friends and neighbors as possible to attend that hearing.

Dennis

Yuke 17

You are absolutely correct the statute supersedes any provision in the individual community governing documents. You need a petition signed by at least 25% of the membership to call for a special meeting to remove any individual or group of homeowners. The association has 30 day to call that special meeting. Irrespective of whatever your quorum requirements are for any meeting of the members the quorum for this specific meeting is 20% of the members either in person or via absentee ballot. A simple majority of the votes cast decides the outcome.

Dennis