HOAleader.com - Tip of the Week - March 24, 2017
Published: Fri, 03/24/17
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HOA President Refuses to Boot Decades-Serving Committee Members
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In this week’s tip, we help a reader out on the question of whether committee members can be forced to step down.
In a question on HOAleader’s discussion forum, our reader complains that architectural control committee members at his HOA have served as long as 20 years. And the president isn’t inclined to boot them off—despite willing replacements waiting in the wings.
Who’s right in this dispute?
Let’s first make a point: What a fortuitous problem this reader’s association has. “I wish I could say I’ve experienced a situation like this,” laments Sally Balson, the owner of Condominium Business Management in Madison, Wis., who specializes in representing small community associations; most of Balson's 17 clients are 20 units or less.
“I have the opposite problem,” she explains. “Finding people to volunteer on committees or boards is like pulling a tooth. You just can’t get beyond your core, and you end up with the same people year after year.”
Our experts generally say that neither side is strictly right or wrong in this situation.
“There are two sides to setting term limits on committee members,” explains Stephen Marcus, a partner at Marcus, Errico, Emmer, Brooks in Braintree, which represents about 4,000 associations, mostly condos, in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island.
“It also applies to board members,” he says. “In my mind, if a board member is able to get elected year after year and the people who live there want the person on the board, then why restrict it with term limits?
“On the other hand, seeking new blood is important,” adds Marcus. “And I do think the board should be looking to breed new talent as there’s turnover in the community and new people come about.”
Fair enough, but Robert E. Ducharme, founder of Ducharme Law in Stratham, N.H., who specializes in representing community associations, generally lands on the not-a-problem end of the scale. “HOAs and condo associations are representative democracies. If board members aren’t doing what their owners want them to do, there are elections, and there are provisions to recall board members. That’s the remedy if this is a problem.”
Stay with us. We’ve got three suggestions that may help our reader break the logjam. Check them out in our new article: https://www.hoaleader.com/members/2522.cfm
Best regards,
Matt Humphrey
President
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