HOAleader.com - Tip of the Week - January 17, 2020
Published: Fri, 01/17/20
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How to Handle a President Who Won't Carry Out a Condo Board's Vote
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In this week’s tip, we answer a reader’s question about a president ignoring the will of the board.
An HOAleader.com reader asks, “Our condo association passed a motion unanimously at the board meeting. Now the president won’t carry out the motion passed by the board. Can the president override a unanimous vote by the board?”
Our reader’s question is a smidge puzzling. If the motion was passed unanimously, does that mean the president voted in favor of the motion but now won’t act to make sure the vote is carried out?
Or does it mean the president isn’t a director (that can happen; an officer can be just an officer, not a director, too) and didn’t have a vote, but that the full board of directors voted unanimously, and now the president isn’t carrying out that directive?
We’re not sure. But generally, our experts note that board presidents such as this one typically don’t have the authority they believe they have.
“What I think this reader is trying to get at is that the president thinks they have a right to gum up the works,” surmises David Wilson, a lawyer licensed in both North and South Carolina who works at Black, Slaughter & Black in Charlotte, N.C.; the firm represents at least 800 condos and HOAs in both states.
Presidents typically don’t have that right.
“This is a breach of the president’s fiduciary obligation and fiduciary duties,” asserts James R. McCormick Jr., CCAL, a partner at Delphi Law Group in Carlsbad, Calif., who represents associations. “The actions of the corporation have to be carried out.
“An individual director doesn’t have any authority, whether they’re the president, the secretary, the treasurer, the vice president — anybody — to override the board,” he explains. “If the board votes to carry out X, it has to be carried out. They don’t have the authority to prevent that.”
That’s also the experience of Susan Hawks McClintic, co-managing shareholder and the chair of the community association transactional practice group at the law firm of Epsten APC in San Diego. “Presidents generally don’t have that much independent authority,” she explains. “The only authority they have is what the board gives them, or bylaws may give them more authority.”
Read more about the scope of a president’s authority, plus advice on how the board should handle this recalcitrant president, in our new article: https://www.hoaleader.com/members/4046.cfm
Best regards,
Matt Humphrey
President
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