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BOARD OFFICERS = DEEDED OWNERS?
By
Jan Bergemann
Published April 8, 2022
When reading the
Florida statutes in regards to meetings and elections you will
find that the word “MEMBERS” can be found
everywhere in the provisions regulating meetings and elections.
It even says that the annual meeting has to be a membership
meeting, meaning that you have to be a MEMBER (deeded owner) to
participate. The association even has the right to ask anybody
who is not a member to leave the meeting. I have seen it done in
various associations.
It’s a little
different with officers, since the statutes are silent on the
matter, but it seems to me that it would be pretty ridiculous to
make a non-member “president of the board” – a person that
doesn’t even have voting rights or could even get kicked out of
the meeting since he/she is not a member.
I honestly don’t
understand the reasoning behind making a non-member an officer.
Don’t forget, a board (including the president) has far-reaching
powers and could actually ruin the personal finances of all
association members by making wrong decisions.
It really leaves the
question: Why making a person “PRESIDENT” who has
no financial interests in the association and would not even be
affected by “stupid” decisions made by the board?
Even if laws and
by-laws allow non-members to be an officer, it’s in my opinion a
pretty stupid decision by the board to make a non-member the “PRESIDENT”.
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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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