So my community has a HOA. We are not a condo or townhome community. My fiance is on the board, and they are starting their new term with trying to find ways to get the neighborhood involved in future board elections. Last week was the annual meeting, and they barely got to a quorum, and to top it off, they had to practically beg 3 neighbors to join the board as 3 members were moving on from their positions. One of the things in the current by-laws is a caveat that a management company will be brought in to run the HOA/community if 5 positions cannot be filled for the board. The current members do not want this to happen, but are concerned that it was only put off for a year by getting the people to volunteer that did.

My question is this: currently, a board member's household gets $50 off the annual dues as long as they are on the board. The option being brought up now is possibly making it (starting with next year's board) where everyone on the board does not pay dues, and the 5 households get split between the rest of the community. The math actually works out where it's cheaper to do that than hire a management company, but my question is, is it legal? I could not find any sort of precedence online, but that doesn't mean anything. My second question, if it is legal, would it be advised to put it to a community vote instead of just having the existing board make the decision? I'm wondering if there is any legal recourse that the rest of the community would potentially have against the existing members if they made the decision (the current by-laws allow for the board to make any decisions like this as long as all 5 members are present at meetings).

Any info you can offer up would be great.

Thanks

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If the by laws allow it then you can do it. I wouldn't put it to a association wide vote. At the most, I'd send notice of the proposed change, tell them the date the proposed change will be made and ask for input. I wouldn't even do that though as the members of the association do not seem to care. If they don't like what the board has done, let them run for it the next year.

You really don't need a lawyer for this but doesn't the association have a firm on retainer?

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O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason.

Do it in secret and don't tell anyone. No one cares.

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These kind of things really irk me. What is the point of an HOA for a single-family home community?

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To keep Trayvon Martins out.

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Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

It does benefit the community when dealing with utility companies or waste hauling or water/drainage issues when the community is large enough.

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You know me like that.

To take care of the monument sign and ponds

Seriously, I saw a reserve study last week of a master association. The study had three components listed. Put that in relation to a condo building which could have a couple hundred capital components. The engineering firm charged $2,000 to examine two stormwater management areas and a walking path.

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Isn't that the responsibility of the village/county?

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Hmmmm....drainage in the community....hmmmm Walter. Walter can haul the water. Good man!

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It's about advocacy. I ran one that had 500 homes in it. We were able to get Illinois American to spend $2.5 million to upgrade all our lines. The Township didn't do squat. There was a crack in one of the lines and a small creek was running right into our drainage lines causing dozens of homes to flood anytime it would rain.

We also negotiated our own waste removal contracts.

That said, nobody cared about the damn thing, even though we were providing useful service to the community and I don't even know if the thing still exists.

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You know me like that.

481 of them were yours?

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I didn't live there.

I just felt like negotiating with 6 waste management companies on behalf of old people that threw out 1 bag of garbage a month and thought they should pay $1.50/month.

I thought it would be fun.

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You know me like that.

You had better have a plan Noisewater, because those garbagemen will not work for free!

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I was on a committee with a nice old lady that was amazed that Waste Management actually let people see their financial statements. She brought their Balance Sheet to the meeting and read it to us.

Her position was that we should let WM know that we know that they have $300,000,000 in cash and we won't accept their rate increase.

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You know me like that.

She should've held out for Huizenga to dispatch Todd Dunwoody to drive the garbage truck.

We have 11 acres or wetlands that Warren Township sold to the developer as part of the agreement to build on the land.

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You are damn right they don't.

$30.97 an hour plus bennies in Chicago and surrounding suburbs.

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What is an HOA?

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Homeowners Association.

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-- source