Election Fraud

Every condominium association is required to have an Annual Meeting, hence the name. Not infrequently, I receive a call from someone who says their Association has not had a meeting in years, a warning sign of irregularities at the Association. Eery Board is required to set a date for the meeting, send out a Notice, with an Agenda, Proxies and have the meeting. And I have yet to see a set of Bylaws that does not detail this process.

If a Board wants to “rig” an election, all it has to do is not schedule a meeting. There are new provisions added to the Condominium Act in 2016 that require more openness on the part of the Board

And all may seem fine. But if, for instance, you go to sell your Unit in a few years, you may find it hard to sell. A Buyer has the right to look at the financial records of the Association prior to purchase. If the Board does not provide them, you may lose the sale. If they do provide them, it could show little money in the operating account. Worse, it could show little to no money in Reserves. In turn, that means a wise buyer will think twice purchasing into an Association with little to no money for repairs such as rot in the siding, deck replacements, a new roof in a few years, and paving. In turn, that means less Buyers and a lower sales price. The remedy? go to court.

Once there is a meeting, it's equally important to know and understand the voting requirements. Are the votes tallied by an Owner's percentage of square footage in the Association or are all votes equal? Again, the documents will tell. That has to be compared to how the Board is conducting the voting.

Sometimes, the best money spent to ensure an Owne'rs investment in a condominium association is to spend some money on an attorney to review the documents and, perhaps, write

And one way to find out how a Board has been conducting the meetings and voting, especially if the same Owner appear over and over on the Board with little communication to the Owners is in the minutes of the Annual Meetings.

Then there is the matter of who can vote. Every set of Bylaws I can recall has had conditions on voting, usually in the form of an Owner not being delinquent in fees. Every Association should have at every Association meeting a list of those who are not eligible to vote and that record should keep with the minutes of the meeting.

Owners can vote by proxy as well, a document that gives allows an Owner to pas their speaking and voting rights to someone at a meeting. These, too, are guided by the Condo Act o protect the interests of the Owners.

One of the ways the Condo Act protects the Board from maintaining too much control is by yet another 2016 addition to the Condo Act. In the old days, proxies wold contain a line where an Owner could simply give the holder's vote to the presiding officer, and the President could then gather all the proxies and, essentially, vote someone onto the Board. Now, no one person can have more such undirected proxies than 10% of the total number of Units. So, if you live in a thirty-unit association, and the proxy simply designates someone to vote for the Owner without directing the proxy holder how to vote, then the presiding office can only hold three proxies.

Then there is the use of balloting (subject to, as in one case of which I have read), the board changing the ballots, or electronic voting. This, of course is a good way to meet the quorum requirement, especially in the winter, when most Annual Meetings occur, when people may not want to travel to the meeting, but still want to participate.

Transparency is the key.