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How do we change our association leaders?

Your Legal Questions Answered

How do we change our association leaders?

I live in a planned community where the leadership of our community association has done nothing to help us with food, water, health protection and other services during the current coronavirus crisis.  A number of us would like to install new leadership.  What should we do? 

This is a political question more than a legal one.  You want as many residents as agree with you to indicate to your leaders that you are not satisfied with their performance and ask (demand) that they provide the help you need to the best of their ability.  Elected officials, including elected officials of private associations, usually try to be responsive to the needs of their constituents, although the response may depend in part on their perception of your power or importance within the community.

Before you have your (virtual) talk with your leaders, you ought to check your bylaws to see what rights you have with respect to removing and replacing officers or directors.  If you are like most community associations, you probably have the right as members of the association to elect and remove the directors, who probably have the right to remove the officers.  It is possible, though unlikely, that the residents themselves have the power to remove and replace the officers. 

Once you know what you might have the power to do, you need to calculate whether you have sufficient votes among the resident members to make a credible threat to take constituent action.  Do you have enough support at the very least to call a special meeting (if there is a way to hold a meeting) of the resident members to debate the issue?  Ideally you won’t have to go this far, but if the leadership is not responsive, it may be your only leverage until the next elections are naturally held.

Tuesday, April 21, 2020

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