Welcome to the Board!

Welcome to the Board!

February 1, 2020  |  Board Authority, Board Purpose, New Board Member

New board members usually get thrown into the deep end of business with minimal training and are having to learn quick to get caught up with everything going on and in progress and get a feel for how the community is run.  It is a fun, exciting, and terrifying adventure and we do our best to make it easier for new board members – Welcome to the Board!  You are now one of a handful of Board members governing possibly a multi-million-dollar business!!  Not only are you responsible for all the Association business and funds but also responsible for the home value of every home in the community.

 

The Boards main purpose is to follow, implement, and enforce the Governing Documents of the Association per the State of Ohio and Federal Laws.  The Governing Documents instructs the Board to run the business of the Association pursuant to the Bylaws of the Association, enforce the Rules and Regulations of the Association per the Governing Documents, set the budget and reserve funding in compliance with Ohio Law, and to maintain the Association Common Elements per the Governing Documents of the Association.

 

You probably picked up from the previous paragraph that all of your authority as a Board comes from the Governing Documents and State of Ohio and Federal Laws. The Board is made up of volunteer homeowners.  This means that one individual is not the Board and therefore does not have authority outside of the “Boardroom”.  A single Board member cannot give authorization to a homeowner or management for anything or “act” as a Board member outside of the Boardroom.  A good way to think of it is when our monthly meeting adjourns you take off your Board hat and put your homeowner hat back on and enjoy your community as any other neighbor until next board meeting.  Acting outside of the authority of the Board or outside what is decided by the Board could cause a Board member to be sued on a personal level without the protection of the Association.  For this reason, you always want to make sure you not taking Board action on your own without the support and authority of the Board.  It takes a majority of the Board to make a decision in an official Board meeting.  Outside of a Board meeting, such as email/phone it takes a unanimous decision by the Board for anything to be approved or acted on.  The most frequent time we see this sort of thing happen is when a board member goes to a homeowner to discuss a violation/delinquent balance or tell them that they can/cannot do something in the association.  There are written policies for pretty much everything, so it is important we go through the polices and the official channels to ensure everyone is treated fairly and equally.