Q: At the recent annual meeting of our condominium association, the president asked at the end of the meeting if there was any “new business.” I raised my hand and made a motion to appoint a committee to audit the insurance income and expenditures from Hurricane Ian. The president told me she would take it under advisement and get back to me. I said the owners had the right to vote on my motion and my tone may have been a bit heated. After some back-and-forth whispering at the head table, the president abruptly adjourned the meeting and left the room with the rest of the board. No vote was taken. It was very chaotic and disagreeable. Don’t I have the right to make motions at the annual meeting since I am a member of the association, and this was a member’s meeting? I do not see myself as a “troublemaker” but felt like I was getting stonewalled. (S.K., via e-mail)
A: Most condominium association bylaws provide that all the powers and duties of the corporation are vested in the board of directors, except where the condominium documents or Florida law require a vote of the unit owners.
In general, by statute, owners have the right to vote on the election of the board, recall of board members, waiver of year-end financial reporting (e.g., audit) requirements, and the waiver of certain reserves. Issues that also often require an owner vote under the documents of a particular community include amendments to the condominium documents, purchasing real property, and certain material alterations of the common elements. A small minority of documents require owner votes for powers usually vested in a board, including special assessments, borrowing money, and amending rules and regulations. There are almost always super-majority (or unanimous) owner votes required for certain extraordinary actions, such as terminating the condominium.
The power to appoint committees is almost always vested in the board. So technically, your motion was likely “out of order” because you were asking for owners to vote on an item that is solely within the jurisdiction of the board. In the “two wrongs don’t make a right” category, the meeting chair should not have walked out of the meeting, since the meeting could only be lawfully adjourned by a vote of the members present (in person or by proxy), or unanimous consent.
The apparent “fireworks” at your annual meeting are regrettable, and the type of thing that dissuades people from wanting to volunteer to serve on association boards. That is not to say you were the party “in the wrong,” as you may have legitimate questions or concerns over the expenditure of what I assume was millions of dollars.
You can also presumably appreciate, from the perspective of the board members at the head table, that such a motion “out of the blue” could be construed as a suggestion of incompetence, or worse. I can tell you that “Ian Fatigue” is real, and our 2024 brushes with Helene and Milton were the proverbial straw on the camel’s back for some folks.
Since the law requires an audit for associations with income in any year of five hundred thousand dollars or more, there will be some level of “audit” of the funds by an outside CPA, unless the owners voted to waive that requirement. However, a CPA audit will unlikely provide the detail you are probably looking for.
You also have the right to inspect the official records of the association, including all the detailed accounting records required to be kept by the association regarding Ian receipts and expenditures. If a group of owners wants to take this information and review it, you could create your own “committee.”
Whether you were overly aggressive or whether your president was oversensitive is not for me to say. I will say that it has been my experience that face-to-face conversations without an “audience” are vastly superior to any other way of addressing concerns. I would suggest that you reach out to the president, ask for a private meeting, and see if you can each meet the other halfway.
Joe Adams is an attorney with Becker & Poliakoff, P.A., Fort Myers. Send questions to Joe Adams by e-mail to jadams@beckerlawyers.com. Past editions may be viewed at floridacondohoalawblog.com.