S.S. from Orange County, Florida writes:
Dear Mister Condo,
Are there any laws that require a neighborhood HOA board to be even or odd numbered? Ours has an even number so votes often end in a tie.
Mister Condo replies:
S.S., your governance documents determine the number of members on the Board. If the documents call for an even number of Board members, guess what? You’re going to have a lot of tie votes. With the correct procedures followed, you can amend your documents to change the number of Board members from even to odd but that does require modifying your documents. The vote to modify your documents is likely going to be a supermajority of unit owners and it will require significant change to the documents but it can and has been done. It can be quite frustrating as a Board member not to achieve enough votes to move a project forward. Having an odd number of Board members should get rid of that problem. Just be sure not to word the amendment to have a number of odd Board members. Too many associations already have that! Good luck!