Board Members Bending Condo Rules

D.G. from Fairfield County, Connecticut writes:

Dear Mister Condo,

Seems the rules only apply to some and not to others. We have a one and a half inch book we all signed for this condo association and yet the board members are making their own rules. For instance, one can keep his motor home in the driveway and, in exchange for that, the other one can keep his motor cycle on the premises. Is this legal? It sounds to me like they have a conflict of interest when it only pertains to the two of them. I think the motor home is an eye sore and brings down property values. Can we do anything about this problem?

Mister Condo replies:

D.G., I am loathe to hear about Board Members behaving badly. The charge of the Board member is to behave in such a way as to benefit the entire community of unit owners. Bending rules or selectively enforcing rules for their own advantage is a problem and you can take action. However, unless you can document specific actions taken by these Board members you may have to exhibit some patience while you endeavor to fix the problem.

Certain offenses call for the immediate removal of a Board member. These are big items such as theft of association funds, deliberate destruction of association records, and the like. In cases such as this, board members cannot only be removed but may also face criminal charges depending on the severity of their transgressions. You haven’t described anything like that.

Board members are freely elected by the unit owners of the association. Your easiest solution is to simply vote them out of office at your earliest convenience. No one is granted a position on the Board (although appointments can happen to fill vacancies). The next time there is an Annual meeting at your condo, may I suggest you be prepared to nominate better candidates to represent the interests of all unit owners. Perhaps you would care to volunteer your time in such duty. If the current members are as blatant in their rule-bending as you claim, you should have no difficulty voting them out of office. All the best!