I.I. from New York writes:
Dear Mister Condo,
With a recall of condo board members, when we vote to remove them, is it by the number of condos or by the number of owners of each condo to get the recall thru? (example 70 condos and 39 owners)
Mister Condo replies:
I.I., I am sorry that you find yourself in the middle of a recall election. You will need to consult your governing documents and/or state law if the governing documents are silent. Typically, each condo unit gets a vote. In your example, 70 units would equal 70 votes – one vote per unit. However, since you appear to have some investors who own multiple units, you do need to make sure that the voting isn’t capped at a certain percentage or proxy requirement. I have seen some documents that cap the voting rights to 15% for any one owner regardless of how may units they own. If that is the case, owners who own 10 or more units in your building may be limited to 10 votes (15% of 70). Either way, holding the recall election must be done in accordance with both your governing documents and New York state law. Recall elections can be tricky and might be a good time to consult with the association attorney to make sure no mistakes are made, nullifying the results and setting the association up for a legal challenge down the road. I hope your recall election goes smoothly. All the best!