Coup d’état at Miami Condo!

B.P. from Miami, Florida writes:

Dear Mister Condo,

A group of people in my condo appointed themselves as the governing board and have removed mail and checks from the condo office. These individuals have opened an account in the name of the Condominium and are holding the monies in that account. Unfortunately, no one living in the condo knows what to do and to whom we should address the issue. Suggestions please.

Mister Condo replies:

B.P., that is a most unusual situation. My first question is what is the existing Board doing about this? You do have an elected Board of Directors for your association, don’t you? They are the ones who should be taking action. The actions they should be taking are civil (lawsuit) and criminal (call the police)! You cannot simply appoint yourself to the Board of any condo and you certainly can’t deposit checks in the name of the association. That is fraud and very likely punishable with jail time. Of course, this assumes you have a sitting Board that was elected by the unit owners and that there are Minutes from meetings stating so. Does the association have an attorney? If so, now is the time for the sitting Board to get in touch with the association attorney so these individuals can be ordered to cease and desist through a court order. A condominium is a corporation. Corporations are not simply taken over because a group of shareholders decides they would do a better job running the corporation. There is due process and it would appear this self-appointed Board has circumvented the process. Now if all of the unit owners appear to be happy with this new arrangement it is just a matter of recalling the old Board and electing this new Board into their positions. I am guessing there is a lot more to this story than what is being shared here. I would love to hear how it turns out. Good luck!