Every Homeowners Association requires a functioning board of directors, each member has their own role and responsibility. Having the HOA board’s roles and responsibilities well defined helps to keep your community running smoothly.

As a board member, you must be capable of seeing the community as a city, where you’ll govern people with different tastes, opinions, and lifestyles. It’s important to do what is best for the community and act ethically.

The list of obligations of a community is extensive, so those who are starting a career should know the law and understand the first steps to be taken.

HOA Board Roles

As a board member, you have a lot of responsibilities. You’re in charge of maintaining your community, which is no small task. What exactly you do depends on the position that you run for. In this section, we’ll give you an overview of the roles of each board member.

President

As the HOA board president, your role is to manage and preside over board meetings. You also create a meeting agenda with the secretary. The president also makes sure that everyone completes their tasks. Your role is also to improve communication between the different board members, and between the board and residents. It is very important to know all your HOA’s documents, bylaws, and how your community works.

Vice-President

The vice-president’s main role is to support the president. If the president is unavailable, it’s the vice president who manages meetings and takes over the president’s duties. The president can also delegate tasks to the vice president to undertake. In larger HOAs, the vice president may also be the go-between from the board to committees or manage different areas, such as buildings or the grounds. In smaller HOAs, having a vice president may not be essential, but it can be very helpful.

Secretary

The HOA secretary is essential for every board. A secretary must be very well-organized as they are in charge of documentation and keeping records up to date. Before HOA meetings, they must give residents proper notice of the meeting. They help the president to create the meeting agenda. During the meeting, they are in charge of jotting down the meeting minutes. Then, after the meeting, they need to properly type up the meeting minutes for approval.

Treasurer

A board treasurer needs to be organized, and good with numbers. They’re essential for the HOA to run properly, as they control and maintain records of funds. As well as controlling funds, they set the annual budget, income, and expenditure reports. At the end of the fiscal year, the treasurer needs to meet with an accountant to audit the HOA’s books. Being a treasurer is tricky, as they need to comply with their State’s laws for the community’s correct financial operations.

How HOA elections work

Procedures around elections change based on state laws and the HOA’s by-laws. However, most HOA elections take place every three years or so at the annual meeting. The association needs to notify homeowners about the election in advance, telling them the date and time, and how to run. They must also ensure that all votes are anonymous and that they reach a quorum to proceed. 

Three voting systems can be used for association elections:

• Online: If your governing documents allow online voting, this is a great option as it is more affordable and helps to increase the quorum. Holding online elections has become more popular since the start of the pandemic. While it’s becoming safer and in-person events are making a comeback, having the option to hold them online is still useful. It means that residents who are very busy, or who are away can participate. If you have seasonal residents in the community, then having online elections can be much more efficient than mailed ballots.
• On-site: Voting mainly takes place on the day of the election, it’s also very convenient. Especially if you’re a small community, then having in-person, on-site voting is the easiest and cheapest way to hold elections.
• By mail: Larger HOAs usually send ballots to homeowners and ask them to mail them in. It’s a slower, more manual process, as ballots can get lost or arrive late to homeowners. Then the same issues can occur when homeowners mail them in. Having elections online is a good alternative if state laws and your community’s by-laws allow that.

There are also different voting methods available:

• Ballot: A standard voting ballot with the voter’s name
• Secret ballot: A voting ballot without the voter’s name or any other details
• By proxy: The voter can give their vote to another person to cast their ballot for them if they can’t attend. Normally, the person needs to fill in a proxy form to grant a proxy to someone else. 

Post elections

In Florida, when board members are elected they need to write a letter to the HOA secretary confirming that they have read their HOA’s governing documents and they will uphold them. Then they need to complete an HOA Board Member certification course. There are now a lot of certification courses online, which makes them more accessible to a wider range of people. This course needs to be completed within 90 days of being elected. 

HOA Board Responsibilities

As well as having a specific role with responsibilities, there are also general responsibilities that board members have. They should also follow some best practices, we’ve laid both out below.

Know your governing documents and state law

Each state has its own set of rules and restrictions. For example, California has the Sterling Davis Act that regulates homeowners’ associations. Florida has Statues 718, 719, 720 depending on the type of ownership. These laws are always changing.  In 2018 Florida created laws that require condos of a certain size to have a website and accessible documents for the residents. You can learn more about changing laws during the many Law Updates that the state offers, there are also webinars offered by providers or you can talk to your attorney.

Outside of these state laws, each association has a separate set of governing documents that dictate the specific rules and guidelines within the community. These documents are the key to ensure the rights and duties of each resident are fulfilled. When you become a board member you have to read all the governing documents. We recommend that you read them before running to be a board member.

Organize your documents

Aside from the governing documents, there are various invoices, meeting minutes, and architectural requests. The community board of directors and will need to keep track of all of them. Your community association manager can help you with that. There are online document storage solutions online. You could use Google Drive or Dropbox, or software specifically made for HOAs.

Using an online portal for HOAs allows you to separate privileges based on the role of the individual. This ensures that they can access the documents and notices that they need without being overwhelmed. So you can post documents for residents, but still, keep some documents private for the board.

Budgeting and Planning

Budgeting is often referred to as the most important piece of the community as it directly affects the health of the community.

Financial stability is crucial to the success of an association. As part of the HOA board, you need to establish a reasonable budget that addresses the requirements and standards of the community, while trying to maintain a reasonable maintenance fee for the residents.

Community reserves can be difficult to maintain. The immediate desire to upgrade the pool cabanas or install new tennis courts often replaces the need for reserves for future maintenance issues. Reserves serve three main purposes – Emergencies, Deferred Maintenance, and debt. To get a better handle on your community reserves, you can have a third party conduct a Reserve Study to ensure the community is sufficiently funded. If there are poor reserves it may also prevent certain mortgages to be used when purchasing a property, only further limiting future assessments from being collected.

Building Insurance is also another issue that is often overlooked. Every community is required to have insurance. As the legal representative of the community, the board of directors must always be aware of the insurance’s coverages and keep it up to date.

Maintenance

Residents notice maintenance issues that you may not. One of the board’s main responsibilities is to maintain all common areas and manage amenities. The board needs to conduct inspections of the HOA to schedule repairs and maintenance tasks with your manager if you have one. The reserve fund is essential to organize those repairs periodically.

Your CC&Rs should state clearly what the HOA is in charge of maintaining, as it changes from HOA to HOA. Using community association software is very good for managing service requests. So residents can report any issues that they’ve seen, making it easier to organize all your work orders.

Applying the Rules

All rules must be applied equally to every single resident, as a board member you must be impartial. If you don’t residents will get tired very quickly. Having specific rules for HOAs to enforce the CC&Rs is a huge help. Since the board can be biased to friends, or neighbors, it’s important that you have rules to apply to everyone equally. If you have an association manager they can help you to enforce the rules and to conduct inspections.

If you post your rules and regulations clearly for residents to find them, and the board is transparent about the rules this helps to reduce violations and saves you time in the long run!

Communication

Communication is key in HOAs, as it fosters a sense of community. Some communities still use outdated means to talk to residents. This makes it difficult to have meaningful interactions between community administrators and the residents. Board members must seek to manage the community with inclusive management, opening the doors to opinions and suggestions of the residents, vendors, and employees.

Having a website for your HOA can help you to communicate with residents without too much extra cost. It’s an incredible tool to organize and centralize communication. It can be made without much effort by using a website template. If you’re ready to take an extra step, creating a portal for residents is even better than a website. As well as making communication easier you can organize documents, schedule maintenance, receive maintenance requests, manage residents and even host virtual meetings!

If you’re not ready to take that step, don’t worry. Communicate using the means that you have available. Be sure to keep repeating what’s going on, and any changes that might be occurring. Lack of transparency is a common complaint in HOAs, it might even be why you’re running for the board! So make sure that you keep communicating with residents throughout your time on the board.

Conclusion

In order to be the best board member possible, you need to work together with other board members and your service providers. Having a good association manager, attorney and accountant are all essential for your success.

The other key tool is software to manage your residents, maintenance requests, violations and help you to communicate with residents. This increases your HOA’s transparency and makes you more organized.

Neigbrs by Vinteum is an award-winning communication software that helps board members communicate with each other, their manager, and residents. Find out how we can improve your community by booking a free demo here.