I recently sent an email asking all our members to give us their stories. Among these stories was a very interesting story of how a community went practically bankrupt in less than one year.
The story begins something like this. A beautiful urbanization of some 500 town houses, well kept and maintained with a community staff and numerous staff. While the staff remain more or less unchanged over the years, the committee and the presidents do change.
Of course most Presidents work hard, diligently and honestly on behalf of the owners. However, every now and then you get the wrong person in charge.
On this particular occasion the President and the Committee who were voted in by a small number of owners, were negligent in every way and their actions resulted in the bankrupting of the community, bullying of staff and obliterating the reserve fund.
After a year, an extra-ordinary meeting was called and a motion of no confidence passed as this was the only way in ridding the community of these people.
Given this experience, I would say that it is of upmost importance that owners participate in the AGM’s and if unable to attend, they must send their proxy vote because if they don’t, it could give rise to this sort of incidents. Incidents like this can cause owners extra costs, and the reserve fund is really money that the owners have paid for security into the community account. It is their money and they should make sure that they pick the right committee to look after these funds.
At Urbytus, we have made sure that people are aware of their community meetings, they get notifications and reminders via SMS and email, but most importantly if they can’t attend a meeting they can send their proxy voting online via the web. it is simple and instant. No printing forms, faxing or looking for the Presidents or Admintrators emails. Just login, enter your representatives details and click send.
We suggest that all presidents should join “The Presients Club“. The Presidents Club, is a registered trademark of Urbytus.