Developer's Right to Vote

What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? Illinois

I own a condo in Chicago. We are still under developer control, but the association will soon be turned over pursuant to ILCS 605/18.2. (The three-year period since the declaration is expiring.)

The developer owns a majority of units. I have heard vastly divergent opinions about the developer's rights with respect to the board of managers. Unfortunately, I find the statute a bit unclear on these points. I'd greatly appreciate your input on these questions:

1) Can the developer vote in the election of board members?
2) If so, can the developer use his majority stake in the units to fill all three board positions with his agents?
3) It appears that the developer may turn his remaining units (which constitute a majority) into permanent rentals, rather than sell them. Considering that, is there anything to prevent the developer from controlling the association indefinitely?

Please Answer

Will someone please answer this. I am wondering almost the same thing except the developer only has 2 of the 5 spots and they picked the others on the board because they had the majority of votes.

It has been my experience as a developer, to appoint a Board composed of homeowners ( 3 is good) as well as myself to take care of the Association's business until such time as I turn the Association over to the community for the Homeowners to operate. For the transition turnover, my 3 homeowner appointees stay on the Board as well as the newly homeowner elected board members. I have found that this "transition" is vital because it allows for the continuance of the HOA operation while new Board members ( usually novices) get experience. When the new elections come around, the entire board, on a rotating basis are re-elected, or not. The "rotation" also helps with the continuance of the HOA and the transition for new board members to get their feet wet. My documents generally state the time allowance for the HOA to be turned over to the homeowners and community.

Have you read your documents carefully ? They should state what can and cannot be done, while generally leaving room available for the homeowners to have room to regulate policy, procedure, process, etc.

I hope this helps.

after transition, developer votes

The HOA has been turned over to the owners and this was our 3rd election. The real issue is that since the developer still owns about 30 of the 208 units, they have a large percentage of the votes and also can essentially have 5 people run for the 5 spots available on the board. The previous year they only had one person run. And since there was much apathy the developer had enough votes to choose who was on the board including themselves. This year was crazier but basically in the end the developer had two people who ran for the board but did it by nomination during the meeting. They also still choose who was on the board because they again had the most majority of the votes of the people present and voting by proxy and now two delegates from the developer are on the board.

So the real question is, can a group of people or corporation who owns multiple units hold multiple spots on the board?

I have not found anything in our HOA documents pertaining to this. It only talks about multiple owners for a singe unit and how they get just one vote and only one of them can be on the board.

You'll have to examine the condo docs (by laws, etc...). Best to have a lawyer look at them. It is not at all uncommon for the developer to be give quite preferential treatment in the management of the HOA (if for nothing else in that they get votes for all the unsold units).

Condo act and mutiple spots on the board

Does the IL condo act prevent an company/entity/persons from holding more than 1 spot on the board? This company owns many units and parking spaces totaling about 20% interest in the common elements.

This is the part of the IL condo act that I believe speaks to the issue:

(765 ILCS 605/18) (from Ch. 30, par. 318)
Sec. 18. Contents of bylaws. The bylaws shall provide for at least the following:
(a) (1) The election from among the unit owners of a board of managers, the number of persons constituting such board, and that the terms of at least one‑third of the members of the board shall expire annually and that all members of the board shall be elected at large. If there are multiple owners of a single unit, only one of the multiple owners shall be eligible to serve as a member of the board at any one time.

wegoromo, you shouldn't have hijacked another's thread, especially one that is over a year old.