Fixing Action Without a Quorum

[Guest Robert1952]

Somewhere here I've seen the answer to the following but I can not find it.

Members of a HOA made motions at the Annual meeting. The chair recognized the motions and allowed a voice vote.

In doing this, the chair never determined that a quorum was present; there is no roster to form "clear and convincing proof" either way.

Only members can participate. The chiar did not confirm the motion was made and seconded by a member.

The chair did not confirm only those members allowed to voted voted, and the chair did not insure that only one vote per membership was cast (a membership is associated with a lot, one vote per membership) given many couples were present and the voice vote taken.

There was no point of order raised at the meeting concerning any of the faults; lack of quorum, ineligable voting, mutilple votes, etc.

The meeting adjourned with the understanding that all motions had passed. The next meeting of the membership, absence a special meeting for which a quorum is unlikely also, would be next year.

I recall seeing a thread that basically said given no point of order was rasied at the time, then the actions are presumed to be accepted by the members., basically "once the bell is rung it can't be unrung."

Any help finding the thread or sorting out the mess the meeting caused would be appreciated.

[Larry Cisar]

The meeting is over. Move on and next year, make sure everything is done properly.

[Trina]

Somewhere here I've seen the answer to the following but I can not find it.

Members of a HOA made motions at the Annual meeting. The chair recognized the motions and allowed a voice vote.

In doing this, the chair never determined that a quorum was present; there is no roster to form "clear and convincing proof" either way.

Only members can participate. The chiar did not confirm the motion was made and seconded by a member.

The chair did not confirm only those members allowed to voted voted, and the chair did not insure that only one vote per membership was cast (a membership is associated with a lot, one vote per membership) given many couples were present and the voice vote taken.

There was no point of order raised at the meeting concerning any of the faults; lack of quorum, ineligable voting, mutilple votes, etc.

The meeting adjourned with the understanding that all motions had passed. The next meeting of the membership, absence a special meeting for which a quorum is unlikely also, would be next year.

I recall seeing a thread that basically said given no point of order was rasied at the time, then the actions are presumed to be accepted by the members., basically "once the bell is rung it can't be unrung."

Any help finding the thread or sorting out the mess the meeting caused would be appreciated.

This is not quite true. For most errors in procedure, it's true that a point of order must be raised at the time, otherwise it is too late ("you snooze you lose" -- as is often said on this forum). Your example of motions which might have been made (or seconded) by non-members falls into this category. If no point of order is raised right when this happens, that's that -- it simply doesn't matter once debate on the motion has started.

However, there are other errors which give rise to a 'continuing breach' -- these are errors that are serious enough that a point of order can be raised at any time during the continuance of the breach (see RONR 11th ed. p. 251 for more information). In these cases it doesn't matter whether the improper action was accepted by the members (perhaps even enthusiastically endorsed by the members) at the time -- a future point of order is still proper. You gave several examples that would fall into this category -- conducting business without a quorum, counting votes from ineligible voters, counting multiple votes from a single member. These types of violations can be challenged by a point of order long after the fact. The problem is, to make such challenges, you would have to have decent documentation. In the case of a lack of quorum, you would need clear and convincing evidence that the meeting was inquorate. In case of the voting irregularities, you would need to show (separately, for each motion that was processed) that the improper votes were sufficient in number to have affected the outcome. Given the lack of attendance records, and the use of voice votes, it is very likely true that nothing can be done at this point.