Board Members who misspend is one thing. This Palm Beach, Florida group of Board Members used their association’s money as their own personal piggy bank and now have to face the music in criminal court. The Whitehall Condominium’s owners now have to figure out how to make up the $500,000 plus that the Board Members dissipated.
It is alleged that an estimated $357,200 was spent by the Board Members on their own personal expenses. The members sat idle while the Board Members spent association money on themselves. Records weren’t kept so its hard for the owners to piece it all together. This happens a lot in community associations. A small group of owners run the Board and everyone else sits back and hopes that Board Members are doing the right thing. This association bet on a loser of a Board and now has to pay the price.
The condominium owners should have been demanding regular financial reports and reviewing association records that they are entitled to review under the bylaws and state law. They didn’t demand that the Board have official records which satisfy legal requirements and now they will all pay the price. An Office of the Board would have kept the Board Members honest or exposed their scheme and fraud long before $500,000 was spent and now long gone.
