Typically, the Board members are protected from suits by the members of the HOA. If the Board violates the Bylaws, then a member of the HOA sues the HOA. The association is typically required to carry insurance for just such occasions. The worst you can do to a Board member is to remove them from the Board or possibly have them jailed for fraud if there was fraud involved.
I can imagine that the HOA in the article will suffer a significant rise in the cost of their insurance policy. This alone should motivate the members to choose better Board members.
The membership of the association should have recognized that the HOA was in the wrong long before anything like $400K in legal expenses was incurred. You snooze, you lose.
I was President of a small HOA for about 18 months. Whenever there was a conflict, I tended to move very slowly like a glacier moving a very large stone. There was plenty of time for an affected member to get out of the way, but once I determined that the Board was in the right, the process moved right along.
The solution to the nine hundred buck fine would have been to send them a check along with a demand letter for the return of the money, then just file a small claims action if they didn’t cough it up. I think the retaliation by refusing to approve the remodeling permit was probably the issue that put it in the big bucks class.
The association is typically required to carry insurance for just such occasions.
I thought this was the way HOA members could sue the board.
Otherwise why bond board members?
Regardless, I know I’d be raising some hell at board meetings and use incitement of homeowners tactics to make board members lives miserable.
I’m on a HOA board now and have been in the past 11 years. Lucky we have always had good caring members with common sense and reasonable homeowners. Never a problem in the 11 years I’ve lived here.