Incoming! When A Disruptive Resident Bombards Your Board With Complaints

“A board’s first obligation is to determine whether the complaints are illegitimate,” says Matthew Leeds, a partner in the law firm Ganfer & Shore. “We’ve had situations where the original complainant seemed to be somebody who was paper thin and terribly sensitive. But it turned out that the neighbor who the person was complaining about was really problematic. It’s possible that a person is bombarding the board with legitimate complaints.”

Even before a board begins to investigate the legitimacy of complaints, though, it needs to have a system in place that builds a paper trail. All complaints should be logged by the management company, preferably through emails. Building staff should also log complaints from shareholders – as well as any abusive behavior by the complainer. There should be a procedure in place for passing these logged complaints on to the board.

“The onus is on management to a large degree to differentiate whether it’s a legitimate complaint or not,” says Pierre Debbas, a founding partner in the law firm Romer Debbas. “Management should have a conversation with the shareholder to figure out exactly what the shareholder’s objective is.”
 
If the complaint appears to be groundless, Leeds adds, “Management should speak to the person and explain to them that their behavior is taking up management time, and it’s not in the nature of a cooperative building. There should be written communication from an attorney, if it rises to that level, explaining that if the behavior continues it can lead to some actions.”

One action, if it’s allowed, would be to fine the disruptive resident. The next step would be to seek an injunction, and if the shareholder violates the board might pursue what Leeds calls “the nuclear option” – moving to revoke the shareholder’s shares and force him from the building, which usually requires approval by a “super-majority” of shareholders.

Such a drastic step should not be taken lightly, advises Debbas: “Boards can’t simply pursue legal action against somebody for bombarding them with complaints. No legal action can take place unless the shareholder’s behavior is of a moral character, dangerous to shareholders, beyond disruptive for the building, things of that nature. It can’t just be that he’s a nuisance or an annoying person. An overwhelming a number of complaints alone doesn’t warrant legal action.”

Another reason why management should keep a log of all complaints is to determine if other shareholders are making complaints similar to those of the perceived whiner. Misery may love company, but company can legitimize misery.

In some cases, fines, injunctions, legal actions and other extreme measures might be avoided simply by listening.

“Management should have an understanding of the (disruptive) person and what they’re interested in,” Leeds says. “Sometimes it’s just a matter of having somebody listen to them. Sometimes they have some other issue. It might be that they’re hypersensitive, or they perceive something happening which is not happening. Perhaps there’s a family member or somebody to contact to see if the person can actually function in the building.”

All that said, some people seem to be born to whine.

“There are perfectly sane people who make a lot of complaints,” says Leeds. “Sometimes they’re wrong. Sometimes they go overboard. But that’s not necessarily any kind of sociopathic behavior.”

And boards have no choice but to deal with it.