Reflection Must Match Intent

The usual mistake trustees make is believing that a well written letter to owners carries authority by itself. It carries only the authority the trustees have earned by keeping the rule themselves. A letter about parking in the visitors' bays, signed by a trustee whose own visitors' bay holds a second car every weekend, gets read by every owner in the complex and then ignored by most of them, because they have all seen the car.

Conduct rules work by agreement far more than by force. Owners accept them partly because the people enforcing them live under them too. So the damage done by a trustee who is behind on levies while approving letters of demand to other owners, or who votes on a contract for a company he has an interest in without declaring it, is bigger than the money involved. The minutes may look perfectly in order. What owners see in the parking area and on the levy statement is the version they believe, and they check it every day on the way through the gate.