Jeremy Tucker is a community associations attorney who counsels common interest communities on the legal and practical aspects of making their Maryland and DC properties desirable places to own and live.
Jeremy helps board members and managers of condominiums, cooperatives, and homeowners associations to govern responsibly and manage effectively. He is a straight shooter, explaining how the law applies, and more importantly, what it means for the association’s day-to-day and long-term operations. One client noted, “Our [association] had special needs that required innovative and upâ€toâ€date thinking…Jeremy Tucker provided new approaches. Because of Jeremy's unique problem-solving skills, our future looks bright and our progress is steady.”
One of Jeremy’s particular strengths is helping associations develop consistent policies for residents, service providers, and employees that allow the board to hold people accountable for keeping the association well maintained and in a strong financial position. These encompass bylaws, covenants, and fiscal and personnel policies, including handling resident complaints about employees. Jeremy efficiently and effectively negotiates deals for his associations, such as leases, trash, landscaping, snow removal, towing, security, paving, pool management, construction, engineering, cable, utilities, and association management, as well as employment contracts.
Jeremy helps clients comply with and enforce relevant provisions of the Maryland HOA Act, Maryland corporate statutes, and the Maryland Contract Lien Act, as well as the Montgomery County Commission on Common Ownership Communities. He is a past president of the Community Associations Institute Washington Metro Chapter and chaired its Maryland Legislative Committee before joining the board. Jeremy also serves as Council Chair of the Maryland State Bar Common Ownership Interest Committee.
Jeremy shares a love of the law with his identical twin, who also is an attorney. His wife, Laurie, has younger sisters who are identical twins. Jeremy and his wife have two boys, but no twins to date.
Board members and homeowners of one of Lerch Early’s HOA clients were subjected to excessively long and argumentative board of directors and membership meetings.
Lerch Early’s community association attorneys regularly provide training to board members on how to run effective meetings. In this case, we scheduled training for the board of directors on Robert’s Rules of Order. Board members learned the benefits of a well-run meeting, the differences between running large and small meetings, how to construct an agenda, voting methods, and what to include in meeting minutes. We then conducted a meeting using what they learned at the next board meeting.
Using what they learned and saw demonstrated, the board was able to cut board meeting times significantly. For the subsequent membership meeting, the board chair distributed an agenda to the owners prior to the meeting and explained the procedures at the meeting’s outset. The annual meeting ran smoothly with a minimum of disruption. When a resident with a perpetual grievance raised a complaint, there was no second, so the meeting proceeded. After the meeting, several owners commented that it was the best meeting they had attended.