We are struggling to recover from a few years of poor management of our PTO. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Our structure: not incorporated, no bylaws, etc. (basically a name, a checking account, and a bunch of volunteers - a few with titles).
Our problem: A former president signed a 4 year contract to lease a piece of office equipment. There was no official approval and the only signature is the president. The PTO paid the payments for 2 years. Since the the School district has changed direction and provides all of the equipment for the school and will not allow outside equipment. I became pres this year and was originally unaware that there was a lease (poor records passed to us), therefore several payment went unpaid. Now the leasing company is demanding a lease payoff of $7,000+.
We have offered the equipment back to them, it has not been in use for over 18 months. We informed the leasing company that the president did not have the authority to bind us to a 4 year contract without other signatures and body aproval. They have picked up the equip, but still demand the lease payout. On the contract there was a clause for a personal guarantee but it was left blank (no one signed that area). We are a small PTO and barely net over $10K per year. Any advise on how to deal with this??? Any idea what there real recourse could be should they choose to pursue this further???