Coast Central Credit Union Failed to release funds from an account owned by a non-profit association. The funds are not being withheld for liens nor encumbrances. Crescent City, CA California

In the subject case I do have authority to make sure the directors were registered, but we were in the formative stages of our organization.  A person by the name of Jaime Yarbrouogh misled us in December 2015 adivising that he had submitted documents to the California Registry of Charitable Trust, but an inspection of the online registry on or about February 2016 revealed Jaime had misled us.  Similarly the other directors were not compliant in taking corrective action nor filing tax returns, so a decision was made to terminate all five of them.

You can not be a director in California unless you are approved by the state and have filed documents annually with the registry of Charitable Trust.  Myself and Rob Markovic are the only two people recognized by the state of California.  For this reason we have standing to direct actions with Coast Central Credit Union, either through inheritance, or by common law rights.

California law treats recognized non-profit associations differently than corporations.  If you are a corporation then the county court has jurisdiction.  If you are an association, then contract law comes into play.  And you can't contract something that isn't legal, such as not registering with the Registry fo Charitable Trust.

We did file a complaint with the Registry of Charitable Trust for the organization not registering, and initially the state Attorney General sent them four notices requesting them to register, but the group decided to take down their website and ran off with the money.  Similarly the California Department of Business Oversight, the organization that regulates state chartered financial institutions didn't take any action.  Historically only Washington state is proactive with respect to protecting public funds at a state chartered organization.  If you open an account at a California state regulated financial institution you have no protection at all.

And with respect to hiring an attorney, the only pro-bono attorney that represents non-profits is in Sacramento, and the jurisdiction of this case would likely be Humboldt county, since Humboldt County is where Coast Central Credit Union is headquartered.  The amount in controversy was only $150, so there isn't much more that can be done at this point.  In most cases it isn't possible to get a judgment against a financial institution in a court unless it is done as a class action, even for small amounts.  

The lesson to be learned from this experience is to avoid Coast Central Credit Union at all cost. 

There seems like there is more to this story.

What is your position in all of this is? Why would you be the one with the power to instruct the directors to open the account, but then apparently not be the one responsible to make sure they were actually legally allowed to do business in CA?

I would also wonder what the size of this Non-Profit is to even require 5 Directors, and were any(all) of them being paid.

Then as a Non-Profit with 5 Directors one would figure that you were big enough to not only have an attorney who probably help start it, but probably one you have on retainer for any issues that arise.  So did you check with your attorney and what did they say?

On the account side a couple of the main responsibilities of a Bank/Credit Union is to protect the assets of the account holder, as well as follow any applicable laws.  As such there may be additional steps/proof you need to provide in order to access the account that was not originally opened by the people trying to access it now.  Even if that additional step is a Court Order.  So has the Credit Union given you any options as to what you need to do, if so why have you not followed them?