You Should Never, Ever Destroy Condo/HOA Meeting Minutes - True or Not?
HOAleader.com - Tip of the Week - September 22, 2023
In this week's tip, we test your condo/HOA recordkeeping: If someone wanted minutes from day one, would you be able to produce them?
We ask the question because an HOA lawyer says Florida law requires that condos must keep minutes from the beginning of the development ad infinitum.
Is that a common requirement in states? And would your condo or HOA actually meet that standard today if you were ordered to produce all those minutes? If not, is it worth having someone go back to build your records if they're not easily accessible?
Let's start with Hawaii. That's not the law there, reports Richard S. Ekimoto, a principal at Ekimoto & Morris in Honolulu, who has practiced community association law for nearly 40 years and is a College of Community Association Lawyers fellow.
"I don't think there's anything in Hawaii law that expressly says that condos and HOAs have to keep minutes forever," he says. "Most association attorneys would recommend you keep them forever, but if you don't, I don't think there's any specific penalty for that. It's just that you don't have all the information about the history of the association.
"I'm not overly concerned about incomplete records," he adds. "Sometimes what happens is the association changes managing agents, and over the course of decades, one of the managing agents didn't keep good records or didn't turn all of them over. It's not like there's a penalty, at least
in Hawaii, for not having those records."
Nor does Tennessee have a law spelling out such a requirement, states Scott D. Weiss, CCAL, a community association lawyer at Ortale Kelley in Nashville, Tenn., who represents more than 800
condos/HOA communities throughout the state. "In Tennessee, we don't have a law that says that, and I doubt most clients have those records.
"It's sometimes a problem when associations change management companies, often several times over a
number of years," he explains. "Things get lost in the shuffle."
In Michigan, the law isn't completely clear.
Best regards,
Matt Humphrey
President