When Condo/HOA Minutes Are Used for Target Practice [HOAleader.com Video]
HOAleader.com - Tip of the Week - February 23, 2024
In this week's tip, we're responding to two HOAleader.com readers who say meeting minutes have been used to unfairly make them the bad guys in some board member's power play.
Specifically, one states: "I'm a former employee of a condo who was hired as a consultant to turn around the building and the financials and did so successfully, which was acknowledged by the board for whom I worked.
"I left for another client and, in the most recent minutes, I was blamed by the new treasurer for not telling them an audit needed to be done, taxes needed to be filed and, various other inaccuracies, which I disproved via documents and email records sent to them. I, along with the former board, requested the minutes be corrected and
provided the corrections. They refused and passed the inaccuracies in the minutes in executive session prior to the meeting. While I consider whether to pursue action, do the minutes legally have to be corrected when proof is shown of inaccuracies, or can the board do whatever they want?"
That prompted another reader to write in with a minutes inaccuracy: "I too am experiencing inflammatory, defaming comments in minutes about me. Plus, in minutes there was information incorrectly written that should have been in closed minutes. We'd like to amend them though don't know if it's possible."
Click on the arrow below to hear a short clip in which two of HOAleader.com's experts—Robin Strohm, CCAL, a partner at Williams & Strohm LLC in Columbus, Ohio, who has represented condos and HOAs throughout Ohio for nearly 20 years and Joshua Krut, a partner at Kopelowitz Ostrow Ferguson Weiselberg Gilbert in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., who has 23 years in community
association law—share their best advice for clients on meeting minutes dos and don'ts.