This growing influence of community associations has prompted many states to implement laws that regulate the administrative and executive powers that are being assumed by homeowners associations throughout the country.
One of these laws is the requirement for community association boards to become transparent to all community members especially in terms of finances and processes that involve changes in or introduction of new community association policies.
In many states such as Florida, California and Nevada, the board is required to prepare and disclose the details of board meetings through meeting minutes that should be made available to members via a website. Nevada must also record the meeting. This mandate has prompted many community associations to setup online sites and Intranets for better communication with their members.
However, the mandate to prepare meeting minutes have been abused and disabused such that official documents commonly contain irrelevant points such as side comments and gossips coming from homeowners. In addition, the preparation of acceptable meeting minutes have become a huge challenge for board secretaries who have to address remarks and criticisms such as “you misquoted me” or “you took my words out of context.”
The 10 Elements to Your Community Association’s Meeting Minutes
Correctly drafted community association meeting minutes should only be a record of board decisions and should avoid including everything that has been discussed. For purposes of recording official community association proceedings, the basic items that should be included in the meeting minutes are:
- The date and time.
- The place of the meeting.
- The names of board members who attended the meeting and an indication whether a quorum has been achieved.
- The number of community association members who attended, if any.
- Approval of the previous meeting minutes.
- Recap of previous issues.
- The new motions forwarded by board members.
- How the voting transpired.
- Summary of new board decisions.
- Time the meeting was adjourned.
It is common practice to prepare drafted meeting minutes, have it reviewed by the board, and then disseminate the approved draft to members via the community association’s website or a newsletter. Note however, that meeting minutes pertaining to modifications in legal contracts and board resolutions should be disclosed to the entire membership within one month unless a specified timeline—whether shorter or longer than a month—is mandated by the state.
Many community associations have began implementing specific techniques in the preparation of meeting minutes in order to limit their liabilities in case details in the minutes may be used in court against them. As a rule, narrative-style minutes are discouraged in favor of resolution-style minutes.
This article is provided by The Management Trust, Arizona.