Maryland Homeowners Association Act - Notice of Meetings

This means that this section of the law has control, even if your CC&Rs, Bylaws, etc. state something contrary.


This says that every meeting of the Board of Directors, any committee of the Association and meetings of the general membership may be attended by any member of the Association or someone they send in their place (proxies). However, the member or their agent can be prohibited from attending that section of the meeting where the following will be discussed (paragraph 4):

(i) Discussion of matters pertaining to employees and personnel;
(ii) Protection of the privacy or reputation of individuals in matters not related to
the homeowners association’s business;
(iii) Consultation with legal counsel on legal matters;
(iv) Consultation with staff personnel, consultants, attorneys, board members, or
other persons in connection with pending or potential litigation or other legal matters;
(v) Investigative proceedings concerning possible or actual criminal misconduct;
(vi) Consideration of the terms or conditions of a business transaction in the
negotiation stage if the disclosure could adversely affect the economic interests of the
homeowners association;
(vii) Compliance with a specific constitutional, statutory, or judicially imposed
requirement protecting particular proceedings or matters from public disclosure;
(viii) On an individually recorded affirmative vote of two-thirds of the board or
committee members present, some other exceptional reason so compelling as to override
the general public policy in favor of open meetings; or
(ix) Discussion of individual owner assessment accounts;


This section identifies that "reasonable" notice must be given to the membership of the any of the meetings that are not considered emergency. So if your Board or Architectural committee meets once a month or even on an as needed basis the membership must be informed of that meeting so they could consider attending. Basically, if you adjourn your meeting and say lets meet next month or when the next design application is received, this would be a regular meeting.

However, if the meeting was only to discuss an item identified in paragraph 4 of this section, then this meeting would be closed to the membership. Therefore, no notice would be required. But if other business would also be discussed at this meeting that the membership would have a legal right to attend (i.e. anything else that isn't in paragraph 4) then notice would be required.

Additionally, an advanced notice would not have to be given if it was an emergency meeting. Example: if a storm came through and knocked down a tree that caused damage (i.e. unforseen events) and the board met to discuss this issue, this would not be a regular meeting. Therefore, no advance notice would be needed.

Since the term "reasonable notice" is not defined in the MD law, the Association should follow the notice requirements contained within their governing documents when calling for annual meetings. Typically 10-15 days.


If you have more than one or two members outside the Board attend a regular meeting of the Board or of the Architectural Committee, you would have exceeded the norm. I have been involved in my Association for over 7 years and have never seen a member attend a Board/Committee meeting more than once unless they needed to be there.

Use the meeting room at your Church or local school for your general membership meetings. Everything else can usually be held in someones home. When we give notice of the meetings we ask that anyone outside the board to contact the President if they are planning on attending so additional copies of handouts will be available. This also gives us advance notice if there will be a super large group that might require a meeting hall vs. a living room in someones home.


In my organization, this would have been considered a regular meeting and the same three day minimum notice should have been given to the membership.


This thinking is in error. At a Board meeting, each director has one vote. It doesn't matter how many lots they own. However, if the law or your governing documents state that the developer has control of x seats, then the developer would have x votes.

Irregardless of who had the controlling votes in the meeting, per MD law if normal business was being discussed then the membership had a right to attend.


Sounds like you are doing great. Just move forward from here

I have the following suggestions that might help you:

How to give notice of meetings

Plan on meeting once a month and publish future dates in your community newsletter

Establish a website and post meeting dates there.

E-mail

Links that might be helpful

Here's a Maryland Laws.

Here's a Maryland Homeowners Association Inc..

Here's a Rees Broom (lawyers) site with links to MD laws.

also has newsletters that address specific issues for VA/DC/MD area

Here's a Fairfax County VA Community Association Manual.

Granted, not MD specific but it's a good resource in plain language on how associations should run.

Of course you already found one of your most important resources here at HOATalk

hope this helps,

Tim

I interpreted the following language from the Act to mean that the notice requirements are not yet applicable because the majority of the membership votes can still be cast by the developer:

This paragraph does not apply to any meeting of a governing body that occurs at any time before the lot owners, other than the developer, have a majority of votes in the homeowners association, as provided in the declaration

Since it refers to "lot owners, other than the developer" it would seem that has to mean membership votes. Only our president is required to be a lot owner, so we could otherwise completely avoid the application by election non-owner members to the board.

It seems to me that Maryland legislators badly need a course in statutory drafting.

MaryA1,

I think the other reply raised the question of whether it is the developers control of a majority of member votes or a majority of board votes that matters. The developer is no longer on the board, but still holds a majority of the votes in the association.

Mike