Electronic Distribution of Bylaws & Other HOA docs

Convenants and Restrictions are available at the Records Office at the County's courthouse. It is the buyer's responsibility to be informed and thus theirs to make sure they get a copy. The most legally accurate version will be the one on file no matter if someone "changes" it electronically.
You may want to make sure your CC&R's/by-laws don't need to be modified to include electronic copy references. That may depend on your state's laws. Most CC&R's won't mention electronic media because of the age of the documentation. It most likely won't be a big deal any ways if it is electronic or paper. It may be more of a personal preference to be on electronic media.
We did have a board member who did copy the CC&R's and By-laws into a PDF file. It was quite useful for the younger residents who preferred it. (Older residents most likely didn't have computers.) It could be posted on a web page for review. (Just avoid putting out certain financial information on an open website. Financial information is just for members not the general public.)
IMO electronic copies are good. However, be careful of the versions that are out there. Make sure it is identified and matches the one on record at the courthouse. I would suggest putting the copy on a CD or a disk that can't be recorded over. I don't think you have to worry about copyright rules since it is a public document.

We scan CCRS, Bylaws, etc for our Community123.com website customers.

However, we never use OCR for this because it's too error prone and time consuming. We simply scan the documents as an image into the PDF file, which is then a perfect electronic copy. We use compression and get about 40 pages per 1MB of file size. That's where you must be careful when scanning docs as an image; file size. If you set the resolution too high or make other settings, you can end up with a file too big to download.

You only need OCR when you want to convert an image into text for editing. Since you don't want to edit, then OCR is not needed nor desirable for your purpose.

hoatalk, thanks for your thoughts on scanning vs. OCR. What software do you use for compression? and what scan resolution level do you use? Sounds like an excellent method as long as a Declaration of 80 pages can be "easily" downloaded and/or transmitted by email.

FYI also - If the HOA creats any more NEW documents in MSword, you don't have to spend a fortune on Adobe Acrobat Standard or Professional. Check out http://www.pdf995.com/ - It's free and easy to use, if you wish to convert text documents to text searchable pdf files (not an image file).

FYI Patrick - You can also easily creat a searchable, read-only text document as a pdf so that no one can alter the document. If you can search for text strings, it makes searching for any particualar issue a very, very painless process.

FYI Patrick - You can also easily creat a searchable, read-only text document as a pdf so that no one can alter the document. If you can search for text strings, it makes searching for any particualar issue a very, very painless process.

Roger, We use two methods:

One, a Canon scanner with the software that came with it to scan to PDF. This method takes some work to get the resolution (DPI) and other settings right for the document. Choose the lowest resolution that looks OK on your scanner and choose black and white or greyscale. Scanner software and hardware will vary.

Method two is the one we currently use often and it's low tech but is the easiest and gives a good result with small files. We use a fax to email service from GoDaddy.com that accepts a fax, converts to PDF and emails to us. Their conversion routine is very good for B&W documents and produces small files. This has proven to be easier than tweaking scanner settings & rescanning documents. Our scanner is also a fax, so we just scan to fax and get the PDF in email. This also provides us a toll free fax line for customers to use.

You don't need method two if you just play around with your scanner settings and find the right mix of quality and size.

On our association website, an "informal" version of the covenants is posted. These could be copied and printed or even changed by anyone. Both the document and the website have disclaimers that this is not the "official" document.

Because of the file sizes involved and the space limitations of our (free) hosting site, the PDF versions of the documents cannot be displayed. I do have an offer to e-mail them to anyone who asks and a few have asked. A couple of Real Estate agents have requested them for prospective buyers which has to be a good thing.

Thanks. I suppose anything the software can't convert to text is imported as a picture.

Did you get the part about OCR and PDF files backwards? The file created by OCR software (usually Microsoft Word, but it could be a text file) is much smaller than the equivalent PDF file. One of our PDF files is 18 pages and 3,574 KB. Another document (in MS Word) is 4 pages and 43KB.

I guess we were lucky. Our developer provided all of the documents to the Board in Word format. We used this as a starting place for what we eventually provided on our website.

First, we took the word doc and “printed” it to pdf. This was then made available on the website for download to registered users (Association Unit Owners). This provides them a version that is not easily edited.

Second, we broke down the text from the Declaration, Bylaws and Rules by section and placed them on our website. This allows the registered users to easily search them for specific content. As an example, while I was typing this, I thought I would try a sample search. I searched for “pet nuisance”. It came back and told me that there were 10 sections in the Rules that had either “pet” or “nuisance”. But, only one section contained both words.

The end result has been that this has made the owners more aware of our rules and regulations since we have made it easier for them. Instead of having to pour through page after page, they can quickly find the answers that they are looking for. Also, each section has a button that gives them the ability to send that section of the doc to the management company if they are reporting a violation. That has made it easier for the Board and the management company as well.

I'd have to disagree with that. It is not the Association's place to get involved in the buyer-seller relationship. In our state, the seller has the responsibility of providing the documents directly to the buyer. I would not want to expose the Association to any potential liability by providing those documents on a public website.

No. We use OCR to reduce the digital file size. Compared to an image file the pixels can often be reduced over 90% by removing the 'white' portion of the image file. Then we use PDF or portable document format to prevent easily changing the document.

We have no "members only" section. I had our financial report on the website for a few weeks but took it off after receiving some advice on this forum.

After spending several years as a computer and network support person for a large public high school, I can tell anyone who cares that a website cannot be restricted to any group of people. Users who have been granted access have no problem sharing their IDs and passwords with others. Not only students to other students, but teachers would give students their (the teacher's) ID and passwords because teacher accounts had greater access rights.

Even printed material such as the associations financial statement can easily be misused by a disgruntled member.

You are correct that anyone can share their password and allow others access to members-only documents on a website. However, the members-only website is still a good idea for ease of communication and it's no less secure than mailing paper docs to your members. As you pointed out, they can easily copy (or scan) those paper docs and share them just as easily as sharing a website password. So, even though passwords can be shared, you don't lose any security by publishing on the website, because members can misuse electronic and paper documents alike. As you know from being in IT, computer security is always a balance of cost, security level and usability.

You could secure your documents better than paper by using a community intranet website with biometric security, disable printing and disable screen capture, but that's a bit expensive for a HOA :-)

It's going to be very hard to prove. Even if you could prove that an ID was in use twice at the same time, the member could claim it was multiple family members logged in simultaneously.

Correct, but from talking to my neighbors and other people I know (older people in particular), I doubt that many would take advantage of that opportunity. Many are just not comfortable with computers and Internet access, and most would not take a trip to the library just to view association documents.

Doesn't that go back to the issue of sharing user IDs and passwords? (insert wink smiley here)

The point I've been trying to make (without much success)is that there's a surprisingly large segment of the population in the USA that does not make use of technology that's available to them. Even my own wife does not use the computers available to her except for an occasional game. And you don't have to be elderly to be computer illiterate. There are many adults with little education working in jobs that don't use technology who never found a need to learn. I think we need to keep this in mind when serving and dealing with our members.

For these people, it's much easier to call me on the phone or drop by my house and ask for a copy.

We use a Community123 web site. With this we have a selection button that is an automatic opt out of paper newsletter. They are given the option to deselect the option and continue receiving paper newsletters.

Our member sign up rate has been slow, however, only one person has opted to keep the paper newsletter coming to their home.

When we get 50% signed up on the site, we'll begin sending paper newsletters to only those who have not opted to not receive paper.