who has the right to see Treasury reports?

JamesL1 - provide notice to your management company that you would like to review the association's financial records to better understand where you money is being allocated. you should be granted access. common expenses are equally divisible by all owners.

Lance, I think your efforts to answer questions is admirable. However, could you please check out the information you provide prior to posting. For example your statement "Basically, you can find out about your account but no one elses." based on my experience is not correct. An experienced highly respected HOA attorney has advised that when a request to view or receive copies of individual delinquent accounts has a valid basis these must be provided but should not be made public except when they are entered into court records. Perhaps you could provide statutes or phrases from controlling documents to help substantiate some of your comments.

IMO it is NOT proper for a HOA board to reveal other people's accounts that owe money. IMO you should only inquire about your account and ask for an "Overview" of how many people owe in general. It is NOT professional to reveal Joe Blow's address and amount owed to anyone who asks. It can create a "vigilante" system within the HOA. No one knows why one person owes money. I had a person on a heart transplant list who was unable to pay his dues until he got out of the hospital. A person who may have gotten access to this information may have created an issue and demanded action. How do you lien someone on a heart transplant list versus an angry homeowner? Collections are more of a "private" matter between EACH party. It's okay to know the OVERALL non-payment rate but NOT an individual beyond your account.
For the record, you will NOT see me post any such "statute/law" quotes. I am NOT a lawyer. A lawyer is a paid trained educated person who studied the law and are the ones who PRACTICE law. I do NOT practice law nor have the right to. What good does a legal quote do me or anyone else if I can't legally apply it? It may be good to know a law exists, but I can't do anything but quote it's existance. Quite frankly, it's a real stretch for the imagination that when someone does "qoute" the law in a letter to their board, that the board members would even understand it properly without consulting legal council. Do you really expect a "Soccer mom/retired iron worker" to understand and translate the meaning of a statute you found on the internet and then apply it? Your board are NOT professional people. Adding the fact they now have to spend extra HOA funds on hiring a lawyer, in order to now defend themselves against your legal quote.
For the record, I did study Criminology and Business Law. We never ever quoted laws. We read them and translated them into "layman's terms". It's much easier for someone to relate on what the true meaning or origination of the law is than to actually just quote it in black and white. It's actually a very big "pet peeve" of mine to see what I call "Monday morning internet lawyers". Since someone doesn't practice law everyday, they may not get that the law is in process of being overturned or is no longer valid. Giving out law quotes doesn't resolve the issues, it just makes it so someone has to be hired to translate them.

In AZ, the MC can only charte 0.15 per copy. If they charge a fee for labot to retrieve the files to copy, they have to charge the Association that fee, not the homeowner requesting the copies.

Roger, you are saying that if my neighbor on one side wants to know if my neighbor on the other side is up to date in his assessments I have to tell him?

And what if he then spreads this information around?

There was some discussion a while back about publishing names of delinquent members and if I remember correctly, the consensus was that this would not be proper. Giving this information to a member could easily have the same results.

I'm not sure exactly what point you're trying to make but I don't think we have a right to divulge a member's personal financial information to anyone without their permission or a court order.

Board members are generally the ONLY parties with Collection reports. (Excluding MC's or Accountants). This is done for several reasons. 1. Is to protect the privacey of each individual. 2. They are the ones with the power to pursue any legal actions to collect.
If you were allowed to find out what your neighbor owes the HOA, it would be on the verge of "vigilantism". What if you don't like your neighbor? What if your neighbor is terminally ill and can't pay their bills? The board knows this information and can use it to decide how to properly handle the situation. It's NOT for an individual to decide. Would you want your neighbors to know how much you owed?
The board is the one's with the power to pursue the proper collection. They can decide to pursue collections by liening or by foreclosing on the property. An individual homeowner can't. The board represents ALL the homeowner's. Their job is to make sure the HOA budget is operating properly.

I disagree that every member that doesn't pay their dues are "thieves". It has been my experience that non-payment of dues happen for many reasons. Believe it or not one of the MOST situations I ran into is the misconception that dues are paid by escrow! Owner's don't understand that dues are amounts owed above and seperate from their mortgage payment. I've had to contact a few owner's and had to explain to them how dues collections work.
We had one person who qualified for "disability". They weren't aware that even though they did have an "arrangement" with their mortgage company and other bills to be lowered or dismissed (in some cases) that HOA dues did NOT fall into this catagory. Disability payments still had to be used to pay their HOA dues in full.
Our HOA did have a 6 months rule of non-payment, liens were placed. We had one foreclosure in 20 years that I did as President. The owner didn't pay their dues for over 2 years and owed a special assessment. That owner had also tried to force their tenant to pay the bill and had an illegal rent to own contract with them. They threatened to burn down several common elements over the years of dealing with them. Yes, that person could have been considered a "thieve" but NOT all members were like this one.
IMO liens/foreclosures should be done by case to case. Not all situations are even. I accepted payment arrangements from some members if they were behind. I'd asked them simply to "double" their dues payment each month. Instead of paying the $50 they paid $100 until the debt was paid off. It not only helped them catch up but we got more money in that month as well. This method also helped them from reaching the 6 month rule in some cases.
It cost the HOA to place a lien in our state and they are out that money until the lien is paid. So placing a $300 lien on a debt for $200 doesn't make sense. It is a balance between knowing when to place a lien and when NOT to place one. It can simply be a "mistake" on an owner's part or it could be "intentional" non-payment. Someone doesn't like a rule or is disgruntle about an issue, IMO you place a lien on them. Because they are most likely the ones who will "skip" out on paying at any cost. An owner who's fallen on "hard times" who had never had a history of non-payment before, I'd hesistate on liening. If they are terminally ill, then wait till they pass to take action. The estate handling eventually will be responsible. Why make someone's dying days miserable with reminding them of the bills they owe? Most likely when they pass, the home will be turned over to family members who will sell the home and can afford to pay the debt with the profits. There is still a little time to place a lien on a property if it goes into probate court. Atleast in probate court, the lien has a better chance of being settled by some legal means. It just takes time.
We had 2 residents die within weeks of eachother. The new board decided to "forgive" a month's dues. This was an incredibly BAAAAD idea. It would be better if the other owner's had collected money to pay the dues on the behalf of the families. Instead, that monthly dues amount couldn't be added to any liens that were necessary at the time. The one family sold the house at a profit and didn't pay. The other family let the house go into probate. No lien was ever placed and the house sat abandoned for almost a year. The whole time NO dues could ever be collected on that property. If a lien had been placed, when HUD took over, they may have had to pay the lien off.
Find a balance between being "tough" on non-payers and have a "soft hand" when it's something beyond control. We all know we have to pay, it's just sometimes comes down to ability to do so.
i

MelissaP1 - if i wanted to find who is delinquent and the amount, i could, as a board member or as a resident. you state "if you were allowed to find out what your neighbor owes the HOA, it would be on the verge of "vigilantism". incorrect. knowledge does not equal vigilantiism. if you chose to be a vigilanti with the information and spread gossip, or untruths regarding the owners financial situtation, it would be on the verge of "vigilantism". knowledge in the wrong hands is dangerous. but in my community there's not a darn thing the board or MC can do if i request the information. they can give me a hard time all they want. if i want to know (which i don't care to) then i have a right to know. if an owner isn't comfortable with this possibility, they should make sure they pay up along with everyone else, or move.

i think some who have this belief that the ability to have the knowledge in and of itself is dangerous needs to take a step back. realize and accept that purchase in an HOA is differenct than non-HOA living. purchase means you accept and are subject to those differences.

Going back to RodgerB’s post I could not help but find it ironic that Rodger asked LanceT for statutes and controlling documents to substantiate his claim while Rodger’s own authority was the advise of a highly respected but unnamed attorney. More to the point though this advise did, as is usually the case in respected attorney opinions, contain an important caveat – that the request must have a “valid basis”.

If a board is exercising its fiduciary duties in a responsible manner it is difficult to imagine what that valid basis might be. Association membership doesn’t automatically give you a right to know. Certainly the Board should either report, or provide upon request information on the number of delinquencies, the average time-late, the length of the longest delinquency and the ongoing actions to resolve problems. This is significantly different than opening a file which will contain the name of the person involved and perhaps correspondence that goes into the personal reasons the member fell behind. Threats of lawsuits not withstanding I have no doubt that our Board would, with the support of our attorney, refuse such requests unless the person making the requests could show compelling reasons for needing the information.

Even so circumstances might exist where such a request would have a valid basis. If for example a Board reports a two year delinquency and there is little evidence that collection action has been taken, and the home-owning mother-in-law of the Board president is known to be having financial problems, that ought to constitute a valid reason to at least request the name of the delinquent.

With regard to the original question I believe from what I have seen that most states will require that the association’s financial records be available to the members for review. As someone pointed out though the real problem is that the records may not be easy to get at. In our state that in itself would be a violation of the law.

Is it possible to look at this situation from a different angle. When you buy a share in a corporation (house/condo) you agree to abide by the Master Deed and Covenants, etc. One of your rights is to view the corporation record upon your request. Everyone one by the act of joining agrees to this, and a ton of other things. Nothing I have ever read specifies any exclusions, just associations records. So we have all in the Regime agreeing this is alright and signing that agreement. No one else is involved.
Now, suppose a member looks at books and proceeds to tell what he read. Who would you sue? Appears to me you would have to sue the member as the Association is blameless. That seems proper if the suee (sic) is not a member of the association. Now if he is a member and he ratted out a fellow member the suit would have to be extraneous from the Association, because you can't sue yourself. Same as suing a member of the Board, it would have to be on a personal level, unless the right to sue was specified in the CC&R'S. I just can't see how a member of the Association can sue the Association. Suppose a Board member absconds with some money. It can be charged that the Board didn't do their job right and if proven, sue the Board Members for that offense but you still need to sue the wayward Board Member to get the Associations money back.

Gotta be something I am missing.

David, you read a critical phase that others chose to ignore - "valid basis". Association membership does give a member a right to know about specifics on delinquent accounts when there is a "valid basis".

One example is: A member was billed for late charges and interest which the Board would not forgive. Meanwhile they were told by two other members their late charges had been forgiven (under similar circumstances) and they were never charged interest. The member felt this was due to the President, who contolled the Board, having a grudge against them. In this circumstance that member has every right to review the delinquent accounts to confirm whether or not they were being treated the same as other members.

Another obvious example is when these records are germaine to a legal action.

IMO, some of the posts on this thread reflect personal biases which need to be put aside by Board members when they are making this type of delicate decision. Business judgement is needed, not personal judgement. This is an example where guidance by a good professional Managing Agent can keep the Board out of trouble.

RonaldW - since you have no idea where i'm coming from and what i'm trying to say, i will attempt to make my point crystal clear. the first amendment of the united states guarantees freedom of speech. are you going to repeal the first amendment because someone chooses to say something that is harmful to others? same applies for the access to details of the association's records such as delinquent maintenance accounts. are you going to repeal the ability (if it exists, or if it is required in your hoa) to have access because someone may be unwise with the information? as for a lawsuit, threaten all you want. if an owner has the ability to access the information, your threatening a lawsuit is actually accusing them of something, perhaps before they even did anything the information. if an owner is stupid enough to use the information they garner to harm others, i'm sure the law would be on the side of the owner that was harmed. if the association is required to provide the info, they can not be held to blame for the stupidity of a vigilanti owner.

Melissa, my post was meant to illustrate why a member had the right to review the accounts receivable. In that example, upon inspection, the owners suspicions were confirmed. They were not being treated the same as other members with similar circumstances. I personally assisted this owner in FORCING the Board to allow inspection of the HOA's documents. Then assisted in getting the Board to correct the discrimination against this owner over the objections of the President and Treasurer.

Besides the regular assessment (not dues), this owner was being charged $25/month late charges even though no other delinquent owner was charged a late fee. And they were improperly being assessed interest each month of over 100% APR. No other member had ever been charged interest and the CC&Rs specified a maximum interest rate of 18% APR could be assessed.

Also, late charge and interest can be included in the lien under their CC&Rs in Colorado. You may wish to read previous posts on this board to become aware that specific Covenants which apply to your HOA plus your state's statutes are not the same as others HOAs and other state's statutes.

I wanted to throw my thoughts into this. If an owner wants to look at the records, they should be made available to them including collections and receivables. First of all, they have the right to inspect the minutes of the meetings which would/should disclose any collection activities. Second, suppose that owner joined the BOD? Wouldn't they then have access to the records?

RodgerB

In my original post I certainly agreed that there could be a valid reason for requesting individual records. Evidence that the Board is guilty of discrimination, or unethical or illegal behavior would seem to qualify. In the example you cited the request was supported by the fact that the evidence of misbehavior was provided by the two recipients of differnt treatment. The requestor already knew who they were. What was the result of the issue? Did the Board apologise? Were they impeached?

with respect to your comment on professional Managing Agent guidance "good" is the operative phrase. Our Developer/Builder started us off with a law firm, an HOA professional to run our Board meetings and a Management Company to handle finances and operations. After reaching 60% buildout four years ago an election was held for the first resident Board member and I won. I had never lived in an HOA before and knew nothing at all about them. The guidance of the HOA professional and assistance of the Management Agent was invaluable in getting up to speed. The latter worked for one of the largest firms in our region and one with an excellent reputation.

Nonetheless, our experience with them was less than satisfactory. Without going into the reasons why they boil down to the capabilities of the individual who is providing the support and the amount of time they have to spend on it. After transition we relieved the Management Company of their operational management responsibilities, retained their financial/payroll services and hired an on-site, full-time GM. We also dismissed the Developer's attorney in favor of a local one. That attorney, working with our GM is the source of our guidance. It is working well and we remain on good terms with the Management Company.

DaveS