Notice for annual meeting

Karl,

I am not an attorney and I do not work in the legal profession.

As I interpret it, the notice (announcement or actual letter) of the meeting is to be given to each member by:

Mail (typically means US Mail)
or
[hand] Delivered (could be hand delivered, could be in a newsletter left in each door, etc.)
or
electronically transmitted (e-mail, fax, perhaps notice on website, etc.)

However, if your Bylaws stipulate a different notice procedure and/or time frame, then the Bylaws is the document that must be complied with (as this is what the statute says). The 14 day notice and method of providing the notice outlined in the statute must only be complied with if your Bylaws do not address the issue.

Postmarked date.

When I was Secretary, for proof of notice of annual meetings, in addition to mailing notices to the members, I mailed one to the Association. Then I simply filed the unopened postmarked envelope as an attachment to the minutes. I know that per FL statutes, this amount of proof isn't necessary, but if ever challenged about the notice, this is better proof then a simple signed piece of paper.

Hope it helps,

Tim

I guess I woke up this am with the mantra of, "seems petty to me", but why is the mailing date so important to you?

I as well have mailed notices according to our Bylaws, it only makes sense it's the postmarked date because no one has control over the USPS. I mailed one notice from the same zip code and it took five day's to get them to our HOA. I figured it went to Cali first and then made it's way back to Maryland.

But I do question why this is important? What has the board done that you want to overturn the apple cart because of a notice and when it was mailed?

Jok2 ... I thought this forum is to ask questions if one has doubts, but maybe I was wrong.

To answer your questions though, the board has done nothing to me (yet), but we do have some people in our community who would like to see the current board fail or worse - e.g. ex-president of the association who is currently investigated by the Department of Business & Professional Regulations (she has a CAM license and paid herself for services with HOA money).

These people would take something like a notice not given within the guidelines of the FL Statues and do what ever they could to stick it up the boards dark side.

To further justify my question (which I don't think I should have to) we also have several homeowners who live outside the country (Israel, France, Canada, DomRep). Mailing to these homeowners doesn't really leave them much time to fill out and send back the proxy unless the notice is mailed on time. Mail to Europe takes up to 10 days. So by the time the homeowner gets the mail, he needs to fill out the proxy and send it back, which takes another 10 days. It does make a difference which date is considered the deadline, but since Tim already gave me the answer, guess our European homeowners are out of luck on this one.

Besides, rules are made to be followed and there is a reason for their assistance of these rules. With your attitude I am sure you would send the notice for an annual meeting 2 days before the meeting and you wouldn't see anything wrong with it. If the association could announce an annual meeting whenever they wanted to, that would make it somewhat difficult for homeowners to prepare themselves, specially when they are out of the country. Maybe this example will also further clarify why this questions is "important" to me.

JoK2 - I apologize for my stupid question, in future I will try to ask questions which do not "seem petty" to others.

Again, thanks to Tim for not tagging my question "petty" and taking the time to provide me with a qualified answer - God bless you for your grace.

HeHe ... thanks JoK2 ... it is all good
God Bless and thanks for you input it is appreciated

The "others" are not asking, I am 100% on the side of the board, I just want to prevent that our evil ex-president is trying something stupid here. She has been harassing the board since she resigned. I filed a complaint against her CAM license, which indirectly moved her to resign. Since that day she is on the case of the new board for everything. Just trying to cover my bases (or the board's in that case) so she can't come from out of the dark and broadside us.

Thanks again

Karl, if you have been part of this forum for awhile, you will see that often posters ask questions a specific way in order to solicit an answer they are looking for (rather than what may be a more correct answer). Regular posters on this site tend to try and "dig" a little deeper to find out what the underlying issue may be. Fortunately, you were asking a simple question to a simple concern.

Please take any questions that were asked in the spirit of trying to see if there was or wasn't an underlying issue as the regular posters were simply trying to identify and address the actual problem rather than a symptom.


You may want to encourage those members to provide an e-mail address to the Association. The Board can then, in addition to sending notice through the mail, send notice via e-mail. The member can then e-mail, fax or (since time will not be available) mail back their proxy.

Karl, we have someone in our HOA that is doing the same. Your President had a CAM license? Wow! You will have no worries if you follow the State Corporation codes, (if applicable) and your CCR's and ByLaws. Which by your question here sounds as if you are, so don't worry too much about the ex. They may cause a lot of headache but in the end, the person on the witch hunt loses if you are following your docs! Good Luck!

as a 'GENERAL' principle of law:

the POST MARK is the legal 'date of delivery' if using USPS

now, imo:

if mailing, since 'normal' delivery is 2 days, I would post mark 2 days in advance even if not STRICTLY required

however, from MULTIPLE person experiences (!don't ask!) the post mark will be the official 'date of record'

in a nutshell: @ 14 days one may either mail OR hand deliver the notice