HOA metting turned to "officers meeting"

2 meetings ago the newly appointed HOA has a "board meeting" the community members were allowed to go, and we could talk about topics as they came up. Everyone talked and it went rather well.

In the mean time I heard some of the board members aggravated that "members showed up" and this time around they said they were going to call it a "officers meeting" they said that community members could show up , but COULD NOT TALK TIL the end?

Is this even legal. The by laws have no such thing. I live in FL and do not see in the section 720 where it stipulates that HOA members have to wait til the end to speak?

Are they making things up? Is this even legal?

thanks for fast answer.

Since Geno is in FL, I'd heed his words. While your own HOA documents, most likely your Bylaw, can tell you a lot about how Board meetings should be run, state laws often take precedence over HOA documents.

My understanding about FL is that Associations may only have executive sessions for very limited reasons. If a quorum of the Board meets, it's a board meetings and owners must be allowed to attend and to speak (unless a legit ex. sess).

By the way, Noah, many boards of directors have directors who are not officers. Are all of your board members officers?

There is no "officer meeting". Just a Board meeting. How often an attendee speaks or when is dependent on the guidelines of the Board.

If you post an agenda with specific topics in advance of the meeting, allow those that show up to speak BEFORE decisions are made on the action items to be discussed and maybe voted on.

The 720 statute specifies the meetings: the directors and/or officers do not. By not observing professional and accurate terms of reference, boards confuse members. The meetings are: Board Meeting (open), Board Meeting (closed) allowed when HOA employment matters and actual or pending litigation is discussed, Special Meeting, Annual Member Meeting and Committee Meetings. Committee Meetings that will be expending HOA funds must be noticed and open to members.

Boards can additionally have special informational meetings, budget meetings, workshop meetings but these are not recognized per se in the statute. Rather, the statute states that ANY gathering at which a quorum of directors and/or officers are in attendance is a Board Meeting and subject to notice requirements and must be open to members.

The statute provides only that members can speak to designated items. This is vague and typical of Florida legislative legal-speak. Unlike condos, HOA's are not required to publish an agenda prior to the meeting, so it is a gotcha for HOA's because members do not necessarily know in advance what the "designated items" are. Where the HOA board publishes an agenda or, if there is something a member wants to speak to that is not on the agenda, the member can write to the Board and request that they be given an opportunity to speak to their concern. The Board does not have to grant the request, but typically will. The Board can put time guidelines on members' speaking. If something is discussed during a board meeting-whether on the agenda or not-it is fair game for a member to "speak to" but the board can put a time limit on that and can require that it be done at the end of its meeting.

What MY board did was not only made members wait till the end of the meeting, they actually adjourned the meeting before allowing members to speak to "designated items", reducing the member input to after-meeting chit chat and avoiding recording and entering any owner comments in the official record! Rude to the max! (And some people on this forum wonder why I am not a fan of HOAs?) Members recorded the meetings and comment period and published them in response to this action.

Members should always remember that they are invited guests at the Board's meeting. The board should also realize that they are doing the work of the Association with funds contributed by the people who elected them to their position and deserve to be heard. Respect should be a foundation for two-way dialogue, regardless of what the statutes say. The Board can conduct meetings as they see fit and do not have to be as restrictive as statutes allow them to be.

If meetings take too long with member input, boards should point the finger at themselves. They are either not controlling the meeting, the meetings may be too infrequent, or there are a lot of contentious issues that the board is not handling.

I would recommend looking up state statues prior to offering YOUR opinion, or pass on the question if you don't know or don't want to research the subject properly.