The minutes of a HOA meeting

What is the time frame that we must follow in getting the minutes of our meeting out to the residents? No, nothing about that is in our CCRs and are not mentioned in any of our rules.... The management company said that the minutes can ONLY be sent out to the residents following a subsequent meeting at which time minutes of the previous meeting can be approved even if we have meetings 3-4 months apart....how do other HOAs handle this?

There is no mandate about this, but it shouldn't take forever for minutes to be distributed. They SHOULD be approved by the board before distribution because members need to hear them (or at least read a draft copy) so the secretary can be advised of any clarifications or corrections. THEN the board votes to approve them. Remember, these are considered legal documents because they reflect the official actions of the association. They're not a note for not recap of who said what, but should accurately reflect the decisions the board made.

Don't overthink this. All you need to do is have your meeting and direct the secretary to have a draft available for board review no later than 72 hours following the meeting (24 would be even better, as he/she might be less likely to forget something). All board members should be given a deadline as to when they should send in corrections or clarifications. The secretary can prepare a second draft with the corrections, you hold another short meeting to discuss and vote. Make the minutes available in your newsletter or on your community's website (preferably both), and then rinse and repeat 3-4 months from now.

And don't forget to add some sort of action item list, indicating who's responsible for doing what by the next meeting. When you put things in writing and give deadlines, people are more apt to take it seriously.

If that's too much, you may need to consider having your meetings more frequently, perhaps every other month, especially if homeowners complain about the frequency (that could be the real problem).

Some states allow voting by email, some don't.

If your state DOES allow voting via email, simply email them to BoD as quickly as possible, get email approvals from the BoD and post however you usually do it.

You should check state law, Alex. some states, like CA, do have requirements. But there's no requirement in CA to send minutes out to owners once approved. or in draft form.

There is a statutory requirement that Board-approved minutes be available to owners. If minutes are not approved 30 days past the meeting, the draft minutes must be made available to owners.

I suspect there’ a lot of needless verbiage in the minutes and people want to see that. It becomes a narrative rather than minutes of a business meeting.

So - a summary of ACTIONS only can be released at any time that simply state the boards’s business accomplishment:

Example-

“Motion by Joe to clean the pool this week. Passed unanimously.”

Yes, I think many of you and Kerry are right... I will post the results of our situation in about 3 weeks

Alex,

Can the board vote via email in Oklahoma?

If so, why not approve in that manner and release to the HOA?

No Gregg... cannot vote by ballot

Gee where did I say that??

Meeting Minutes are a record of what the BOD did as in motions made and acted on. They are not a record of everything said.

A BOD might have spent 2 hours discussing something but until a Motion is made there is no need to publish what was said. Even after a Motion is Made and Seconded and then discussed for say a 1/2 hour before voting on it, there is no need to record what was discussed then either. As an example:

A Motion to Raise Dues 20% was proposed by John Smith.
Lucy Brown Seconded the Motion.
The BOD discussed the Motion.
The BOD voted on the Motion and it was approved 4 to 1.

Some will add actual voting such as Smith, Brown, Jones and White voted in favor of the Motion. Williams voted against the Motion.

KISS

Uh, oh, working off memory, I was incorrect on a couple of points re: Calif. & meeting minutes.

1st, as Sue pointed out, a "summary" of the meeting is OK until the minutes are actually approved by the board: CA "Civil Code §4950. Meeting Minutes.
(a) The minutes, minutes proposed for adoption that are marked to indicate draft status, or a summary of the minutes, of any board meeting, other than an executive session, shall be available to members within 30 days of the meeting. The minutes, proposed minutes, or summary minutes shall be distributed to any member upon request and upon reimbursement of the association’s costs for making that distribution."

"(b) The annual policy statement, prepared pursuant to Section 5310, shall inform the members of their right to obtain copies of board meeting minutes and of how and where to do so."

2nd Once approved by the board, they should be somehow distributed to members.
From Davis-stirling.com: "Publish Approved Minutes. Once draft minutes have been approved by the board, they should be distributed to the membership in some fashion--either by summarizing them for the newsletter, posting them on a common area bulletin board, posting them in a password protected place on the association's website, and/or mailing them to the membership. Approved minutes must be permanently available for inspection by the membership."

Still, Alex needs to learn what OK requires (if anything).

Said summary would, in fact, be the

... wait

... wait

... wait for it

... wait for it

MINUTES

(after the BOD approves them AT THE NEXT MEETING)

KerryL1: le us know how that turns out....

Alex,

Did you ever say it was or was not legal for the Board to vote by email?

Geno,

My odd FS617 voluntary association tries to align with 720 ....

I can’t find the required recording of votes by directors in 720 ... maybe just blind from reading it so much ... can you direct me to it, please?

Geno,

Thanks ... I guess I screwed up a couple of minutes this cycle . No real foul for us since we are FS 617, but I was really trying to align with 720.

All our votes were unanimous, however ... since 720 doesn’t address that circumstance specifically, I should have stated “unanimous” in the minutes.