Inspection of all books, records, papers, during all times for reasonable business hours.

Do all HOA's state this. Do any of you ask to inspect? Have you ever been on the Board and been refused inspection. Do you become suspicious if the Board "doth protest too much"? Do other request inspection? We have a complaint in county court to determine if we may see books, records, papers.

Is fiduciary responsibility involved regardless of stating it in the governing documents?

Before we went self-managed, we went through around 7 management companies. Our records from each of those MCs are sitting in boxes in one of our homeowner's basement. If anyone wanted to see what's in those boxes, it would be a nightmare trying to locate anything. Some day, when someone has the time and desire, we'll go through those records. But no one is interested.

Sometimes it's more than just transparency. When you inherit junk, and people expect you to have everything at your fingertips, well ... that's not always a reasonable expectation.

Think many people hold a "romantic" view of what it means to see records and what records exist. Like I don't see this record so is the HOA board hiding something? Well that record may not even exist or information recorded. So make sure you have a defined list of what information you want to see. The board may or may not have it to provide.

Our records? Kept in a box in the clubhouse closet. How romantic is that? It was over 20 years of records in like 2 banker's boxes. Which I went through and organized. This did NOT include financials as those were electronic. The treasurer/accountant had those. However, we went through the expenditures each meeting and provided copies. Collections we reviewed (openly) but did not refer to names nor distributed outside of the board. We discussed it with you on an individual basis and/or discussed as actions taking for collections.

You would be allowed to view the records upon request during time a board member was available or accountant office was open. Didn't hide a thing. Still would get complaints. It's not my job to spoonfeed you. It's your responsibility to attend meetings to find out what is happening and participate.

Funny thing is that I got accused of "stealing" the HOA records when I moved. The new board got dragged into court over the foreclosure we did. Made me responsible for going to court for them. They told everyone I had taken the records and why they couldn't do it. Funny thing? I am in court testifying to the FACT that the records in the lawyer's hands were the HOA's. They were the EXACT records I had put in a separate file inside the box in the clubhouse. The very clubhouse they held meetings in and had the key to the closet...

So been on the other side of demanding records and providing them. What you may want to view may not actually exist or is just badly organized. I know ours was basically thrown in a box and was once kept by our oldest resident. Good thing she used to be an IRS agent and knew record keeping...

I bought a scanner for $5 at a local thrift store and while sitting on the couch watching tv I would scan. Took awhile, but it only needs to be done once.

Everything was named like this: 01.01.90_INVOICE_LAWN.PDF day, month, year and sorted into folders JAN, FEB, MAR and then by year, 1990, 1991, 1992, etc.

Next, uploaded to google drive. If anyone wants to demand records, I simply give them the url to the shared google drive. They can look through it to their hearts content. No one has to do anything. No one needs to photocopy. No need to do it during business hours, No one needs to lift a finger..... etc.

Keeping stuff simple makes life so much easier for everyone.