Board Member's Contact Information

Started by JoeG13 • 9 replies • 875 views

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JoeG13 (California)
Posts: 3

Posted:

After looking around for a few hours now, I can't seem to find anything that says an HOA Board Member is or isn't required to share their contact details with the HOA of owners. Does anyone know where I can find this law?
I'm an HOA owner in Los Angeles, CA.

Thank you in advance

TimB4 (Tennessee)
Posts: 21,059

Posted:

If you mean that they are on the board, the Association should make that known to the members.
They must make it known in their annual report to the States corporation commission (if they are incorporated).

If you mean contact info, home address, email, phone, cell, etc., then there is no requirement I know of that this has to occur.
We have had board members who had no issue with their phone number published and those who did not want it published.

If you desire to find out this info, some of it may be in the annual report to the corporation commission.
Look on their website and see if you can get it.

Members may also request to review a membership list which may or may not have all the info you are looking for.
However, the Association doesn't have to share unless it's asked.

JoeG13 (California)
Posts: 3

Posted:

Thank you TimB4!

Thats really good to know. I had read that a membership list must be supplied if requested but I wasn't sure if their email or phone number must be given also. Our HOA insists we go through them to contact any Board members but I have found that over the last 3 issues we have brought up, the message has been incorrectly given to the board members... For example, some stuff was stolen from our storage area and when we requested the video surveilance from a specific date and time, they asked the board member in charge of security to check a date and time that was different from the one we requested. They incorrectly wrote the wrong info down. This has happened multiple time now and I am trying to see if I can get the Board members info to go to them directly.

MelissaP1 (Alabama)
Posts: 13,836

Posted:

Don't think there is a "Law" one must provide personal contact information if your a Board member or even HOA member. You are to be owning a home to be a member. Which means if you have a name of that board member, then you can see their address from the street. Whether or not they live there is a different issue. However, that should give you their address.

For what the issue is, I'd send the police to request the information. If your making a police report, then that should be part of the process. Let the police know who the security person contact is and let them deal with it. Otherwise, why need to review the tape if not making a police report?

Former HOA President

TimB4 (Tennessee)
Posts: 21,059

Posted:

Quote:

Posted By JoeG13 on 01/16/2020 7:38 PM
Thank you TimB4!

Thats really good to know. I had read that a membership list must be supplied if requested but I wasn't sure if their email or phone number must be given also.

Regarding the HOA providing email addresses, see the following from the Davis Stirling site:

MEMBERSHIP LIST EMAILS

Regarding info on requesting membership lists, see the following from the Davis Stirling site:

BOOKS & RECORDS MENU
scroll down to Membership Lists

Quote:

Posted By JoeG13 on 01/16/2020 7:38 PM
Thank you TimB4!

Our HOA insists we go through them to contact any Board members.

When you say HOA, do you mean a management company?

The HOA is the membership.
The HOA is managed by the Board of Directors
The Board may hire where they see a need (MC for example) to assist them.

My suggestion to you would be to encourage the board to create a group email address so when you contact the HOA (or MC), a copy of that email is automatically dispersed to all board members. This way, no email addresses are disclosed to anyone except the HOA address but all are informed.

KerryL1 (California)
Posts: 14,550

Posted:

As Tim's cite shows, an HOA's membership list in CA must be provided to any Owners who asks for it in writing. It'll have every Owners' mailing address on it UNLESS an owner has opted out in writing.

I'm not really very knowledgeable about this new CA legislation, eff. 1/1/20, but unless owners opt out, if their email address is with the Association, it will be included with the Owner's address on the Membership List.

Our board is approving this month at our open board meeting an "opt-in" form so that Owners' email info won't be on the Membership List unless they sign to opt-in.

Phone info still will not be on the Memberhip List.

JohnC46 (South Carolina)
Posts: 14,265

Posted:

We do not hide our BOD Member's addresses, Emails, and phone numbers. We do not publish them, but many owners have them.

Any comments, suggestions, criticisms, whatever we tell our fellow owners to send them to OURHOANAME.Gmail. Each Email sent is automatically forwarded to all BOD Members by Gmail. We do not allow owners to directly contact our PM. If they do, they are told by the PM to Email the BOD. The PM will also send us an Email concerning the contact.

MarkM19 (Texas)
Posts: 1,459

Posted:

Joe G,
As usual TimB always gives great advice. Our Boards have always had Group email address that went just to the Board. Sometimes PMC try to protect the boards but while doing that they hide issues till they become much bigger.

The only question I have for you is have you been to any of your board meetings. The board is always present and usually you should have time to bring concerns up to all in attendance. If no action is taken be there at the next meeting and then the next until it gets resolved.

JoeG13 (California)
Posts: 3

Posted:

Sorry for the belated reply.
Thank you everyone for the information. I had to leave town for a bit but we had our annual meeting last week and made some of the suggested listed here and apparently in the past, they had issues with owners contacting the board too much so they decided to use the Property Management Company as the go between. I spoke with all the board members and other owners and they started our own email chain just for dialogue and communication between all the owners. I had explained that our HOA wasn't always needed to be a middle man and gave several examples of issues that were mishandles due to the Property Management Company's involvement. I submitted a request for a list of the members and found out that I was not the only one requested this access and as it turns out, a majority of the other owners at the meeting wanted the same access. This kind of forced the HOA Board to start an email chain and also a little more transparency.

I appreciate all of your inputs with me.

DeidreB (Virginia)
Posts: 113

Posted:

Like others I am not aware of nor have I heard of any such law. Nor have I seen it addressed in any By Laws or Declarations.

Just a thought, I once used a specially created email address just for HOA Board business. That kept my personal life free and clear of Board communications with the broader membership.

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