Owners asking for BOARD contact info

Our HOA has an owner who is adamant she legally has the right to the the boards personal info email and cell. All communication must be through our manager as this lady keeps threatening legal action each time she is sent a violation notice.

I can’t find anything in Davis Sterling about releasing personal contact info. Our manager is not going to release any contact information but this is a concern.

I'm shocked that your property manager doesn't already have a definitive answer.

Under California law I believe the HOA does not have to provide phone numbers. Hence AFAIC it should not. But as of this writing, email addresses are arguably something a HOA has to provide. I believe it is the records inspection sections of Davis-Stirling and California corporation statutes, along with a recently enacted statute, that cover this. See:

https://www.davis-stirling.com/HOME/Statutes/Corp-Code-8330
https://www.davis-stirling.com/HOME/Statutes/Civil-Code-5210#axzz2CojkjgpM
https://www.davis-stirling.com/HOME/Membership-Lists

In late 2019, California's governor signed into law (effective now) SB323. (Thanks to KerryL1 for the latter information.) Among other things, SB323, "makes member e-mail addresses part of the membership list available to all members, upon request. Members can opt out of having their e-mail addresses included with the membership list, but the bill makes NO allowance for e-mail addresses that have already been provided to associations." For more information, see https://www.adamsstirling.com/blog/analysis-of-sb-323 Regarding email addresses, the bottom line of the latter site is: Talk to the HOA attorney.

But a caveat: It's true that this woman is perhaps legally entitled to the email addresses of all members, including directors. However there is zero requirement for directors to respond to her emails. I think the first email this woman sends to each director should be met with a response like the following: "Dear Ms. ____, I am unable to speak 'ex parte' to HOA members who have violation notices. Please send your concerns to the HOA manager. Thank you for understanding, Director _____." All subsequent emails about her violation notices must be ignored. For the HOA's own legal protection, the HOA and its board must insist that this person follow the procedure for appealing violations, then as desired, pursue IDR, ADR, et cetera.

There is no requirement that directors' email addresses be given to Owners. Now, as Augustin shows, that email addresses are a part of CA "membership lists," those who do not want their email address "out there" need to let the Board, via management know to delete theirs.

Are you on the Board, Michelle? Has the Board called this woman to one or more hearings so she can say her piece?

I disagree with Bill too on this point.

Why does it have to be their "Personal" email address? Just make a Gmail account and be done with it. Plus don't put your name in the information. Use the HOA's name when filling it out. That way it's not under one person's name when they receive email. It will be under the HOA's name.

I do this with my email all the time. Don't use my real name when setting it up. That way when people get my email it protects my ID. Simply put the HOA's name as first name and something else for the last when setting up account. This can be an account the other board members have a password to as well. Just maybe assign 1 person to send out email though...

Nonsense. It is woefully inefficient and bad for a corporation to have volunteer directors answering individual owners' frequently niggling, ill-informed concerns. A manager's job is in part to run significant interference for the board on the myriad minor issues that arise.

As our HOA Board President I always like to preach to my board that whenever we speak to homeowners either by voice or in emails to give them one simple statement. It is that I am not speaking on behalf of the board, I am speaking to you as a single member of a 5 member team. I always tell them that if they want the whole board to hear your message please send it to our Board email address.

I can't tell you how many times in the past you will hear someone say the board told me they could do something when in fact they spoke to one member who gave his opinion on a situation.

This nails it.

From where I am sitting, kudos as well to the above remarks.

As normal, you have paid attention to what others with experience have said. I am done with you.

CORRECTED:
As normal, you have paid NOattention to what others with experience have said. I am done with you.

I still agree with Sheila, Augustin and MarkM. The latter sums up one problem: "I can't tell you how many times in the past you will hear someone say the board told me they could do something when in fact they spoke to one member who gave his opinion on a situation." There is as also pointed out the problem of competing advice, ignorant directors trying to explain a budget line item, accusations of favoritism because some have director access and others do not, etc.

Certainly a gmail account for the whole board along the lines that JohnC has seems fine and would be necessary for self managed HOAs.His HOA doesn't have an onsite PM OR actual open meetings, so how else can owners communicate with their board?

With onsite property managers, there is no reason why an owner should have direct access to a director. And in CA, NO owners may have the phone number of another owner without permission.

Perhaps MarkW and Bill can tell us why owners should be able to phone or email individual directors. What are the reasons?

Kerry

To clarify, we are not a self managed association. We do have an MC but their duties, as are all MC duties, are dependent on what a BOD agreed to when hired. Our PM basically does two things:

1. Handle our money (with some checks and balances) and prepares a 30 page monthly financial report for BOD review. Any owner can have an Email copy of this report. In 5 years, we have only had 2 owners request such and they received such within 24 hours. We do not hide anything.

2. Act as the heavy in sending out violation notices (as directed by the BOD) and following up with such and
tracking fines for such.

Our BOD Meetings are not closed. Granted we do not have to give owners notification of such meetings but they are open to any owner that requests to attend. In 5 years we have had 2 owners request such.
What did was open the meeting and at that time allow the owner to speak/ask questions. In both cases, the owners left happy and in one case, the owner asked how he could help us.

Please rest your last post, MarkW. It's incomprehensible in its current form. Thank you.

Right, tell this to all the Fortune 500 companies' boards of directors.
You're funny.

Uh huh. Apartment complexes are going to be owned by either private owners, companies without shareholders, or publicly held corporations (with shareholders and so a board). These owners are going to expect management to handle the smaller issues and only forward the larger issues.

Uh, oh; I think that MarkW, a former CA Property manager, needs a refresher course in CA Corporations Codes re: the duties of boards of directors in non-profit mutual benefit corporations such as most CA Common Interest Developments (CIDs)

Then, he can review a typical set of bylaws about how the board may delegate the day-to-day "running" of the corporation to others, e.g., PMs. Those same Bylaws will say who's ultimately responsible for the HOA.

Again, why should Owners have the email addresses of individual directors in cases where there are full-time property managers such as our HOA?

NOW, that is really funny, you lecturing me on how a HOA SHOULD run. Get out into the real HOA world before throwing stones, because you really don't know how things really get done.

Again, this is not a habit of yours, because you don't seem to have the time, but the second post says that one email account should be set up as a forwarding account to the individual email addresses of the Board members. Many associations, even Fortune 500 companies, have email addresses set up based on their domain address. It's not good to have your personal email address used for association business.

Who in the hell do you think really runs these HOA's, the Board. You're joking, right?

Who do you think runs the day-to-day operations at Kerry's complex, the Board. What does it cost their association? At 211 units, the going price for a condo is about $15 a door, or $3165. I bet that doesn't scratch the surface in her case.

And if they are self-managed, who gets the emails or correspondences?

For ten years, I sent up one email account for communication for the association. Never once, in over 120 plus associations, have I had ANY problems. You may know how to write legal mumbo gumbo letters, but it appears you are clueless on how HOA really work.

I don't think anyone has said that board members should be inaccessible. Several mentioned having a group HOA email account that is forwarded to all board members. This gives owners the access they need, and it is free if you use gamil or a similar service. This is so easy and so obvious, I don't understand why anyone would have an issue with it.

However, that's a far cry from giving out board members' individual email addresses.

The problem with this is that it leads to something we've talked about here in other threads: association business being conducted outside of official channels. If the issue is important enough, then it belongs in board meetings that are open to the entire community. If it's not important, then why bother with it?

In addition, these "off line" discussions can give the appearance of favoritism to certain owners, which is something that should be avoided. (This is one of the reasons our attorney said ix-nay to board members responding to questions on social media.)

Yes, I think that they are knowledgeable and disciplined board members out there who can maybe handle these individual discussions without getting themselves into trouble. But, to cite another often-heard complaint on this site, there are way too many board members who are neither knowledgeable nor disciplined. Why give them another tool for getting things wrong when it is so easy to get it right?

MarkW, I & others have repeated throughout this thread, Cathy was most recent, that the Board can have its own gmail account. In particular, I noted the one JohnC's board uses.

Thank you Bill for your mature and well-reasoned reply. The questions you use as examples are so routine that our Owners wouldn't even bother trying to email a director about them. They'd go straight to the PM, who'd reply by email the same day. I think Bill's been very lucky to have worked entirely with directors who'd give accurate replies to owners who might email them. We haven't been so fortunate here, and occasionally, a director or even the board prez has given woefully ignorant replies to face-to-face inquiries (we're elevator towers with lobbies & mailrooms so see owners in person every day).

Even our new very honest and hardworking board has new directors on it who simply don't yet have the knowledge they might need to answer an email question from an owner especially if the questions weren't as benign as bill's examples. As a seasoned director, I'd prefer they not be put on the spot and maintain their privacy.

We do trust our PM will forward inquiries and comments that are not easily answered to the Board in our monthly board packets. As George notes, we also have Open Forums at our monthly open board meetings, as required in CA, and we have two, not just one. We have a suggestion box in each mailroom and those remarks, if not handled by the PM are forwarded to the board. Owners here may also submit agenda items for the monthly open board meetings.

I'm still not understanding MarkW's replies. He seems to wonder what we board members do if we're not "running" the HOA. In a nutshell, we make policy and direct the PM to carry it out.

The problem is not that you don't understand, the problem is you don't care for anyone that might have a different opinion of yours!

I said from the very beginning I set up one specific email address for the association's governing body, just like Cathy mentioned and just like John mentioned and just like Bill mentioned, but you don't want to hear that.

You complain that your old Board was bad, but then, we only have your opinion on that, right?

Prior to starting my own company, none of the companies I worked provided web portals or website for any of their HOA's, so none of their email addresses were available by us. I am sure that owners had some of the email addresses from over the years. That was the individual Board members decision, not ours.

My company provided web pages and web portals at no charge. Having one email address for the association's governing body plus the manager WAS the Board's decision, not mine. Most of the owners correspondence came to a manager, but an owner might occasionally send an email to the association's email address. If the manager responded the Board was blind copied, thus shielding their personal email account.

You should know, I know I do, that renters have no standing, so their email address would never be made available. But, you also should know that owners email addresses are now available, if they haven't opt-ed out, through the association's membership list.

Off topic: If the three got on once, they can get on again. This is from experience.