Most Common Timeframe for Annual Membership Meeting?

Hi All,

Current neighborhood operates on Jan-Dec fiscal year, but a couple of years ago started having annual meetings in December - so, at the time of the meeting all financials for the year are estimates.

Docs call for a year after the CCRs and Bylaws were signed (January), but there is the usual language allowing flexibility to whenever the Board decides.

Is there a preferable flow that should dictate the flow?
- end of FY
- audit of financials
- annual meeting with "audited financial statements."

While there are obviously outliers, when, based on your experience do most HOA/COAs have their annual meetings?

We're considering rewickering the chronology based on logic and simplicity.

As a BTW, what's a reasonable number for a full audit of an HOA with assessments (no other revenue other than interest on the reserves) in the $800K range? Low cost of living area of Florida - not south Florida.

FS720 calls the audit out this way ... "3. An association with total annual revenues of $500,000 or more shall prepare audited financial statements." And, does this mean a complete audit - i.e. what does this mean wrt HOA/COAs?

There is no "HOAs must have meetings by X date" - that depends on YOUr community and your documents. Don't worry about other communities because you don't live there anyway. Ditto for the audit - talk to a CPA about your finances and come up with a number and type of audit that works best for you.
Try googling HOA audit and you'll find different steps - that'll help start the conversation.

That said, our documents call for the annual meeting in February. The community switched to a calendar fiscal year a few years after it was turned over to homeowners (long before I showed up),but the advantage to a February annual meeting is that we have the final numbers to present.

You say your board can decide when the meeting is held - personally I'd avoid December because everyone's preoccupied with Christmas, Kwanzaa, Hannukah, and whatever else falls during that month.
Our audits are usually done after the fiscal year ends and that information is presented to homeowners at a later date.

My HOA uses a Jan-Dec fiscal year. Way back when the annual meetings were in March. At some point, way before I got here, they changed to a late January timeframe for the annual meeting. Is it ideal? I don't know. Probably not, but we considered if there might be a better time to have it and didn't see any clear advantages to moving it.

Our Bylaws say the budget for the following year must be approved by Dec. 1 every year. So whether we have our annual meeting in January or March, the "new board" is stuck, either way, with a budget prepared and approved several months before they take their seats. Our Annual Financial Reports are due in April of each year so, again, they're available only after the new board is in place.

So I'll say there's no ideal time for us in which to have the annual meeting. We'd definitely be out on any month between April and November due to seasonal snowbird homeowners who are typically here only between November and March. If the annual financial report uncovers any issues that demand a change in course for some reason, it would be quite a few months to do a course correction. Yeah, the budget can be changed during the year but that would be a mess.

Another factor was when we discussed changing the Bylaws to provide an election procedure. We currently have none beyond a Nominating Committee that's called for in the Bylaws. We'd like to implement mail-in ballots and a procedure to pre-nominate candidates for the board because, without that, we're required to allow nominations from the floor at the annual meeting. So we thought about adopting most of the election procedures in FS 718 which governs condo elections (no such luck in an HOA; the statute there is silent except for "follow your Bylaws"). One obstacle is that the condo election procedures require a "first notice" of the annual meeting and election 65 days before the meeting. That's right around Thanksgiving, which is a problem, and a "second notice" which would need to be right around Christmas. Traditionally, the board here (and most of the homeowners) don't want to do anything HOA-related around the holidays. Moving the first notice to the end of October leaves almost 90 days between the notice and the election, which seems to leave almost too much time in between.

I think you really have to think about it and make decisions that seem to work best for you. Seems like you've already started to think about things, so good for you, at least you've made a start.