Board cliaming "Privacy" to disclose documents

Hello-

I live in a 31 unit condo building in downtown Atlanta. We had a developer build new condos behind our building and supposedly send our attorneys letters claiming our building was on their property essentially trying to force us to rebuild a collapsing loading dock. I am not looking to discuss the claim but how our HOA Board is handling the situation.

They have spent $16k on legal fees to go back and forth and are asking for a special assessment of $50k and a dues increase of 10% to cover the cost. I have requested the documents on what the lawyers are discussing and what the new development/development company is demanding. I have been told that it's "privy" to the board and a privacy concern and they cannot be shared.

What are your thoughts on that? The whole situation seems shady and their have been a lot of exaggerating statements about the whole situation that could be quashed with full disclosure.

thank you.

Bob Schnittman
(404) 268-7379

Thanks.

Wouldn't the HOA be the client, not the HOA board?

thank you.

Solid reasoning by Augustin.

Also note that the Board members are fiduciaries who are supposed to put the interests of the HOA above their own personal interests. Not so for ordinary members.

If a homeowner sued the HOA, would you as a non-suing owner want all information shared with the person suing? I wouldn't.

The suing owner can get information, but there is a Discovery process that needs to be followed - And that process could require that information be excluded via redaction.

Attorney-client privilege exists no matter what type of case it is.

As far as what information or documents are privileged, it would apply to all communications between your Board and your HOA attorneys.

If a lawsuit has been filed, then those filings are public documents, and you can get copies of at the courthouse.

As far as rumors, assumptions and exaggerations are concerned, that's not going away no matter what you do.

Best of luck.

A HOA/condo manager is an agent of the HOA/condo, and so is not a third party. That is, when corporation X sues HOA corporation B, and HOA corporation B's manager speaks with HOA corporation B's attorney, then the communication is attorney-client privileged.

From experience, such a communication would be attorney-client privileged.

You and I disagree.

Would the attorney's secretary/clerk/person who prepares legal documents but is otherwise not involved in the lawsuit be considered a third party?

And your point is? You still have to ask for the documents because they can introduce it in court and most times you're going to be unprepared.

For example, the attorney may have advised the board to take a certain action, the board will claim attorney client privilege but if they're getting sued for breach of duty, they'll come to court and say look, we we're advised by the attorney to take this action, here's the document, sorry plaintiff, we waived privilege on this document just last night, so now at the last minute we'll introduce it, your case for breach of duty based on the business judgement rule has weakened substantially.

So you should still ask for documents and let them defend their "privilege" claim in court.

Overall,

As for Cathy's question:
Probably, they will claim "attorney work product"

However, they can claim whatever they want, doesn't hurt to ask and it doesn't mean the court will view it that way, just have to ask for exactly the right things. Like don't say you want the secretary's and attorney communication documents, say you want the secretary and all members of the HOA communication. Most times the attorney is "BCC" or blind carbon copied, so how can they claim privilege if no one knows who is receiving that communication. This is why you ask for outgoing and incoming communication.

No need to mention attorney or lawsuit or anything related. You're simply asking for documents. This is why attorney's do things by phone, no way to trace it.

As for Bob's question, best thing is, get on the board, then you can see the documents.

Strike the above. These communications, from one side to the other, obviously are not attorney-client privileged or work product privileged. I suppose the OP could be successful in pursuing these communications, if Georgia law and/or the OP's HOA/condo counts such communications as records that the HOA/condo must provide when Owners request such a record.