Quote:
Posted By AugustinD on 08/26/2021 9:36 AM
WendyG1,
-- The only thing that matters here is exactly what the governing documents and NC statutes say about records inspections and meetings of the members.
-- Does the meeting notice state whether the meeting is a board meeting? Or does the notice state this is a meeting of the owners?
-- You need to quote verbatim here what your Bylaws say about (1) records requests and (2) special meetings.
-- You need to state here exactly what was requested in the records request.
-- You need to state here exactly what was in the petition (for a special meeting of the members) letter.
-- If you do not do these things, then IMO readers here are left guessing and wasting a lot of time. If you do do these things, then I think the input you will get will be more useful.
-- I would not judge this board's behavior based solely on the information you have presented so far.
-- I am not sure $95 is inappropriate. It just depends.
-- Competent HOA attorneys whom you might consult will say that the quickest way to correct what one thinks is wrong is to get elected to the board with a like-minded majority.
Thank you.
- Our Bylaws say this about records, verbatim: "Keeping detailed, accurate records of the receipts and expenditures of the Association, obtaining annual audits of the financial records of the Association from the Association's public accountant, furnishing the annual reports , and
furnishing current budgets. All books and records shall be kept in accordance with good and accepted accounting practices and the same shall be available for examination by all Owners or their duly authorized agents or attorneys at convenient hours on working days"
- This is what the Bylaws says about "Special Meeting" and "Meeting Notice", verbatim:
"Special Meetings : After the first Annual Meeting of the Members Special Meetings of the Members may be called at any time by the President by not less than twenty percent (20%) of all Owners or by not less than fifty-one percent (51%) of the Executive Board Members. Business to be acted upon at all Special Meetings shall be confined to the subjects stated in the notice of such meeting."
"Notice of Meetings: Written or printed notice stating the time and place of a Membership meeting including Annual Meetings and the items on the agenda including the general nature of any proposed amendment to the Declaration or these Bylaws, any budget changes, and any proposal to remove a director or Officer shall be delivered not less than ten (10) nor more than fifty (50) days before the date of any such Membership meeting either personally or by mail by or at the discretion of the President or the Secretary to the address of each Unit. Notice shall be deemed given upon deposit in the mail depository of each Unit. Notice given to any one tenant in common, tenant by entirety, or other joint Owner of a Unit shall be deemed notice to all joint Owners of the subject Unit. The notice of meetings shall specifically state the purpose or purposes for which the meeting is called."
- The meeting notice actually says it's a "Special Meeting". The notice says: "The Board of XYZ Association have scheduled the Special Meeting requested by some of the membership to occur on Tuesday, September 7, 2021. The meeting will be called to order at 6:00pm. Due to the current pandemic, the Special Meeting will be held using Zoom with the following options for joining the meeting..."
This is the agenda set by the Board in the Special Meeting Notice:
"Agenda
¡ Call to order
¡ Introduction of Board and Cedar Management
¡ Financial Review â Q & A
¡ Adjourn
This meeting will be focused on the review of the financial records per the ownerâs request. We ask that you please submit your questions to be addressed during this meeting by Friday, September 3rd in order for them to be discussed. All questions can be submitted to
[email protected]. Please note any question not submitted prior to the meeting will need to be addressed at a different time."
Then the meeting notice contains a 3-page handout about the Association's "2021 Calendar Year Financial Overview" which includes 2021 Calendar Year (CY21) Budget Outlook, CY21 Association Dues, and the Board's reason for raising our dues.
- This is the ORIGINAL Special Meeting agenda that owners wanted to set:
"the agenda for this special meeting should be concerned with the following:
1. In accordance with our Bylaws (Section 5.13) and with reference to the $152,400, we ask that
the Board share all invoices and other documents regarding the expenditure of these funds to
identify what specific repairs were made to which individual units and to the community at large,
and how and why the funds were spent.
2. We request that Board minutes always identify unit numbers associated with expenses for
repairs or requests for action or other issues, unless such information is restricted by law, and for Board minutes to specifically identify all repairs and/or changes to community property.
3. We also request that the Board consider sharing all receipts of community expenses with all
owners via emails or via the association's private web pages."
***** So our question is given that actual Special Meeting Notice does not contain ANY of the specific agenda items owners specified in our petition, will our agenda items be dismissed? Will this become a Special Meeting about reserves and HOA dues? Should we request the Board to include the specific agenda items in the Special Meeting Notice? Technically, our Bylaws says issues not included in the meeting notice will be dismissed.
***** Agree with you that a more reliable way to turn around the community is to elect a new responsible board. The community does have a history of uninterested owners. Owners don't interact very much with each other. This is the first time, in the midst of a pandemic, 1/4 of owners actually agreed to pursued a special meeting. It took about half a year to convince this many owners to care about community finances. No one before had ever questioned the $235,000 loan or how specifically the $152,000 was spent on "Exterior Repairs". No one knew what was (not) repaired to their unit.
Individual owners requested to see financial records but were told a fee ($95) is needed to reproduce this receipt (this is the $152,000 "Exterior Repair" receipt mentioned in our minutes). This is literally the single largest and most important receipt in our community's history and the Board insists individual owners must pay $95 to see it instead of calming owners' trust issues by taking on the $95 as a community expense and making it available to the entire community. Instead, the Board spent hundreds of dollars on an expensive lawyer to throw obstacles into owners way. The Board is aware dozens of owners are aware of such individual owner requests and insisted on not sharing that receipt.
In the 3-page meeting notice, there is no copy of the receipt we requested. Instead, the community gets 3 pages of rationale about raising reserves and raising our dues. Does it seem normal to you? Thank you very much for taking the time to provide feedback and advice. Really appreciate it!