PM company discloses board info

Hello

anyone every had a PM Company disclose Board (collective and individual)
private and personal info in monthly financials.

this was concerning expenses reimbursement, and a board member had to approve.

The PM company published these internal emails in the monthly financials.

they disclosed unit info, all board personal email address, the board email address,
the board president work info, including phone, address, and email, etc

I am really upset

Records are PUBLIC. Addresses are PUBLIC. Names of the board members are PUBLIC or should be within the HOA membership. What the board approved is reportable. The reimbursed expense is reportable. The President place of employment? A little questionable there. Unless they used their company card to make the purchase? Email addresses unless requested to keep not public is also public.

A HOA is a CORPORATION. The owners are members. That means they have the right to the corporations information as "stock holders". Even the biggest corporations send out "Prospectus" to their stock holders. Which has to include information if they are being sued and other "damaging" information that may be involved in.

Not sure how you think things should be run. However, in a HOA it's basically should be run above board and open. I always say it's like leaving your check book open on the dining room table. All you family members you support can openly see it. Not spend it but view it.

RCW 64.38.045:

"All records of the association, including the names and addresses of owners and other occupants of the lots, shall be available for examination by all owners, holders of mortgages on the lots, and their respective authorized agents on reasonable advance notice during normal working hours at the offices of the association or its managing agent."

The information you state, in particular home addresses, internal e-mails, and e-mail addresses, are all available for examination by all owners under state law.

financials are published publicly.

I think the PM and PM company are stupid, IMO.

to me this is typical folly of the industry at large.

internal emails, internal email addresses, work info should NOT be available.

as I stated example of congress

Were you using your work e-mail to do HOA business? This is not a recommended practice. It is recommended by many to setup special e-mail accounts for HOA business to keep HOA work separate of the rest of your e-mails.

i would love to sue some people for defamation.

seems very hard to prove and win

Some people seem to be missing this:

the board president work info, including phone, address, and email, etc.

I'd be outraged as well and I certainly hope it was a mistake - although the PM should not have this info to start with since it has nothing to do with HOA business. The board should be looking for a new PM.

If I were one of the board members whose personal info was released, my lawyer would be busy drafting a strongly worded letter explaining to the PM the error of their ways. And they better hope that the board members aren't victims of identity theft or other bad things (eg. an irate homeowner showing up at somebody's workplace).

In addition the board should talk to the HOA's attorney about proper steps to take to deal with the liability caused by this - although this could be a problem because some or all of the board members have conflicts of interest as the aggrieved parties. Interesting situation...

well the pres will sometimes reply from work email, so info was in signature.

The PM sucks!! typical.

recently we had their maintenance service onsite,
and their employee came to our site on an emergency.

He had access via the lock box to the office, and he logged into our office computer
and changed the password.
locked us out.

this was recorded on video from the office,and IMO was intentional.

he was terminated, but the PM company seemed to care not

we are entitled to or privacy.

I have had my unit, home phone, personal email given away by a neighbor without my permission.
people came to my home for maintenance.

I have had IMO an employee give out my personal cell# given to residents,
and received angry phone calls from these people.

my life is my own!

we are entitled to our privacy!!!

go take a flying leap into a lake

In 2021, I would be shocked if there is any state that does not define an email as a record. So if you live in a state that requires HOA records to be open, then emails are open records.

I don't know why the PM felt it necessary to publish emails but I would not expect him or her to redact them first unless required by law. In most states, the owners are entitled to the information anyway. If you are sending an email pertaining to HOA business, then it is up to you not to include personal information unless you do not mind it being public.

internal emails are private!

where live is private!

NO internal emails within a HOA are never private. They are a matter of record and HOA business. Private email is what you do on your own time not related to HOA business.

Have to agree with JohnC here. If you signed up to be on the board, you did not sign up for privacy.

Expecting HOA communications to enjoy 100% confidentiality is unrealistic, even when there's an active effort to communicate sensitive matters with discretion.

Yes, certain records must b4e kept, and the medium is not stated. But must all emails be preserved? Texas's TPC 209 says a HOA must make the books and records available to owners who request them et cetera. But "records" is not defined, and I am not persuaded that email exchanges are "records" as much as they are communications. Should phone calls also be recorded and the recordings then preserved?

I think many of the official records of a HOA are simply those that the board or manager in their judgment feels are important to keep to document xyz.

I wonder if HOA attorneys opine that emails between directors and whomever and the manager and whomever must be preserved. If so, at least this would go towards saving up discussion items for meetings, in front of owners, rather than communicating privately (and non-transparently) by email.

I agree that probably not all emails have to be kept (unless your state law or governing documents have a catch-all for "all records." Maybe I am being too literal but, to me, a record means something that is documented, like an email. Whether or not a record has to be kept is a separate issue.

The Texas code you mentioned does state (further down in the code) specifically what records must be retained and for how long and it does not include general communications between directors or owners. However, the OP said that the emails were financial records. Depending on exactly what is in the email, they may need to be retained.

An unpaid volunteer director in particular has a right to have his/her regular workplace information kept private. To suggest that revealing this private information to owners somehow furthers transparency or the mission of a HOA is nonsense afaic. Directors are harassed enough without their having to face harassment using their workplace information.

These were not financial records. They were the board voting to approve an expense. That is a decision made by the board of directors, and the e-mails are the records of that decision that was made. E-mail votes clearly fall into the record category and need to be preserved for some length of time (not sure how long in Washington).

If the board president responded to HOA business using his work email address, then he is at least partly to blame here.

Many workplaces forbid the use of their resources for private business. This would be an immediate-firing, escorted-from-the-building offense in some places.

In addition, since in many states emails are discoverable if things wind up in court, any board member should have a separate email address for association business. Otherwise his personal stuff - or lord help him, his workplace's information - may wind up being disclosed to someone at some point.

But board members are not required to have their personal lives on full display to homeowners. That's not transparency. "Transparency" applies to association business only.

We've gotten way too casual about disclosing our personal data to all and sundry, and then we're shocked - shocked, I say - when we find our information in the hands of bad guys who do bad things with it. There is a real financial cost to the victim of identity theft - it's isn't just a whoppin' pain in the posterior that can take years to resolve.

When you buy into an HOA or COA, you become the financial and legal partner of a bunch of strangers. You have no choice. But automatically trusting them with your personal info is foolish.

No, this is not how an action without a meeting is handled. From Washington Statutes:

RCW 23B.08.210
Corporate action without meeting.
(1) Unless the articles of incorporation or bylaws provide otherwise, corporate action required or permitted by this title to be approved at a board of directors' meeting may be approved without a meeting if the corporate action is approved by all members of the board. The approval of the corporate action must be evidenced by one or more written consents describing the corporate action being approved, executed by each director either before or after the corporate action becomes effective, and delivered to the corporation for inclusion in the minutes or filing with the corporate records.
(2) A written consent in the form of an electronic transmission will be deemed to have been executed by a director if it indicates the director's present intent to approve the corporate action and contains or is accompanied by information from which the corporation can determine that the electronic transmission was transmitted by the director and the date on which the director transmitted the electronic transmission.
(3) Corporate action is approved under this section when the last director executes the consent.
(4) A consent under this section has the effect of a meeting vote and may be described as such in any document.

this is the way.

Please cite your sources. What State Law and HOA docs (bylaws, CCR's, etc) support your theory that HOA records are private?

While I agree that a lot of the internal, day-to-day communications, business, emails don't need to be published, they are still records and shall be provided if requested.

Written consent on a unanimous decision for an action without a meeting is required. I am not persuaded that emails between directors leading up to a possible unanimous consent are records for the purpose of corporate statute records inspection requirements.

I believe the Florida law firm's opinion that I linked earlier has the most intelligence here.

-- AFAIC, the statute on board actions without a meeting addresses the situation. Because of what the statute says, I think your points are non sequiturs.

-- Your approach, without a basis in law, requires the HOA to keep, as an official record, every email exchange.

-- Statutes and covenants do not require that every word the directors speak at board meetings be recorded in official minutes. In the same way, statutes and covenants do not require that every email the directors send must be preserved as official records.

-- I do not consider the Florida law firm's opinion to be nonsense. Why don't you address its points?

my understanding from a condo law firm is documents are records, not emails.

documents created by board for association business, not emails.

the email vote was not in a board meeting, it was to approve reimbursement at the
"rule" stipulation of the PM company. one board member must vote to approve for reimbursement

but I know this rule is NOT always used