Handing over control of HOA e-mail account

OK guys,

A former board member still controls an e-mail account (gmail) that was the association e-mail account for about 10 years. In the e-mail account are thousands of board e-mails including homeowner inquiries, signed contracts, estimates, and other stuff. I recently aquired the password to it and was able to see everything inside for about 2 hours, however, the former board member received a notification that an unknown person was in the account. As soon as possible, the former board member logged me out and changed the password.

Thus, I am a little perplexed about the avenue going forward. I think 10 years worth of e-mail correspondence and attachments is a treasure trove of data that will help provide historical reference for our association and help enable it moving forward.

However, the former board member left on bad terms with me and others, and will not likely want to give up control of the association e-mail account. Likely, she is probably fearful that the new board will find something that makes her look bad.

Do the former board have an obligation to hand over control of the HOA e-mail account to the new Board? Is it worth us pushing it?

Thanks!

Welcome back Henry!!

For me, it was the playground/park on a different thread and (finally!) Washington.

Cathy's advice looks good.

Another reason to push on this: if the HOA is still using this email address there may be confidential items discussed, and since this person is no longer on the board she should not be seeing them.

Aside: Exposing a HOATalk member who obviously wants anonymity is not cool, AFAIC.

For one thing, I think many folks come here in a pre-litigation stage, hoping for some help without having to pay a fortune to an attorney who may very well have no experience with HOAs. (That's assuming they can even find an attorney to do a consultation. Even when one has money, just finding an attorney willing to do a consultation, and having the required experience, can be impossible.)

To me, whether the person who comes here and posts actually lands in a court is not relevant. They do not want their HOAs to be able to identify them and use what they post here against them. I want to respect this. I want to try to treat them the way I would want to be treated. It costs nothing to respect people's privacy here.

IMO, that Michael posted under a different name does in no way reveal his true name or the name/location of his HOA. there must be 100s of HAs in WA with playground & parks.

Though I rarely review old posts by particular ppl., sometimes others like to review the past accounts of a certain element of posts, which can help with advice.