Evening meetings and management companies

At least the MC told you this up front.

Take them out of the consideration or require them to provide a report (specify what you want in it) for each meeting.

MCs don't always have to attend board meetings.

And some property managers have a tendency to try and take over the meeting so this one may be doing you a favor.

As Tim said the manager doesn't have to attend, although I think it makes for timely follow up. if you start hearing this from other companies, you might have to make an adjustment, like having the board president sending an action list within 24 -48 hours of the meeting.

Our MC only attends our Annual Meeting. No others. Several of us on the BOD do got to his office to meet him through out the year to review things. Generally I see no need for the MC to attend BOAD Meetings unless invited.

Lisa make a good point. Our PM who's full-time & onsite & has a F-T mgr. asst. also types the agenda and assembles directors reports to distribute to them four days before the meeting. Again, this is for a complicated 2-tower mixed-use high rise with lotsa infrastructure & amenities.

JohnC's HOA has, I believe, no amenities or much common area so doesn't have an onsite mgr. and their PM only does a few things.

So it totally depends on the content of Susan's assn. and what their needs are and what they can afford.

I refuse to invite our pm to our meetings. They are a waste of her time as she doesn't have a need to speak and I feel bad about consuming her evening time.

As owners of a management company, we have historically preferred not to meet in the evening for personal reasons. However, we recognize board members and owners often have 8-5 schedules and must meet in the evening so we have kept our preference to ourselves.

About the only positive 'benefit' to come out of Covid was the migration to virtual meetings. Our clients have universally embraced Zoom meetings; its use makes it far easier to schedule meetings, owners now actually attend, and we no longer have to impose on an owner to physically host board meetings as none of our clients have suitable common area space for meetings. Evening meetings using Zoom have completely eliminated our personal issues about meeting in the evening.

As for our attendance at meetings, we make it clear in the contract negotiation process we insist on attending board and annual meetings. We offer to take and publish the meeting notes, after appropriate reviews of course, which ensures the notes capture the information which should be recorded. However, our primary reason for insisting on our attendance is many of of our clients have no idea how to manage a meeting, ensure the agenda items are addressed, or ensure the meeting does not somehow do something which must be 'undone' at a subsequent meeting.

We have observed actions in Board meetings such as non-board member owners making motions and participating in discussions uninvited. Many people do not know how to verbally frame a motion, we often provide guidance by saying something like "to bring this matter to a vote, one of you should move to replace the driveway apron for units F and G and another of you should second the motion"

We have also observed board members moving to take a certain course of action which does not comport with the governing documents of the association, or which is a violation of local rules/ordinances, or which violates the provisions of the Texas Property Code.

Does your PM send in a report instead of attending meetings? How do they communicate financial status, violations, overdue accounts and such to the Board?

Thanks to everybody for chiming in with different viewpoints.

This HOA is small, only 22 townhomes. We formed in 2021, and monthly Board meetings have all been on Zoom. We have snowbirds and owners who use units as vacation homes, so I expect we will always include a virtual/Zoom connection even if we move to in-person meetings later. Two of our five Board members are not full time residents.

The HOA has been self managed so far, and the Board is considering hiring a property management company for the first time. According to the contract, they would charge extra to produce meeting minutes unless we held the meeting in their office during business hours. The contract only has the manager attending 3 board meetings plus an annual meeting, to keep costs low, but the board meets monthly because it's still getting everything set up - need to create Rules, rewrite CCRs to include the Reserves we started in January, etc.

Bill, I get your point about guiding Board members in how meetings should be run and reminding them of compliance with the law and their own rules. Being self managed involves a steep learning curve. Do you often manage small communities like ours (22 units), or are they typically larger?

Because most of the Board ignores the packet, I create 50 to 70 page powerpoint slide presentations and put financial status, overdue accounts, and such on slides. Then at the meetings, when I bring up the topic of overdue accounts, there is a slide showing all of the overdue accounts, and then everyone can look at it.

I wish that every director would read the packet prior to each meeting, but have come to realize that's not reasonable. I read every packet, and I know at least one other director does. I am not sure about the remaining 3. One I am quite sure does not. The other two are harder to gauge.

I definitely agree with you that evening meetings are less effective than daytime. Two board members are retired and could meet any time, but two others work during the day. (1 position is unfilled) Maybe we can work something out to have daytime meetings for the reasons you listed.

You have training sessions? Who is doing the training, and who is receiving it? That's what we need more than a property manager, IMHO.

Evening meetings-start at 5pm--have worked well here. The board tired a little 4p and 6p and 5 works best. We're done usually by 6:30 which isn't too late for most folks to have dinner. It's also early enough that our directors-- we always seem to have one who's 80--aren't tired.

I attended similar types of meeting for years during the day--policy-involved meetings -- and participants often were distracted by whatever they were working on at that time that had been interrupted. Meetings often felt hurried. IMO, directors minds are clear of their daytime obligations in the evening.

Susan, there are some free publications for new directors at CAI.org. Especially useful is something like "Board member Toolkit." CAI is the Community Assn. Inst.

There also is a Calif. website, Davis-stirling.com, that's packed with information and has a wonderful index of topics. If you visit it, keep in mind that it's written by CA HOA attorneys for CA HOAs. So you need to ignore items that are embedded in CA statutes.

Still it has some excellent generic info that is useful for any board. Sample agendas & minutes, for instance. What to look for when forming contracts. How to think about reserves.

It's going to depend on the job, obviously. If a person is on the clock or paid hourly, for instance, that would be a problem. But there are many jobs for which an employee can be away from their office for a few hours. Many employees have to deal with things such as medical appointments during normal business hours - how do they make that work? And if the person is working from home and the board meeting is online, it gets even easier.

Yes, holding meetings during business hours will create a barrier to board service for employees in the first group.

On the other hand, we're in year three of the pandemic and all through this time we've had people insisting on in-person meetings. This disadvantages homeowners who are over a certain age or who have other health issues that put them at high risk for serious illness and even death. I've noted in the past that this could even be flirting with Fair Housing issues because the disadvantage targets a particular demographic. But nonetheless here we still are.

There is no perfect answer to this, only pros and cons. If a board has to meet in the evening, then that's what they do - knowing that this will probably mean longer meetings and less-than-optimal thinking. Serve coffee...

I really cannot fathom attending a Zoom HOA meeting at my workplace.

I'm quite sure the phrase "Do we want to foreclose on Rebecca NeverPayers house located at 247 Bravo Street" would raise a lot of eyebrows amongst my coworkers as they listened in to my Board meeting as they try to focus on doing their work.....

Our meetings were dictated by our documents. It stated we were to have meetings 1 time a month on 2nd Thursday at 7PM. So everyone knew when the meeting was if they read their documents. Plus we posted a few days before with signs at the front entrance. The MC is not a member of the HOA so why do they need to attend?

I used to work 2nd shift. Which meant on meeting day had to go into work 2 hours early to make up my time. I would leave at my "lunch" time to do the meeting. Luckily I lived about 3 miles from my house so took 5 minutes to get home and back. It angered my supervisor to no end for whatever reason. Considering he showed up late to work frequently because he was out playing golf. I got attitude because I missed 2 hours of work I made up for once a month. He never made up his time and did it once a week...