Looking to buy into an older HOA community

Is this a condominium?

What year was the HOA (or condominium) established?

(Some people use "HOA" and "condominium association" interchangeably.)

I'm a little confused.

When non-board members attend a board meeting, they observe but do not participate. While it's good for transparency to allow non-board members to attend, their attendance has zero impact on the decisions that are made.

In most HOAs, the Board makes the decisions. Non-board homeowners generally do not make decisions. I have heard about some HOAs where non-Board members introduce motions at annual meetings, but I think this is rare.

So I am not exactly following your post.

All owners want to do is attend meeting and understand what's going on.

The Annual Mtg is run by the ono-board members (owners) and not the Board members and they make motions etc ... this is standard practice. Monthly MTGs are normally Board Mtgs.

I second other recommendations to check out the financials, especially the reserves. The latter is where prolonged financial mismanagement often shows up. On the other hand, if there are minimal to no amenities and the streets are public (not owned by the HOA), then the need for significant reserve spending goes down.

Check the Michigan laws regarding open meetings. It sounds like Michigan does not require them, but the board provides minutes of the meetings to the owners. If Michigan is not an open meeting state, owners can request that they be allowed to attend but the board can say no.

The board's summary of what they do sounds pretty normal. Board meetings sound terribly interesting to those who can't attend, and people tend to assume that those in charge are hiding something if the meetings are closed. In my experience, once a board does open up the meetings to the membership, a few members lose their heads and start to think they're in charge, and after about a year of turmoil, things settle down - after which few to no homeowners attend the meetings which are in fact pretty boring unless some new issue arises.

Another thing to keep in mind is that in closed meeting states, boards can also take action via email if something arises between meetings. One of the negative effects of requiring open meetings is that it slows things down even more than in closed meeting states. Discussion of anything that isn't an emergency must be deferred to the next board meeting that is properly noticed - and for those who complain that it takes forever to get things done in HOAs, this is one of the reasons.

I wasn't sure what you're asking for in the last paragraph. Are you asking to attend the meetings before you sign a contract to buy, or after you're an owner? Board meetings are not public, even in open meeting states, so prospective buyers have no right to attend. After purchase is a different matter.

Your description didn't raise any red flags to me. My state has not required open meetings up until a recent change in the law, and even now it defers to language in the community's bylaws. Your description could easily apply to my community, which on the whole is pretty well managed with healthy financials.

Tim,

I think you meant to respond to the "rip off the buyers" thread.