HOA treasure sent my banking info to residents

I mistakenly missed a couple HOA payments. The HOA treasure too a snapshot of my payments and send it to every resident saying I am behind on my payments. Is he allowed to do this? The snapshots he sent has my bank name and partial account numbers on it and he sent it to everyone. Is he allowed to do this? Is there some privacylaw he is violating?

It says you can publish names, but he gave out private banking info.

They did not give out your full account information. I can get a routing number of pretty much any bank online. I just can not get your specific account number. So exposing a routing number on a check is not personal.
My checks have a bank routing number with one digit on the end indicating it is for checking. It then after a space has the account number then the check number. My atm card still would need a security code which is on the back of card.

It is not unusual for some HOA to share names of those who are behind in dues. I do not like it but it is not illegal.

Should they have done it? In my opinion, NO.

I did a search but could not find if HOA/COAs are subject to the expanded California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA).

If they are, you may have cause for action.

You may need to consult with an attorney about the issue.
Another option would be to file a complaint with the attorney generals office and see what happens.

see: Consumer Complaint Against A Business/Company

Note: The complaint would be against the Association, not the one individual.

Keep in mind we don't know what context this information was sent. Was there others behind as well? Is this a report that is normally sent out to members?

I don't like that they would send a snapshot with name and PARTIAL account information. However, we don't know if this is normal operations or policy.

Our collection reports we only go by lot #. Which has to be written on the memo part of the check. The name of whomever wrote the check or from what bank doesn't matter. It applies to the lot#.

Your neighbors/members do have a right to know the financials of the HOA. This does include whom is behind in dues. It's uncomfortable but not necessarily "private" information.

You would not be doing much for suing. I would instead request this policy be changed for additional privacy. Like go by Lot #'s and Not names. Plus no publishing of financial information like bank names/partial bank account #'s. Using Lot #'s and a spreadsheet of payment history should suffice IMO until the lien/foreclosure process gets involved.

Lot numbers offered the best privacy option. There are no names, addresses, or other PII associated with it. It was the HOA account. Plus to know what lot number belonged to someone you had to have a special map. Which most of our HOA members did not have a plat map of the neighborhood. I found one as it is public information. However it was not made available unless requested to view.

It is impossible to keep such information private as it really is not to be. Members have a right to the members list. Which has more information on it than our collections report. Which collection report only given to board members. You could ask to view your specific account on it. However we could not deny any member the list. It did just have lot numbers anyways. No names.

IMO a member does not need to know who owes money. They need to know the board has a policy in place to collect. Plus are collecting per policy. We had 6 months we lien. 1 year we consider foreclosure. We just told members in meetings that we were pursuing a lien on lot X or sent a letter to lot Y. It showed we took action.

The association absolutely cannot share your name, property address, email, phone number and most of all your bank account or SS#. You can take them to small claims court for injunction, costs, attorneys fees, and actual damages. See Civil Code section 5230. And if you have opted out of being on the membership list, that's another violation. Each mailing is a separate offense. Don't anyone tell you small claims is not the right place.

From an example of the online real estate tax records from my county.

Legal Description 80 Normandy SEC THREE

Want to guess the lot number?

It should be noted a HOA is never to have a social security number of any member. Your address is NOT a secret. I can drive by and get it off your house or mailbox. Which then can Google the address. Plus can go to the tax office to find your address and name. You can not opt out of tax records.

A email address is not public nor your cell phone number. Otherwise I can find any members address and or name simply by taking my dogs for a walk.

I can't comment on California HOA rules. It's not clear to me what form the treasurer published that information in - was it a list taken from their online payment system? Or a copy of the last payment information? I agree it wasn't very professional of the treasurer to do that - it could have been handled in other ways.

But here's a recent situation we had in Florida.

We had several owners who owed many months of dues and weren't paying. All had received every proper notice of late payments and were getting charged late fees and interest, all in accordance with Florida FS 720 and our declaration.

We decided to suspend the rights of these owners to use the amenities (allowed in FS 720 and our documents). In order to do that, we had to have a board vote. Since every action taken at a meeting must be on the agenda that is posted 48 hours in advance, we had to list the action and the address. We did not use names, but we did vote per address. These addresses are also in the official minutes of the meeting. If I were to request a roster of owners in Florida, I would receive all owners names, unit numbers and mailing addresses because there's no way to opt out of the owner's roster and it's considered a public record. Although the list is not supposed to include personal identifying information (like phone numbers or emails), the statute doesn't define what that is. So I think you would be hard pressed to get the association sanctioned for that.

We did not use the owner's names in our case. But we could have legally done that.

Privacy is an illusion in today's world. Our county has a searchable database of every property, so with the address you can look up the owner, the owner's permanent address, how much they owe on the property, their tax history, etc. It's easy to get a phone number and an email address by doing an internet search. In Florida, you can even easily find out what political party they are registered to.

Our county also has all court records online. You can search the records by name for every court case. So I was able to find out, within seconds, that two of the three properties have foreclosure cases filed against them. Unless it's a divorce or a custody case, all of the records of the case are visible. I know how much each of these owners is delinquent on their mortgages and even when their hearings are being held.

Here is an example of law firm bias in favor of boards and against members. They frequently omit information that help members and that could get a board into trouble.

No crap Sherlock. You have to be responsible for some things yourself. It is called putting your big pants on and getting rid of the adult diaper.

The poster is from California. All other states are irrelevant to his question.

I did already. Please see above. I personally have a court order against association not to share my name, address, email, phone, or any other identifying information where anyone can see it by mail, email, bulletin board, website, etc. that can discourage board personal attacks as they so often do.

Yes, because as Board members we just sit around trying to determine who is the next personal attack victim. What is sad is these folks follow the rules, pay their fees, and outstanding citizens of the community in every way. We just got to get someone and the choice isn’t always easy. Give a break.

The treasurer was unprofessional and could put the association at risk. We were warned by our attorney that if we released erroneous financial information we could be libel for damages. Our financial reports show the total amount of delinquencies but not who or what one owes. The BOD is privy to names and amounts owed.

Myself I am all for public shaming but again if wrong it could result in damages being awarded.

The poster is from California.

In California, small claims court jurisdiction in HOA disputes is highly limited.* To enforce California Civil Code section XYZ in Small Claims court, the Civil Code must expressly state that small claims court has jurisdiction over enforcing section XYZ. E.g. see Civ Code 5235.

I think it's true that the HOA (through its agent, the Treasurer) violated Civil Code 5230 (c) (1) (B). The problem is 53230 (c) (2) does not say that small claims court has jurisdiction. Instead the latter section says an owner can seek injunctive relief and actual damages and "shall be entitled to recover" attorney fees if successful.

I doubt there are any actual damages. If Jason wanted to lawyer up and point out 5230 (c) (1) (B), then maybe a hungry lawyer might be interested.

In California small claims court, attorneys are not allowed at hearings. The Ca small claims court purpose is geared towards not involving attorneys. Perhaps the risk of doing what Terri proposes in small claims court is not so great. TerriS6 says she succeeded in small claims court, enforcing a section of the Civil Code where the Code does not say small claims court has jurisdiction. But at some point, I expect a HOA is going to figure out that it can ask a Ca small claims court to dismiss cases like this, for lack of jurisdiction, and win the dismissal.

The target on the OP's back might become quite large. He may want to keep reading this forum to see how owners suffer small affronts (often after perpetrating their own affront, like not paying dues) often explode into a full-blown war.

*See California Code of Civil Procedure, Section 116.220, as given at https://casetext.com/statute/california-codes/california-code-of-civil-procedure/part-1-of-courts-of-justice/title-1-organization-and-jurisdiction/chapter-55-small-claims-court/article-2-small-claims-court/section-116220-effective-112024-jurisdiction and many other sites.

In particular, note this part:

(a) The small claims court has jurisdiction in the following actions:
...
(5) For an injunction or other equitable relief only when a statute expressly authorizes a small claims court to award that relief.

In general "small claims court" serves what it says it serves: Claims for small amounts of money. But there are exceptions, as given in Section 116.220.

Basically you get one side of the story here and listening to one side on an Internet forum is not a venue to determine credibility. People color the facts. This thread starts out I mistakenly missed 2 payments. Exactly how does one mistakenly miss 2 payments? How many other payments has he missed? We will never know the full truth, but that still doesn’t excuse the information being sent to the members and maybe the information was accidentally sent to the members.

For the California layperson, regarding disputes that do not involve money and how small claims court has jurisdiction over only certain types of HOA disputes:

Can You Sue an HOA for More Than Just Money in Small Claims? This is a tricky question. In California, you can sue in small claims to recover money. However, you may be able to sue for other forms of relief if there is a statute (a law) that authorizes the small claims court to award other types of relief. See California Code of Civil Procedure (CCP) sec. 116.220(a)(5).

This is important to note because, in California, there is an act called the Davis-Stirling Common Interest Development Act (“Davis-Stirling Act) that outlines the rights and responsibilities of HOAs, governing boards, and individual homeowners in these types of communities.

Under the Davis-Stirling Act, there are certain statutes (laws) that expressly authorize a small claims court to award other types of relief, not just money. For example, under CCP sec. 5235(a), a member of an HOA can bring a small claims lawsuit, to enforce that member’s right to inspect and copy the association records. Under this section, a member can also be awarded up to $500 for denial of each separate written records request.
-- https://www.peopleclerk.com/post/sue-hoa-california-small-claims

Although Small Claims Court is not a typical forum for most homeowner association disputes, it is available when specifically authorized by statute, such as Civil Code section 5658(a).
-- https://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-associations-20151122-story.html

Small Claims Court. The legislature has given limited authority to small claims courts to grant injunctive relief when it comes to common interest developments. (Underlined emphasis added by me.)
-- https://www.davis-stirling.com/HOME/I/Injunctive-Relief