Is Email Considered Written Notice?

1) Is email sent to me considered written notice to the corporation?
If you are conducting business that way, yes. Not sure what you mean by "written notice". If it's a legal notice they want to get to you, they are foolish to send it email. US mail is the standard for "written notice"

2) Am I required to reply to unsolicited email received from homeowners?
No - not required, but if it is a question you can answer, go ahead, as a courtesy. You can give out information, of course. Save a hard copy of all correspndence, just as you would written correspondence. Do not respond to threats or demands.

3) Am I required to make copies of financial records for anyone who wants them, whenever they want?
What financial "records"? A year-to-date revenue/expense report, reported against the budget, and a Balance Sheet should be available to interested members - after you have presented the report to the Board. Any "deeper" view into the accounts (itemized account activity within each category or the checkbook) is not necessary UNLESS provided for by your CCRs, bylaws or state laws governing your HOA or condo association.

Good luck! Welcome to the squirrel nest!

#3... Read your CCR's, By laws, and state laws. Members are allowed ACCESS to your financial records, but most states do NOT require that the HOA provide photocopies at every request. If a member wants a photocopy, most laws allow a minimal charge to cover the costs.

1) Is email sent to me considered written notice to the corporation?

In my understanding 'official' notice to a corporation would be notice sent to the 'official' corporate address filed with the Secretary of State; at least for 'legal' notice. For example, to send an official notice to GE, you would not just pick some random GE address (like a parts warehouse). You would send it to the corporate HQ or the address of the legal corporate agent.

By the same token, sending email to you personally would be like sending postal mail to your home; neither are official corporate addresses. It would seem neither would be written notice to the corporation unless you have an email address that is published as the official contact for corporate financial matters. Then 'maybe' it could be. However, there is no good way to ensure an email was ever actually delivered (SPAM filters, etc may block it), so the sender would never know you even got the email unless you reply as such. Yes, you can use delivery receipts and read receipts but neither prove 'you' actually read the email.

On the other hand, I understand email can create a valid contract:
See: Can an E-mail Agreement be a Binding Contract?

I'm interested to hear other opinions on this.

This is no different than snail mail. sending it does not provide proof I received it, receiving it is not proof I opened it, opening it is not proof i actually read it, etc...

If, as some people have suggested/done, you can create a rule or law that "dropping a stamped properly addressed envelope in the US Postal system is considered proof of delivery...", then why couldn't the same rule be applied here? Hitting "send" on a properly addressed email and sending it through a private company (which the US Post office is) should also be considered proof of delivery.

Mike still needs to tell us the circumstances and define what "written notice" means.

Notice of what?? A complaint? A supenoa? Health violation? Notice to Quit?

I seriously doubt that any judge would accept an email message as proof of notification, no matter what any attorney or town manager told me. Ignoring the problems with spam filters and the general unreliability of email delivery, an email message is nothing more than a text file, easily edited by any text editor. I can put together a message to provide any kind of notice that I want, with any kind of time stamps that I want. Since I run my own mail server, I can even make the server logs show that the message was delivered. A judge would have to be a fool to accept any of that as evidence of notification.

Snail mail is a little better. I don't know about dropping a letter into a mail box, but by sending a certified letter you now have documentation from a third party as evidence of delivery. If somebody tries to claim that they initiated official correspondence by email, I doubt if it would go very far.

I think it's best not to use a personal email address to receive official correspondence of any kind. My email address, for example, has a very heavy spam filter setting and unsolicited email will get sent to my junk mail box which I check only about one a week (if I remember it, and BTW, that reminds me). For example, my spam filter is set to receive email from every board member's usual (home) email address. Our president once sent me an email from his work. It got routed to my junk mail box and I didn't know about it until he called me and asked if I had received his message.

The problem with email addresses is that, depending on your spam filter characteristics, you may or may not get the mail in a timely manner.

I think official correspondence should always be sent to the board's official U.S. Postal mail address, or to the management company (our association prefers the latter). Besides, board members/officers may change from year-to-year, and the association's official address should remain the same.

So, after Mike's several clarifications, he's just looking for validation from us that it's okay for him to ignore/not answer email from residents that go to his personal email address.

Obviously, if it comes in to his personal email, he's not necessarily obligated to respond.

However, it would be a polite thing to notify the residents (through newsletter or postcard?) that the OFFICIAL contact address for the board members is: blah blah blah.

That way your personal email isn't even an issue.

They are called delivery receipts and they are completely worthless. The only thing that they can tell you is that your email server sent it on to the next hop. It doesn't say anything about any of the intermediate servers or if the message was actually delivered to the final destination. I've worked with email systems for over 20 years (even written some code for a few) and I can tell you that there is no way that they should be considered reliable enough to be use for "official" communications.

For the OP: I'm sure the time will come when somebody will get upset with you for not responding to their email. But unless your HOA has declared somewhere that your email address is the official address for the Assn. and is willing to make the claim that messages will be delivered, then I don't see how you could be required to respond to any unsolicited message.

If you get complaints about not responding to email, just tell them to send their complaint in writing to the HOA's legal address as registered with the state.

What portions of the law are they quoting?

Mike,

IMO, email is a form of notification and should be answered just as you would answer a letter. If you do not want to receive email at your personal email address then that info should not be made available to the members. I have contacted my prop. mgr. by email on numerous occasions. I've even made a/c requests through email. Her email address is given out to all the members of the assn which means this is an official way to communicate with her. BTW, she always answers immediately. I even sent an email on a Sat and, of course, didn't expect to hear from her until Mon, but lo and behold about 2 hrs later there was a response from her. If you are a board member or a prop. mgr. you should always answer any communications received from the members, whether it be a letter, a telegram or an email. What difference does the form of correspondence mean? The fact is that your were contacted and you should respond. As far as keeping records of email communications. Yes, the email should be kept just as you would keep written correspondence. If you answer a written communication or email with a telephone call, then a record of the telephone conversation should be attached to the written communication or email that was answered.

Even with postal mail, the only accepted form of giving "official notice" is by registered mail, return receipt requested. It is used for formal, legal processes (such as notification from an attorney), short of hand delivery by a sheriff or court officer.

Also, Dwight is correct; email receipts are meaningless. I have several years at this too, going back to the days of APRANET (that was BEFORE the internet, folks).

And don't forget the spam filters I mentioned in my earlier post.

Some state laws may permit email to be used, but read the laws carefully to see under what conditions it may be acceptable.