Breach of confidentiality

The president of the Board should pull the person aside and explain to then that that kind of behavior is unacceptable. But unless your BOD has some type of ethics policy that this person agreed to when they joined the BOD there is little else that can be done.

Is this a property that has been liened, and do you have a policy as to how far an owner is in arrears before the property is liened?

I am approaching this from a Florida background, where once a property is liened it is clearly public information. How would you try to remove someone from the board on that basis. In fact, in FL all financial records are open to members of the association upon request, and our boards operate with a great deal of transparency. I don't know what HOA law is in your state.

Ruth,

I have to agree with Carol. The books are to be open to every H/O. The Board of Directors is acting on behalf of all the H/O and as far as I know, here in Florida every H/O can request financial statements at any time and the Board has to provide these statements. If you have similar laws in your state, than your DOCS are actually in contradiction of state laws. You might wanna check into that. If this is the case, maybe you should update your DOCS according to your state laws.

I did a little research. I believe you live in Washington State, so I looked up the Washington State Statutes Chapter 64.38 RCW. I am going to quote part of Section 054

64.38.045
Financial and other records — Property of association — Copies — Examination — Annual financial statement — Accounts.
(2) All records of the association, including the names and addresses of owners and other occupants of the lots, shall be available for examination by all owners, holders of mortgages on the lots, and their respective authorized agents on reasonable advance notice during normal working hours at the offices of the association or its managing agent. The association shall not release the unlisted telephone number of any owner. The association may impose and collect a reasonable charge for copies and any reasonable costs incurred by the association in providing access to records.

Here is the link to it: http://apps.leg.wa.gov/rcw/default.aspx?cite=64.38&full=true

So this should basically answer your question. Any H/O can request the information in question and therefore I don't believe that your board member did anything wrong.

Please correct me if I am wrong or my research delivered wrong results.

I understand where you are coming from. I think I am looking at the issue that this WASN'T someone asking for the information. A board member repeated it from the meeting we held.

So this brings up another question in my mind. If someone asked for a copy of our deliquency is that covered under "All records of the association". That is spooky that someone could get that list, make copies and distribute it.

Ruth,

I think you can't copy the financial reports and hand them out on the street. I am pretty sure that there is some kind of law that prevents this. But within the members of the assn these records are open book. Of course you can't make copies and then advertise some homeowners delinquency in the local newspaper. I think I said that before already ... HaHa

You can see the members of an assn as stockholders. Stockholders who own stocks of publicly traded Companies have the right to a lot more information regarding the company than you and I, who don't have any stocks for this company.

So don't worry, a homeowner can't just go around and post financial statements in the neighborhood. That would be really scary.

That is awesome Karl. I will use this at our next meeting. Simple, to the point.

There are several points here to consider.

First and foremost is that any delinquency is recorded a a record of the corporation and thus should/must be available tot he membership. This is not confidential.

Our board can be speaking to any member and they can discuss the financial condition of the corporation. That includes the accounts receivables balance and details of the balance.

Bylaws can include clauses that "members not in good standing" (delinquent, nuisance, etc) fore-go their rights to vote, hold office or use common property.

Maybe is what not a "best practice" or not right, it is not immoral or illegal.

I can see where a neighbor is speaking to a board member and the neighbor makes a comment that another neighbor is unhappy about X and that the unhappy neighbor plans to run for a board position and the board member replies that at this time that would not be possible due to a delinquency of that neighbor.