HOA Meetings and Elections

The board is a small group with a large checkbook. Meetings and elections are how the rest of the owners are supposed to see the work and replace the people doing it. Both are governed by the bylaws first and, in many states, by an open-meeting statute that the bylaws cannot waive.

Board meetings

A board meeting is a gathering of a quorum of directors to hear, discuss, or decide association business. Statutes define that more tightly than common sense does, because boards try to call a working dinner “not a meeting.” If your state has an open-meeting law for associations, it will say what notice has to be posted, where, and how far ahead, and it will list the topics that can go into a closed or executive session.

Closed sessions are usually for litigation, personnel, and delinquent-account details. They are not for adopting the budget or rewriting the parking rule. Ask for the agenda. If owner comment is required, put yourself on it in writing before the meeting, with the topic named.

You generally cannot force a vote during comment. You can create a record that you objected, and you can ask that your comment be noted.

Annual meetings and elections

The membership meeting is where owners elect directors and vote on amendments or special assessments that the board cannot pass alone. The bylaws set the quorum. A quorum of 50 percent looks democratic until nobody attends and the bylaws let the meeting adjourn to a lower number. Read that adjournment clause before you organize a boycott. Boycotts sometimes hand the incumbents a smaller room.

Fair-election basics, where the statute or bylaws require them, look like this: a published call for candidates, a ballot that matches that list, equal access if the statute gives it, and a count by people who are not the candidates. California’s Davis-Stirling election rules are unusually detailed, including inspector-of-elections requirements. Most states are looser and leave the mechanics to the bylaws. Follow the bylaws you have, and do not import California’s inspector rule into a state that never passed it.

If the meeting already happened

Request the notice, the proof of mailing or posting, the sign-in or quorum worksheet, the ballots or the electronic tally, and the minutes. The records guide is the how-to. Compare the notice date to the bylaws. A director seated at a meeting that had no quorum is a fact pattern lawyers recognize. It is also a fact pattern you should document before you announce it on a neighborhood app.