Condo Association Management Blog

Boards I deal with never read the minutes of the previous meeting. Usually, they send them ot the board members in advance and they approve them at meeting without reading. 
 
 
 
Stephen Marcus 
 
Marcus Errico Emmer & Brooks, P.C. 
 
Braintree, Massachusetts

My experience as a condo board director and officer in a small (54 unit) complex:  
 
 
 
Minutes taken during each monthly board meeting are approved (via email) by the BOD, and posted within 10 days of that meeting, so that all members of the community may review the proceedings (on a bulletin board at on the complex). The BOD takes great pains to approve an accurate recording of each meeting, it's discussions and actions taken. Our financials are included with the meeting minutes. 
 
 
 
If any owner wants a copy of the minutes and monthly financial report, they may make a request for an electronic file from our management company.  
 
 
 
We do not read the minutes from the previous meeting, at the next monthly meeting. Though, a copy of the approved (previous month's)minutes is included in the BOD packet used for the next meeting. 
 
 
 
This precedure seems to be satisfactory. The BOD and owners find our course of action provides the transparency required. 
 
No complaints, thus far. 
 

The board I sat on for a few years didn't read the minutes. We had emailed them to all of the board members in advance so they could be reviewed. If any changes were needed then they were adopted prior to the motion to approve. Otherwise, reading them aloud is a huge waste of time. 
 
 
 
Darron 
 
HOA Receivables Management

In the Associations we run, the meeting minutes are generally typed up by the manager, forwarded to all Board members for approval. Once approved they are placed into the official records of the Association usually within 24 hours of the meeting. If a unit owner makes a request to obtain the minutes, we provide them. At the next meeting, the Board generally waives reading of the last meeting's minutes in order to save time, but note that they have a copy available for any unit owner. 

It appears that the board is reading the minutes for your benefit. Most boards receive minutes prior to the meeting and will review them prior to that. If you have open meetings and they are waiving the reading when you are not there, it may be that no one else wants them read. See if anyone else wants them read as well. If not, I'd just leave it alone, because they are taking your desires into consideration.

Does the condo unit owner have the privilege to view all correspondence amoungst the board members (less any personal information) that relates to projects and how they are planning to spend our money?

Has your state enacted a Condominium Law. Most have. \Before you set up by laws for your community you'd best read the law. Your proposed set of by laws violate several of the provisions of the most common form the Condominium Act detail. Even your order of presedence for the meeting omits the vital step of approving the agenda for the meeting. Voting is not by unit owner but is by the council of unit owners which weights each vote in accord with the size of the voter's unit.

My condo is managed by proffessional managers but is always a discussion about who is supposed to take the minutes, the manager or a member of the Board? 
Our Bylaws are ambiguous, they specify that the secretary of the Board should take the minutes but they do not clarify if that job is delegated to the Manager once the Board decides to hire a professional.

I went to our monthly meeting last night and half of the members there last night were not at the previous meeting but moved and seconded that the minutes be accepted - they have no idea what went on in last months meeting.