HOA Q&A: What's the difference between a town hall meeting and a board meeting?
Editor’s note: Attorneys at Goede, DeBoest & Cross respond to questions about Florida community association law. With offices in Naples, Fort Myers, Coral Gables, and Boca Raton, the firm represents community associations throughout Florida and focuses on condominium and homeowner association law, real estate law, litigation, estate planning and business law.
Q: At my condo, the board had a meeting in which they called it a town hall. The condo management stated that the town hall was not taped due to it being called a town hall. The meeting/town hall was live and video conferenced. Most of the participants speaking were not heard over the video conference. The meeting was regarding the milestone inspection and what the contractor is planning on doing. The contractor will start staging their equipment on Sept. 5. To date, the residents have not been told what the assessment per unit will be. Can a meeting that is called town hall not be recorded, and can the board allow the contractor to start staging their equipment before the residents even know the cost that will be assessed per unit? --B.K., Jupiter
A: A “town hall” meeting is not a meeting that is defined in the community association laws for condominiums, homeowner or cooperative associations. A town hall meeting is typically an informational meeting or question-and-answer meeting where no votes are taken. If a quorum of the Board is in attendance and answering questions and discussing association business, it should be formally noticed as a Board meeting with an agenda, but the agenda would just list the topic of discussion. A common type of town hall meeting is one in which the Board presents a proposed new set of governing documents to the members for their review and comment. Regardless of the type of meeting, there is no legal requirement for the meeting to be recorded by the Board. Any owner has the right to record the meeting with their own recording device. As for your specific concern, there is nothing preventing the Board from beginning a construction project without alerting the owners as to the cost, but a well-coordinated project of any magnitude should be rolled out in an orderly process, which would include identifying the costs in advance so that owners are kept up-to-date.
Limitations: Is there a term limit to how long someone can be on the board?
Documents: Must an HOA provide the documents I request, even if that means mailing or emailing to me?
Q: Our 71-unit condo requires 1-bedroom owners (625 square feet) to pay the same monthly assessment fees as the much larger 2- and 3-bedroom units. It was set up this way by the original builder, but seems very unfair. Is there a way to amend this bylaw? --D.G., New Port Richey
A: Since April 1, 1992, the Florida Condominium Act, Section 718.104(4)(f), Florida Statutes, has provided that the payment of regular assessments, the ownership interest in the common elements and common surplus must be based on either: (1) The total square footage of each residential unit in uniform relationship to the total square footage of each other residential unit in the condominium or (2) on an equal fractional basis. Condominiums created prior to April 1, 1992, could utilize any formula the developer chose. In some cases, this led to situations where the developer would keep the largest penthouse unit in the building for himself but only assign it a very small percentage of common expense obligation. Unless your Declaration of Condominium contains some very unique language, the assessment formula established by the developer cannot be changed without the approval of 100% of all unit owners and mortgage holders.
Richard D. DeBoest, Esq., is Partner of the Law Firm Goede, DeBoest & Cross. Visit www.gadclaw.com or to ask questions about your issues for future columns, send your inquiry to: question@gadclaw.com. The information provided herein is for informational purposes only and should not be construed as legal advice. The publication of this article does not create an attorney-client relationship between the reader and Goede, DeBoest & Cross, or any of our attorneys. Readers should not act or refrain from acting based upon the information contained in this article without first contacting an attorney, if you have questions about any of the issues raised herein. The hiring of an attorney is a decision that should not be based solely on advertisements or this column.
This article originally appeared on Treasure Coast Newspapers: HOA Q&A: Is a town hall meeting considered a board meeting?
