Recording HOA mtg when Atty present
Dennis, just finished an open board meeting. They brought in our HOA attorney, who sat in for free. They started the meeting saying that in Arizona, it’s illegal to record an HOA meeting if the atty is present and he does not give his consent to be recorded. The atty then said he does not consent to being recorded.
With that, they shut down our Arizona right to record the meeting.
Is that legit?
About Post Author
5 Responses
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
The more I think about this, the more it can’t possibly be right.
If it were, anyone who’s an attorney (non-board member or not) could simply attend an HOA meeting and say “hey, I’m an attorney, and I do not consent to being recorded” and thereby shut down our Arizona right to record any HOA meeting. The board could have their atty sit in via Zoom (these are done via zoom), the atty could be doing other work entirely so no cost to the HOA, and say “I do not consent to being recorded” and, with that, prevent us from ever recording any of our HOA meetings.
This simply cannot be true. Your thoughts, Dennis?
Arizona is a single party state, and anyone can record a public meeting or any individual without their consent in a public area, even if an attorney is present. If the attorney is giving the association legal advice, they can adjourn and go into executive session. Relative to recording HOA meetings the law is clear anyone can record the meeting unless the association records it for them. If the attorney actually did that, he is lying but then again that is what attorneys do. You have a right undr Arizona law, I worked hard to give you that right, don’t let anyone take it away from you.
Dennis
Thank you, Dennis!
A friend emailed the atty to ask for the specific AZ statue that grants his alleged “ATTORNEY EXCEPTION” claim.
No word yet. If I hear anything, I’ll post it here .
Thanks again!
Dennis,
To update you and give you all the facts my case was 23F-H039-REL. Note that this is the second pro se case lost by our HOA. The continue to make up Hoa law. Just last meeting they didn’t ask the community for input on two motions they passed, when I pasted in the law into chat i was muted and told that i could only comment at the appropriate time. Additionally the president the same president in my case then state that they don’t have to offer community input on affirmation votes. Not sure what an affirmation vote is but it isn’t in the law. After going through the ADRE/OAH process I can say that they system lacks a means to really penalize the individuals that are doing this and the community ends up paying for their mistakes.
Michael,
I agree with your assessment of the effectiveness of the ALJ process but the problem is not with the judges it is with the law that applies no consequence to violations of the law. I work on that issue every year and will do so again this year. If the board has an agenda item that they vote on they must allow any member present at that meeting to speak to that issue prior to their vote. This is not conditional on anything, or what the board is voting on including a recess to go to the bathroom.