HOA homeowner request for information privacy protections
A homeowner in my HOA is requesting information from the management company on a month basis such as vendor contracts, detailed payment records (check register) financial cash flow information and other detailed financial information. The community documents, meeting minutes and monthly financials are provide to all homeowners on our community website. The management company has said that the request for information is extensive, onerous and continuous, (more requests than their other 20 communities combined over the past 5 years thus )requiring many additional man hours and would like to charge the HOA a higher management fee. In our monthly HOA meeting, other homeowner asked the HOA board and property manager if they could disclose the name of the person requesting all the information and the response was, were are not sure that we can disclose the name. The request for information is coming from the HOA’s past president who was voted out of office is now trying to make the new board look bad by harassing the new management company. Is there specific language in AZ HOA law that forbids or allows the disclose of the person’s name?
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Daniel,
Let me first say that homeowners who do things like you describe make it harder for every other homeowner in the state to get access to any legitimate records request. It’s cases like this that motivate organizations like AACM or CAI to propose legislation to limit everyone’s access to records like they did last year; while we were able to defeat them, that time, it will come up again. What this individual is doing is vindictive, abusive, and being taken not based on legitimate curiosity but rather a systematic attempt to burden and harass the association. The association is well within its rights to deny any further request by this individual for access to any association records. The courts have repeatedly upheld the refusal of the association to provide access to records based on these abusive, repetitive, and overly burdensome. While this was not what you asked me i could not call out this abusive homeowner.
The association would be well advised not to disclose the individual’s name, as doing so would be seen and interpreted as an act of intimidation and harassment. There is no need or value for the association to take that action; cut the individual off from any further records request. He will undoubtedly file a petition to the ADRE dispute resolution process, but he will lose that case and his $500 for the application. Justice is served.
Dennis