Thank you for you quick response. You have relieved my fears. The homeowners are allowed to audio/video record the meetings. Further, how long after the meeting is the BOD required to provide at least a draft of the meeting minutes?

Art;
All planned communities and condominium are subject to the respective open meeting laws of ARS Title 33 chapters 16 and 9 respectfully. If you are a HOA you are a planned community. The definition of planned community was changed I believe totally inappropriately to exempt Sun Cities Recreation Centers for liability for violating the law for 25 years. My greatest fear in the language chosen for that bill by SCRC attorneys would open the door for other communities to claim that they are not subject to the planned community statutes. If they are not claiming to be exempt from the planned community act then they are without question subject to the open meeting laws.

In that law we guarantee the right for homeowners to either audiotape or videotape the meetings of the board or members. The board can deny that right only if they records the meeting for the entire community to use. They must provide an unedited viable recording available to any homeowner upon request.

What it sounds like in your situation is that the board is recording the meeting only to assist in the creation of the minutes. This is both legal and appropriate. The minutes of the meeting are the official record for the association and not the recording tool that help develop those minutes.

In this case why the association is recording the meeting is the key issue. Now you have not mentioned anything about whether the board is allowing homeowners to record the meeting. If they are not than this is an entirely different scenario. If they are denying you the ability to record the meetings because they are recording it for everyone, then deleting the recording would be illegal and inappropriate.

Dennis

Hey Dennis,
Thanks again for responding.

The board did preclude me from recording and had their own camera. When asked how we could view the recording they made they told us we could go to the clubhouse and watch it on a computer. They will not provide a thumb drive or any other means for anyone else to watch it – members will have to go with a board member and watch it.

Dave

There will always be HOAs that are worse. All are dependent on the character of the people on the Board. Imho and experience it is a myth that people do NOT wan to serve on the board. All I see is people clamoring to get on the board and those are the tyrant types. It’s important to push back on these people as soon as possible. The saddest part about the Arizona Dept of Real Estate and Office of Administration Hearings is that they don’t seem to be able to do much to help w/CC&Rs as those are left to be interpreted by the tyrants however they want. That’s exactly where we need to get control. the abuse comes from loose language in CC&Rs.

Dave;
I’m not an attorney and connote provide legal advice. I put that language into law and we were very careful about how we structured that language. The statement uses “audio or video recording” throughout and as such if the association audio records the meeting they can preclude anyone else from audio recording the meeting. But that would not preclude anyone from video recording a meeting. Conversely if the association video records a meeting that would preclude members from both audio and video recording the meeting because the video recording also includes audio recording.
Your point about trust is very important. I have had one community preclude its members from video recording because it was providing that service, then failed to produce a recording because the equipment failed in one case and the recorder was never turned on in the other. This is no longer hypothetical it really happened. By assuming the responsibility of video recording and denying anyone else’s right to record the meeting, the association also assumed the responsibility of actually producing the legible recording, the association in my opinion violated the law and could be held accountable to that act.

The bottom line here is that we are a single party state and anyone can record anyone else without their permission. While everyone hates to be recorded, in many cases it is the only way to curtail the verbal abuse and issues that arise at these meeting by either the boards or the members.

The purpose of this law is simply transparency. Just know that what you say or do either as a board member or homeowner at a meeting can and will be used against you if you violate the law. It can also exonerate you if you are accused of saying or doing something that was not true.

Litigation was not my primary purpose in drafting this language, it was to provide a mechanism to share the meeting with those that were not in attendance. With this tool homeowners whose busy schedule, or small children, or physical health issues that prevents them from attending the meeting in person, can view the meeting for themselves at their convenience and see what is going on in their communities.

Thanks
Dennis

Hi Dennis,
Thanks for your quick reply. What if the HOA decides to audio record only. Does that preclude us from using a video camera?

Our HOA is very secretive and deceptive and they do not want any (correct) record of their actions. One board member resigned last year and in his resignation he stated the reason was that the meetings were being recorded and he was “afraid” that the recording(s) would be used in a lawsuit.

The homeowners want the recordings, especially video recordings.

We suspect that, if the BOD decides to do their own recordings, the recordings will somehow become “unusable” and/or we’ll have to fight to have them available.

Thanks,
Dave

Who are HOAs good for? They are very good for submissive people who let tyrants push them around. If you are an independent thinker EVEN when willing to comply with HOA governing documents you are NOT a good fit for an HOA. Why? Because boards will create more problems for you when you push back!

To sum it all up, I too am fed up w/HOAs and MCs. They are an annoyance at best. Imho, what produces the best results is to go after and file complaints with the Arizona Dept of Real Estate. If you read the HOA Bylaws as well as State Statute you’ll likely find lots the Board are failing to comply with. The beauty of the AZDRE Petitions are that they go to the Statutory Agent, (generally an attorney) and if/when the Board complies you will likely get your $500 advance to them returned to you. To date the complaints that I’ve filed have resulted in the Board complying and my money being refunded w/out having to go to Office of Administration Hearings. I am convinced all Board Members and MC’s do a very bad job. Board Members rarely if ever read their own governing docs. They are tyrants. It’s unfortunate Legislators are failing to step up the the plate to protect Members.

Dave;

If the association choses to record all of the meetings themselves and thereby preclude any individuals from video or audio taping then they must make the unedited recording available to all homeowners without exception. They also cannot place any restricting on the use of that recording as evidence in any dispute resolution. The prohibition on and restriction on the use of the recording is after the fact. It must be made available to all homeowners upon simple request. If you ask for it, they must provide it.

I included this provision in the law in 2017 if you want more detail, or have more questions please feel free to follow up.

Thanks
Dennis

Joe;

You don’t need to worry or be nervous. You can simply use “see attached” on the form and type out your petition on a separate sheet. Be as brief and to the point as you can be. You want to make sure that the issue you are concerned about is valid. You had mentioned earlier that this was an executive session and members are not allowed in executive sessions, if this was an executive session they would not normally provide agenda other than to the board member themselves. The notice for this meeting was required to identify the specific exception that allowed this meeting to be closed. Your concern is that you believe that they were discussing issues in executive session that was not allowed by statute. That is fine, however you bear the burden of proof so if your are to spend $500 on the petition you need to prove your case by the preponderance of evidence. Not by speculation or assumption. Look at it this way, knowing the law could you convince someone that that happened directly violated the law? if not don’t file and save your money for another day. If you believe that you can and feel that the issue is significant enough or if you have evidence of this happening on several occasions than go ahead and file the petition, You need to be prepared for the attacks that you will get from the board to the community. They will try to paint you as a trouble maker for costing the community to defend themselves from this baseless petition. You are not alone this happens to everyone. They violate the law and because they control what the community hears they paint you as the villian for calling them out on this issue. I’m not trying to either encourage you or discourage you from filing please separate yourself from the emotion of being kicked out of a meeting and ask yourself is this worth it. I will tell you that I started my advocacy work based on open meeting law violations for my own community. I won and the hate campaign against me by the board member that are still in office has continued for years. I don’t regret my decision in the least the blatant and total disregard for the open meeting laws that had gone on for years, had to stop.

Dennis