Condo Media - October 2014 - 37

lieves. "You can never have too much
information."
Daddario agrees. "Keep everything for as long as you can," he says,
because it is hard to anticipate what
records an association might need. The
inability to produce a record "could
provide fodder" for a litigious owner.
It's also possible that old records could
provide evidence that will help the
board defend against a claim.

Policies and Procedures

Aside from a few general requirements
in some statutes (requests to review
records must be in writing, records
must be "reasonably available" during
regular business hours, and associations must respond to requests within a
specified time), associations are generally free to determine how they will
maintain their records and make them
available to owners. Industry professionals offer this advice:
* Keep good records, McGlauflin says.
The need to respond to owners' requests for them obviously is not the
only reason this is a wise idea.
* Develop written policies and procedures for managing records and
responding to owners' requests to
examine them. The association's
policy should specify how owners
should submit requests (the Maine
and Vermont statutes say requests
must be in writing), how quickly the
board or management company will
respond, where and when the records
will be available for examination, the
cost for copying them, and any other
procedural details.
* Adopt the relevant provisions of the
state statute as an amendment to the
association's bylaws. McGlauflin recommends this as a means of ensuring
that owners understand their rights
and board members understand their
obligations.
* Require owners requesting information to specify the records they want
to review.
* Keep a log of all requests to inspect
and copy records and require owners

to sign the log. This proves that the
association made the records available and that the owner examined
them.
* Make as much information as possible accessible to owners and board
members online.
* When uncertain about whether
to make specific financial or legal
documents available to owners, Levy
advises to ask the association's accountant or attorney before providing them.
* Be consistent and professional
in dealing with records requests,
McGlauflin says. "The person who
constantly annoys you should get
the same response as the owner who
rarely asks for anything."
* Follow the law precisely in managing association records and responding to access requests. That advice
comes from Daddario, who notes
that the Massachusetts law requires
that records be maintained in the

Commonwealth-a detail that some
associations might overlook. The
decision to store records in an outof-state facility might be "completely
benign," he says. But if an owner
is contesting access to association
records, "technical violations" of the
statute might strengthen the owner's
claim.
* Make the association's record-review
policies user friendly. You want to
convey a positive message: that the
board thinks owners are entitled to
information, not a sense that the
board is trying to keep it under
wraps. It's all about transparency,
Daddario observes. "That's what
owners want," and increasingly, he
says, "that's what the courts are
demanding." CM
Nena Groskind is president of eContentplus, providing editorial content for
websites, print and electronic newsletters,
and magazines.

Condo Media * OctOber 2014

Condo Media - October 2014

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Condo Media - October 2014