![]() "Sometimes clients ask us, 'Do you know a service that can help us with meeting minutes? I'm the secretary, and I can't keep up with the meeting and do the notes.' We'll say, 'Yes, but let's discuss why you need that. "We always advise clients that meeting minutes are a record of decisions made, not discussions had," she says. "I recommend boards take corporate minutes, which are a record of what was proposed and what was adopted-that's it," says Lozell. There's one smart way to avoid this whole problem by curbing the likelihood of debate over the content of the minutes. "But there could be a situation where the board has asked the association's counsel or gotten informal approval from other board members to make a change because an item that was in the minutes was discussed in closed session and should be removed." "If there's a typographical or clarification issue, a revision isn't going to be a reason to sound any alarms," says Drewes. Maybe, maybe, MAYBE there's one instance when the board can agree to change approved minutes and pretend the first version never existed. ![]() But at the next meeting, the board could address the potential change: 'It looks like we had a typo and the meeting started at the right time.' That could be discussed, and the next minutes should reflect the outcome of that discussion." If there's a true controversy and those are the approved minutes, they should still be put up online. "Let's say the minutes state the meeting started at 5, but the webmaster thinks, 'It's started at 6 for past two years.' It's not for the webmaster to be making those changes on his own. "What might seem to be a very small thing to someone could be an integral part of the minutes," says Erin McManis, a senior associate at Mulcahy Law Firm PC in Phoenix, who advises many associations. Or the next meeting's minutes could reflect the correct information. There would then be an amendment so you could see what happened." "The board could, if it wanted to reopen that, ask, 'Did anybody else have a recollection?' But the original minutes would stand. "Let's suppose the board approves the minutes and a month later, somebody says, 'I was at that meeting the vote really wasn't 3-2, it was 4-2,'" explains Galvin. It's sometimes smart to amend approved minutes if they're wrong and the board thinks a correction is important. I've seen it happen where subsequent to adoption, someone says, 'I didn't say that.' But it's too late." "They're now accepted as the minutes of a particular meeting. "However, if they're approved, nothing can be done with those minutes going forward," says Lozell. "If you send out a draft, at the next board meeting, the secretary would submit the minutes, and another board member might say, 'We didn't do that' or 'I didn't say that.' You can modify and then adopt them. "Prior to them being adopted, they're up for grabs," he says. Lozell, CPM, director of condominium management at Seneca Real Estate Advisors, a Chicago startup company that manages less than 100 units so far at Lozell's prior firm, he managed as many as 1,000 units. ![]() "After minutes have been approved, there's never a time that would be OK unless what's changed is simply an obvious grammatical mistake." ![]() "The minutes are very important, and whenever a meeting starts, the first comments are, 'Has everybody read the minutes of the last meeting? Are there any changes or corrections? If there aren't, let's move to approve them,'" explains Robert Galvin, a partner at Davis, Malm & D'Agostine PC in Boston who specializes in representing condos and co-ops. But it's not after they've been approved. Here our experts answer the question of when meeting minutes can and should be changed and the appropriate process for doing that. If you have a question you need answered, post it on the message board.Īn reader asks, "What does a board do when the webmaster (also a board member) unilaterally modifies prior minutes without a vote of the board? When discovered and called upon to explain, the explanation does not add up as truthful. This article is part of an ongoing series in which we'll take your questions from the discussion forum and get you the answers you need from experts who specialize in association management. Tags: HOA Meeting Minutes, Condo Meeting Minutes
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Details
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |