What You Should Know About Meeting Minutes
There are no journalistic standards for producing minutes. If you do not attend a meeting, you will never really know what happened. A missed meeting means that whatever the board says occurred is what happened, true or not. Boards are often coached by lawyers and management companies in what to leave out of the minutes that are distributed to homeowners because, if anyone ever sues, the minutes, true or false, become binding on the association. If there are no written documents, it becomes a he-said-she-said charge. Boards are told to omit whenever possible, any motions and seconds that are made, any votes that were taken, and how committee members were chosen and by whom. Board members are also prompted to omit the topics on which homeowners spoke or complained.