Law allows board members to act immediately in emergency

Q: Our board conducts votes by e-mail for items that are not public noticed on executive board meeting or regular board meeting agendas.

The board has voted agenda items at public board meetings, and then conducted e-mail re-votes a few days later changing their votes with no notice to anyone.

The board also conducts secret e-mail votes to eliminate violations. Some violations have been addressed in executive board meetings, some are scheduled for hearings, and some have only received violation letters. Are these types of votes legal?

A: There is a fine line in this.

NRS 116.31083 subsections 3 and 12 state the procedures for emergency meetings.

Emergency means any occurrence or combination of occurrences that:

a. could not have been reasonably forseen;

b. affects the health, welfare and safety of the units' owners or residents of the common-interest community;

c. requires the immediate attention of and possible action by the executive board and;

d. makes it impracticable to comply with the provisions of the notification and the publication of agenda procedures found in subsection 2 and 5 of this law.

The reality is that certain actions must be taken on any given day in the operation of an association. A repair to the security vehicular gates must be approved in order for it to operate properly is an example of an action that really can't wait until the next meeting.

By e-mailing or faxing all of the information to the board members, a vote can be held to approve the repairs in a timely manner.

Another example is a homeowner who is involved in a short sale and the closing is set to take place between board meetings. She contacts the management company and asks that the board waives part or all of her fines or late fees in order to make the sale viable. This also would be considered an action item for an executive session of the board and not during an open meeting of the board.

Because of the time constraints of a closing, an e-mail vote would be needed by the board.

Your association board must meet in an open meeting to vote on bids, to vote on the hiring and firing of contractors, personnel, appointing new directors, approving budgets, approving new rules and regulations and to conduct certain business required by state laws.

Unless there was some new pertinent information that would substantially change the rational for the approval of some action item that was taken at the board meeting, the board should not change its votes that were taken at the meeting by e-mails.

I know of one case where the association board voted to terminate a management contract and had voted to approve a management contract with another company. The day after the vote, the president and treasurer went to see the new management company only to find out that it has gone out of business. An e-mail vote occurred to allow the terminated management company to continue in the management of the association for a period not to exceed 60 days.

As to the hearings and violation letters, not all violations result in hearings with the homeowners as compliance is most often obtained after a courtesy letter has been sent.

Barbara Holland, CPM, and Supervisory CAM, is president of H&L Realty and Management Co. To ask her a question, e-mail support@hlrealty.com.