Can past Board meeting minutes be challenged for validity?

Our April 2007 minutes are missing information and are ambiguous concerning several issues with a homeowner. The homeowner happens to be the boyfriend of our Secretary.

Our management company secretary has conflicting notes on this meeting. After doing research because one of the issues came up on a walk-around inspection, the homeowner said the minutes said his issues were resolved as of the April 2007 meeting, and we all motioned to accept the April minutes in our May meeting. Now, after looking back some of us realize we didn't take very close look at the April minutes befoe accepting them as written. Isn't there a conflict of interest here? And can these minutes be challenged.

The issue concerning his home were written in the minutes as such: The three concerns with this homeowner were found to be acceptable.

BarbaraM7: It is unfortunate that the Board members were not more careful to
thoroughly review the minutes as the mgmt. company secretary presented them, since now your name/s are on as minutes accepted.

I find the sentence as recorded by the mgmt. company secretary to be ambiguous, as you do. The statement says the concerns were found to be acceptable--what does this mean exactly? The concerns were found acceptable--
to be revisited and acted upon?--to be acceptable for the Board to proceed with the violation process?--to be acceptable and permitted by the Board with no further action to be taken...?

The fact that the Board did accept the minutes does not mean the Board cannot address the concerns ...which were "found acceptable". If you did choose to now ignore the resident issue/s just because you accepted the minutes, you would be compounding the problem greatly.

Perhaps you, as a Board member, can bring this matter up at the next Board meeting stating that the minutes were inadequate. The word 'acceptable' is NOT ACCEPTABLE to describe community concerns and outcome. Minutes are to contain 'verbs' as action taken in a Board/resident matter and by whom, and/or action to be taken by a certain date, with the result recorded.

The Board must continue in their role of governing according to the official documents. IMHO, I would question the ability of the mgmt. company and their 'secretary' to record minutes in this manner.

Consider this interpretation:

The concerns as identified by the board are acceptable. That doesn't mean the concerned were addressed in an acceptable manner.

A good lawyer has room to play if that is the exact wording.

Barbara,

Good Luck!

Our current board has a similar issue with a now departed secretary (he stormed out of a winter board meeting when the board told him we did NOT need a verbatum record), whom has now taken up a cause, that his meeting minutes were not complete and his recorded (tape) minutes are not what was written (created from memory)by some of the board who remained to cleanup his mess (incomplete Annual Meeting minutes). Some believe he did it on purpose to confuse and muddy the motions and actions taken that he wanted to oppose and disput, at the very HOA "ANNUAL" Meeting (2006) he was to have been taking minutes for, and left incomplete.

The corrective and accepted action of our board, was to ask (ALL) who attended to submit ANY corrections sent to ALL prior to our 2007 Annual Meeting. None were sent to our Association mailing address, or did anyone ask for a correction of the record of the meeting minutes done to the best of "OUR" (Board present at the last annual meetings)memory.

Now this "loose cannon" shows up at the Annual Meting in 2007 and is trying to make a demand that a motion was not called for, although a vote was officially taken and recorded by the HOA and the members at that meeting, and the results published and the change was added to our by-Laws in HOA charter.

Talk about ridiculous and unbelievable. Our legal representative said, first there is a time line that is acceptable for a rebutal to the record (read that as protest/objection) and second the HOA posted and sent notice by usps after the vote (less than 30 days) notifying ALL members of the change and the votes for that change, third his fiduciary responsibility to the Association should be questioned because he was the secretary of record and did not complete his due dilligence in a timely and responsible manner.

Enough said for our situation, maybe this recollection of our disaster may help you in yours. Sometimes the legal angle as has been mentioned, is the only way to resolve it, by having an outside party, play a role in the decision and legal obligation for ALL.