Board within its rights to charge for copies of minutes

Q. After years of providing our condominium homeowners with copies of approved meeting minutes, owners are now being advised that we must make an appointment and drive 20 miles to the property management office, pay an hourly sum to sit and watch someone make copies of the minutes, and pay ten cents a copy. The other associations in our complex automatically provide minutes of meetings to their homeowners at no charge. Is this proper? Can minutes simply be mailed directly to me from the property management office?

A. The board of managers of a condominium association must keep and maintain minutes of all meetings of the association and its board for the prior seven years (or true and complete copies of these records), at the association's principal office. Any member of the association, in person or by agent, has the right to inspect, examine and make copies of such minutes.

In order to exercise this right, a member must submit a written request to the association's board of managers, or its authorized agent, stating with particularity the records sought to be examined. The actual cost to the association of retrieving and making requested records available for inspection and examination may be charged by the association to the requesting member. Similarly, the actual costs to the association of copying the records may also be charged by the association to the requesting member.

If an owner makes a request for a specific set of minutes, many associations will simply mail them to the owner and charge the copying cost and a modest sum to retrieve them, rather than requiring an owner to physically appear at the management office.

Q. Can my condominium association force me to have the windows and sliding door serving my unit replaced? Who pays for this work?

A. The board of managers of the condominium is ultimately responsible for the maintenance, repair and replacement of the common element windows and sliding glass door serving the individual units. This permits the board to determine the need for such work, and when and how such work will be performed. These decisions should be made with the input of the association's engineer or similar consultant.

In general, the association is responsible for the cost of maintenance, repair and replacement of the common elements. However, the declaration or bylaws of the association may provide for the assessment, in connection with expenditures for the limited common elements, of only those units to which the limited common elements are assigned. If your condominium instruments includes this language, the association could charge the cost of the windows and sliding glass doors to your unit, as they are typically limited common elements.

Q. I am on the board of our self-managed condominium. The association conducts an annual accounting review every year, but not an audit. My question is how often is considered reasonable to conduct an actual audit?

A. The Condominium Property Act does not require an annual audit. Rather, this law requires the board of managers to provide an annual accounting to all unit owners. This means an itemized accounting of the common expenses for the preceding year actually incurred or paid, together with an indication of which portions were for reserves, capital expenditures or repairs or payment of real estate taxes and with a tabulation of the amounts collected pursuant to the budget or assessment, and showing the net excess or deficit of income over expenditures plus reserves.

That said, some association's governing documents require an annual audit, not just an accounting. In the absence of the requirement for an audit in the association's governing documents, the board should consult with its accountant as to the need for and frequency of an audit.

• David M. Bendoff is an attorney with Kovitz Shifrin Nesbit in Buffalo Grove. Send questions for the column to him at CondoTalk@ksnlaw.com. The firm provides legal service to condominium, townhouse, homeowner associations and housing cooperatives. This column is not a substitute for consultation with legal counsel.