Board not required to call a discussion meeting of owners before the budget is adopted

Q. The board of our condominium association is in the process of finalizing next year's annual budget for adoption. Is the board required to call a meeting of the owners to discuss the proposed budget before the budget is adopted by the board?

A. The board is not required to call a meeting of the owners to discuss the proposed annual budget. In order to adopt the annual budget, the Illinois Condominium Property Act, Section 18(a), requires that each unit owner receive, at least 30 days prior to the adoption by the board of managers, a copy of the proposed annual budget. Further, each unit owner must also receive written notice of the board meeting where the board will adopt the annual budget, to be mailed or delivered and giving unit owners no less than 10 and no more than 30 days' notice of the time, place and purpose of such a meeting.

To avoid multiple mailings of the above documents, the proposed budget and the notice of board meeting should be issued to owners on the 30th day before the meeting at which the board is going to adopt the annual budget.

Q. What if the board does not adopt an annual budget before the start of the new fiscal year?

A. The typical provision of an association's declaration or bylaws provides that if the budget is not adopted by the beginning of the new year, the monthly assessments would continue at the then existing amount until the budget for the new fiscal year is adopted. Once a new budget is adopted, any change in assessments for the full year would be spread over the remaining months of the new fiscal year.

Q. My association is considering amending the declaration to prohibit dogs. I don't have a dog now, but I may want one in the future. Since dogs were permitted when I bought my unit, would I be bound by this amendment?

A. Yes. Appellate court decisions have made clear that owners purchase units subject to the ability of the association to amend the governing documents. An association can amend the declaration to prohibit dogs from being kept on the property. Because of the potential for a challenge, the association must carefully follow the amendment procedures described in the declaration. Such an amendment should provide that any dog residing in a unit at the time the amendment is recorded with the county is be "grandfathered" and permitted to stay.

Q. I have a question regarding your recent column advising associations against distributing meeting minutes to unit owners before they are approved by the board. Is this mandated by law or just good legal advice? I am the secretary of the board and if I were to wait for the board to approve the minutes at the next meeting, we would not be informing unit owners of board actions for weeks. Is there an alternative to keep residents informed other than waiting two months for the minutes to be approved?

A. I received a lot of feedback on that column; it touched a nerve for a lot of people! My suggestion was based on what I consider to be "best practices," not a specific law. Minutes are not "official" until they are properly approved by the board at a board meeting. In my view, it is simply not a good idea to distribute a document to all of the members of an association that is supposed to be an official record of corporate action before those minutes are formally approved. The risk of distributing draft minutes that may contain significant errors is simply too great, even if marked "draft" - you simply can't unring that bell. If an association wants to keep membership advised of what is going on at the association, I would suggest doing a newsletter. But if your association's minutes read like a newsletter, they likely include way too much information.

• David M. Bendoff is an attorney with Kovitz Shifrin Nesbit in the Chicago suburbs. 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.