Owner can record open portion of board meeting
Q. Our board meetings are mostly in person these days, as many owners don’t have access to technology needed for a video meeting. Can a unit owner video record a board meeting? Can this be done without the permission of the board and other owners who are attending the board meeting?
A. The answer to both your questions is generally “yes,” if you live in a condominium or master association. The Illinois Condominium Property Act provides that any unit owner may record the proceedings at board meetings, or portions thereof required to be open to owners, by tape, film or other means. However, the board may prescribe reasonable rules and regulations to govern the right to make such recordings. The video recording of meetings can be disruptive and create safety issues.
A board should address these issues by establishing rules that will ensure the least amount of disruption without impairing unit owner rights. An important rule to include would be one that requires the owner who is recording the meeting to advise the chairperson before the start of the meeting. The chair can then make an announcement to the other owners at the meeting that the meeting is being recorded. Importantly, the right to video record a board meeting applies only to the open portion of a board meeting, and not to any portion of a board meeting permitted to be closed to the owners.
Q. If a husband and wife both are owners of a residential unit and a parking unit, can they both serve on the board of directors of our condominium at the same time?
A. Yes. Section 18(a)(1) of the Illinois Condominium Property Act states, in relevant part, “if there are multiple owners of a single unit, only one of the multiple owners shall be eligible to serve as a member of the board at any one time.” The Act does not distinguish between a residential unit and a parking unit in this regard. Here, since the husband and wife own more than a single unit, they would both be eligible to serve on the board at the same time.
Q. I am a frustrated board member. Our delinquency report has too many unit owners who are many months in arrears. Working through the association’s attorney results in slow returns. It has been suggested that we use a collection agency. However, the cost is a concern. Do you have any thoughts on this?
A. Initially, the board should establish and enforce an aggressive collection policy. That policy should provide that if an owner is delinquent in payment of assessment for 60 days (some association adopt a 90-day policy), that owner should be turned over for collection.
In Illinois, that should mean turning the collection over to an attorney to proceed with a forcible entry and detainer (eviction) action against the delinquent owner. Absent unusual circumstances, the association should be able to recover the unpaid assessments and other charges and its attorney’s fees from the delinquent owner. However, it is very important to turn a matter over to the attorney if an owner is delinquent in payment of assessments for 60-90 days. Being aggressive generally reduces delinquencies. An owner is more likely to be able to pay off a delinquency if the sum has not gotten out of hand. Further, having to reimburse the association for attorney’s fees and/or facing eviction, can be a great incentive to owners to pay on time.
Unfortunately, I have seen too many associations wait a long time to begin a collection action. This can reduce the likelihood that an owner will have ready cash to pay the arrearage early in the collection process.
Note that when an association uses a service that takes a percentage of what they collect from the owner, there is often little incentive for the owners to pay on time, and the association isn’t made whole.
Q. A board member of our condominium association recently sold their unit and resigned from the board. They did this in the first year of a two-year term. The position is still vacant, as the board plans to have the seat filled by the owners at the upcoming annual meeting. Would the owners elect a person for a new two-year term?
A. At the annual meeting, the owners would elect a person to fill the remaining one-year of the two-year term of the board member who resigned. The person elected to fill the vacancy would not have a new two-year term.
Typically, that one-year term would go to the candidate who received the least number of votes of the persons who were elected to the board at the annual meeting.
• 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.