Virginia Code 55.1-1945: Books, minutes, and records; inspection
A. The declarant, managing agent, unit owners’ association, or person specified in the bylaws of the association shall keep detailed records of the receipts and expenditures affecting the operation and administration of the condominium and specifying the maintenance and repair expenses of the common elements and any other expenses incurred by or on behalf of the association. Subject to the provisions of subsections B, C, and E, upon request, any unit owner shall be provided a copy of such records and minutes. All financial books and records shall be kept in accordance with generally accepted accounting practices.
Terms Used In Virginia Code 55.1-1945
- Common elements: means all portions of the condominium other than the units. See Virginia Code 55.1-1900
- Common interest community manager: means the same as that term is defined in § 54. See Virginia Code 55.1-1900
- Condominium: means real property, and any incidents to or interests in such real property, lawfully subject to this chapter by the recordation of condominium instruments pursuant to the provisions of this chapter. See Virginia Code 55.1-1900
- Condominium instruments: means , collectively, the declaration, bylaws, and plats and plans recorded pursuant to the provisions of this chapter. See Virginia Code 55.1-1900
- Contract: A legal written agreement that becomes binding when signed.
- Declarant: means any person, or group of persons acting in concert, that (i) offers to dispose of its interest in a condominium unit not previously disposed of, including an institutional lender that may not have succeeded to or accepted any special declarant rights pursuant to § 55. See Virginia Code 55.1-1900
- Executive board: means an executive and administrative entity, by whatever name denominated, designated in the condominium instruments as the governing body of the unit owners' association. See Virginia Code 55.1-1900
- Executive session: A portion of the Senate's daily session in which it considers executive business.
- Litigation: A case, controversy, or lawsuit. Participants (plaintiffs and defendants) in lawsuits are called litigants.
- Person: means a natural person, corporation, partnership, association, trust, or other entity capable of holding title to real property, or any combination thereof. See Virginia Code 55.1-1900
- State: when applied to a part of the United States, includes any of the 50 states, the District of Columbia, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, and the United States Virgin Islands. See Virginia Code 1-245
- Unit: means a portion of the condominium designed and intended for individual ownership and use. See Virginia Code 55.1-1900
- Unit owner: includes any purchaser of a condominium unit at a foreclosure sale, regardless of whether the deed is recorded in the land records where the unit is located. See Virginia Code 55.1-1900
B. Subject to the provisions of subsection C, all books and records kept by or on behalf of the unit owners’ association, including the unit owners’ association membership list, and addresses and aggregate salary information of unit owners’ association employees, shall be available for examination and copying by a unit owner in good standing or his authorized agent so long as the request is for a proper purpose related to his membership in the unit owners’ association and not for pecuniary gain or commercial solicitation. Notwithstanding any provision of law to the contrary, this right of examination shall exist without reference to the duration of membership and may be exercised (i) only during reasonable business hours or at a mutually convenient time and location and (ii) upon five business days’ written notice for a unit owner association managed by a common interest community manager and 10 business days’ written notice for a self-managed unit owners’ association, which notice shall reasonably identify the purpose for the request and the specific books and records of the unit owners’ association requested.
C. Books and records kept by or on behalf of a unit owners’ association may be withheld from examination or copying by unit owners and contract purchasers to the extent that they are drafts not yet incorporated into the books and records of the unit owners’ association or if such books and records concern:
1. Personnel matters relating to specific, identified persons or a person’s medical records;
2. Contracts, leases, and other commercial transactions to purchase or provide goods or services, currently in or under negotiation;
3. Pending or probable litigation. For purposes of this subdivision, “probable litigation” means those instances where there has been a specific threat of litigation from a person or the legal counsel of such person;
4. Matters involving state or local administrative or other formal proceedings before a government tribunal for enforcement of the condominium instruments or rules and regulations promulgated by the executive board;
5. Communications with legal counsel that relate to subdivisions 1 through 4 or that are protected by the attorney-client privilege or the attorney work product doctrine;
6. Disclosure of information in violation of law;
7. Meeting minutes or other confidential records of an executive session of the executive board held pursuant to subsection C of § 55.1-1949;
8. Documentation, correspondence or management or executive board reports compiled for or on behalf of the unit owners’ association or the executive board by its agents or committees for consideration by the executive board in executive session; or
9. Individual unit owner or member files, other than those of the requesting unit owner, including any individual unit owner’s files kept by or on behalf of the unit owners’ association.
D. Books and records kept by or on behalf of a unit owners’ association shall be withheld from examination and copying in their entirety only to the extent that an exclusion from disclosure under subsection C applies to the entire content of such books and records. Otherwise, only those portions of the books and records containing information subject to an exclusion under subsection C may be withheld or redacted, and all portions of the books and records that are not so excluded shall be available for examination and copying, provided that the requesting member shall be responsible to the association for paying or reimbursing the association for any reasonable costs incurred by the association in responding to the request for the books and records and review for redaction of the same.
E. Prior to providing copies of any books and records, the unit owners’ association may impose and collect a charge, not to exceed the reasonable costs of materials and labor, incurred to provide such copies. Charges may be imposed only in accordance with a cost schedule adopted by the executive board in accordance with this subsection. The cost schedule shall (i) specify the charges for materials and labor, (ii) apply equally to all unit owners in good standing, and (iii) be provided to such requesting unit owner at the time the request is made.
1980, c. 738, § 55-79.74:1; 1985, c. 75; 1989, c. 57; 1990, c. 662; 1992, c. 72; 1994, c. 463; 1999, c. 594; 2000, cc. 906, 919; 2001, c. 419; 2011, cc. 334, 361, 605; 2014, c. 207; 2018, c. 663; 2019, c. 712; 2020, c. 592.