HOA and condo meetings, votes, and board control in Arizona

Meetings in Arizona have to happen in the open, and the statute is specific about it. Sections 33-1804 (HOA) and 33-1248 (condo) require all meetings of the membership and the board, plus any regularly scheduled committee meetings, to be open to every member or their written designee, who can attend and speak at the appropriate time. An annual meeting of the membership is required at least once a year, and special meetings can be called by the president, a majority of the board, or members holding at least twenty-five percent of the association's votes (or a lower share if the bylaws say so). Notice has to go out ten to fifty days before any meeting of the members, has to state the date, time, and place, and, for any annual, regular, or special meeting, has to describe the general nature of any proposed declaration or bylaw amendment, assessment changes needing member approval, or a proposal to remove a director or officer. An agenda has to be provided too, by hand delivery, mail, website, email, or posting.

Board meetings get their own notice rule once the declarant no longer controls the association: at least forty-eight hours' advance notice by newsletter, conspicuous posting, or another reasonable method, with the date, time, and place stated, unless emergency circumstances require faster action. Even informal gatherings of a board quorum to discuss association business, workshops, in the statute's language, have to follow the same open-meeting and notice rules, whether or not the board actually votes on anything at that gathering. A board that handles real business in an unnoticed "workshop" isn't exempt just because no formal vote happened.

Recording rights, closed sessions, and when declarant control actually ends

You can audiotape or videotape the open portions of a meeting, and the board can't require advance notice before you do it. The one exception: if the board itself records the meeting and makes the unedited recording available to any member on request without restriction, in which case it must keep that recording for at least six months. Closed sessions are limited to five specific categories: attorney legal advice, pending or contemplated litigation, personal or financial information about an individual member or employee, an individual employee's job performance or specific complaints against them, and a member's own violation appeal, unless that member asks for it to be discussed openly. The statute goes further than most: it declares it "the policy of this state" that these provisions be construed in favor of open meetings whenever there's ambiguity.

On board control, an HOA declarant's period of control ends no later than the conveyance of the second-to-last lot in the community, no matter what the declaration says (§ 33-1820), and while the declarant still owns a lot afterward, the association has to keep maintaining common areas at least as well as the declarant did and can't block the declarant's remaining sales. Condo declarant control (§ 33-1243(E)-(G)) ends at the earlier of ninety days after seventy-five percent of units convey to non-declarant owners, or four years after the declarant stops offering units for sale, and unit owners must elect a board of at least three members, a majority of them unit owners, by that point. Condo owners also get a real removal tool: a petition signed by twenty-five percent of the votes (or one hundred votes, whichever is less, in associations of 1,000 members or fewer) forces the board to call a special meeting within thirty days, and if it doesn't, the directors named in the petition are automatically deemed removed at midnight of the thirty-first day (§ 33-1243(H)).