Treasurer was wrong not to provide bank statement to homeowner
Question: The minutes from our homeowners association give a summary of our financials stating the checking and savings account balances. I asked the treasurer about statements and he got rather defensive. I said that I thought bank statements should be available, and he said there was personal information on the statements such as Social Security numbers. It seems to me that these association bank statements should be made available at the board meetings and to the homeowners. Is the treasurer right in withholding these documents?
Answer: Associations are required to make many documents available for inspection by owners. Those documents are listed in Civil Code section 1365.2 and include check registers, canceled checks, general ledgers, reserve account balances and records of payments from reserve accounts. The words “bank statements” are not in that list, but that does not mean they are not association records, which should be provided to owners who request them. Bank statements no longer contain Social Security numbers, but even if they did, that information could be edited out by the association — as they must be from membership lists — before the statements are provided.
The treasurer’s reasoning for not supplying the bank statements is flat-out wrong. Nothing in those records must be kept confidential by the association. Disclosing them violates no individual or association rights.
Your association’s actual financial position may not be readily discernable from bank statements alone. For a more complete picture, financial records can be compared with reports prepared by association accountants. It should take comparing only a couple of months of the bank statements with the receivables, payables and checks issued to determine whether there are any discrepancies.
Titleholders are entitled to see all association receipts, accounts receivable, accounts payable, bank deposits and petty cash withdrawals.
Send questions to P.O. Box 10490, Marina del Rey, CA 90295 or e-mail noexit@mindspring.com.
