Alaska HOA Meetings: One a Year, 10 to 60 Days Notice, Agenda Required

Alaska governs condominiums, planned communities and cooperatives through the Uniform Common Interest Ownership Act at AS 34.08. Meeting mechanics live in AS 34.08.390, and the section is short enough that every clause counts. A meeting of the association must be held at least once each year. A special meeting may be called by the president, by a majority of the executive board, or by unit owners comprising 20 percent of the votes in the association, or a lower percentage if the bylaws set one. Notice goes out not less than 10 nor more than 60 days in advance, sent by the secretary or whichever officer the bylaws name, and it must be hand delivered or sent prepaid by United States mail to the mailing address of each unit or to an address the owner designated in writing.

The content of that notice is where Alaska owners get real leverage. AS 34.08.390 requires the notice to state the time and place and the items on the agenda, and it names four things the agenda must flag specifically: the general nature of any proposed amendment to the declaration, the general nature of any proposed amendment to the bylaws, budget changes, and a proposal to remove an officer or a member of the executive board. A board cannot lawfully surprise the membership with a removal vote or a bylaws rewrite that was not on the notice.

Quorums are low. Under AS 34.08.400(a), unless the bylaws provide otherwise, a quorum exists throughout a membership meeting if persons entitled to cast 20 percent of the votes that may be cast for election of the executive board are present in person or by proxy at the beginning of the meeting. For the board itself, AS 34.08.400(b) sets the quorum at 50 percent of the board votes, again unless the bylaws specify a larger percentage. Proxies are governed by AS 34.08.410(b): a proxy is void if it is not dated or if it purports to be revocable without notice, it terminates one year after its date unless it specifies a shorter term, and it can be revoked only by actual notice of revocation to the person presiding over the meeting. AS 34.08.410(d) forbids casting the votes allocated to a unit the association itself owns, which stops a board from voting the association inventory.

Board composition and removal are set by AS 34.08.330. Once any period of declarant control ends the owners elect the board, which must have at least three members, except that a community with fewer than 12 units may use a declaration providing for a board of one or two. At least a majority of board members must be unit owners, the board elects the officers, and under AS 34.08.330(a) officers and board members must exercise the care required of fiduciaries of the unit owners. AS 34.08.330(g) lets the owners remove a board member with or without cause by a two-thirds vote of all persons present and entitled to vote at a meeting where a quorum is present, following notice under AS 34.08.390, and that power overrides any contrary provision of the declaration or bylaws. A declarant-appointed member is the one exception.

The budget has its own timetable. AS 34.08.330(c) gives the board 30 days after adopting a proposed budget to send a summary to every unit owner, and requires it to set a ratification meeting not less than 14 nor more than 30 days after that summary is mailed. The budget is ratified unless a majority of all unit owners, or a larger vote the declaration specifies, rejects it at that meeting, and it is ratified whether or not a quorum is present. If the owners do reject it, the last ratified periodic budget simply continues until a new one passes.

Records are the thin part of Alaska law. AS 34.08.490(a) requires the association to keep financial records detailed enough to comply with AS 34.08.590 and provides that financial and other records "must be made reasonably available for examination by a unit owner and an authorized agent of a unit owner." The statute names no deadline, no list of specific records, and no cap on copying charges, so reasonableness is the whole standard. AS 34.08.490(b) is sharper: a professional manager, managing agent, accountant or other contractor must return all association records within five days of the contract ending, and if the records are not returned the association may sue for their return and for damages.

One document does carry a hard deadline, and it is the fastest route to an Alaska association books. AS 34.08.590(b) requires the association, within 10 days after a written request by a unit owner and payment of a reasonable fee, to furnish a resale certificate. The list at AS 34.08.590(a) is substantial: current assessments and any unpaid or special assessment, other owner fees, capital expenditures over $3,000 approved by the board for the current and two next succeeding fiscal years, capital reserves, the most recent balance sheet and income and expense statement, the current operating budget, unsatisfied judgments and pending suits, and insurance coverage. Under AS 34.08.590(c) a purchaser is not liable for an unpaid assessment greater than the certificate shows, and the purchase contract stays voidable until the certificate arrives and for five days afterward.

Which communities all this reaches is the trap. AS 34.08.010 applies the chapter to common interest communities created in Alaska after January 1, 1986. AS 34.08.040(a) then lists the sections that reach back to older communities, and the meeting rules are not on it. AS 34.08.490 on records is on the list, as are AS 34.08.110, AS 34.08.320(a)(1) through (6) and (11) through (16), AS 34.08.470 and AS 34.08.590. AS 34.08.390, AS 34.08.400, AS 34.08.410, AS 34.08.330 and AS 34.08.370 are absent. An Alaska condominium recorded in 1981 therefore owes its members reasonable access to records and a resale certificate, but the 10-to-60-day notice window and the 20 percent special-meeting right come only from its own declaration and bylaws unless it amends them under AS 34.08.060 to take up the chapter.

Nothing in AS 34.08 hands enforcement to a state agency, so there is no Alaska HOA regulator and no administrative complaint. The chapter supplies court remedies instead. AS 34.08.670 provides that if a declarant or any other person subject to the chapter fails to comply with the chapter or with the declaration or bylaws, a person or class of persons adversely affected has a claim for appropriate relief, and punitive damages may be awarded for a wilful failure to comply. AS 34.08.810(b) adds that a right or obligation declared by the chapter is enforceable by judicial proceeding.

The practical effect on a defective meeting is straightforward. Business transacted at a meeting noticed fewer than 10 days out, or more than 60 days out, or without the agenda items AS 34.08.390 requires, was not noticed as the statute demands, and an owner adversely affected by it has a claim under AS 34.08.670. The same applies to a removal vote taken without the notice AS 34.08.330(g) expressly conditions on AS 34.08.390, or a proxy counted though it was undated and therefore void under AS 34.08.410(b). For records, an owner refused inspection sues rather than complains, and the measure is whether the association made the records reasonably available under AS 34.08.490(a). Two adjacent duties are easier to prove because they are numeric. If the association misses the 10-day resale certificate deadline in AS 34.08.590(b), the buyer contract remains voidable under AS 34.08.590(c) until the certificate is delivered and for five days after, which is real commercial pressure on a board sitting on paperwork. If a departing management company keeps the books past the five-day return deadline in AS 34.08.490(b), the association may sue for the records and for damages. Board members who ignore these duties are also exposed personally under the fiduciary standard in AS 34.08.330(a), and AS 34.08.800 imposes an obligation of good faith on the performance and enforcement of every duty the chapter governs.