Colorado HOA Owners' Right to Inspect Association Records

Any owner in a Colorado common interest community (condo, planned community, or co-op governed by the Colorado Common Interest Ownership Act) can walk into HOA business and demand the paperwork. C.R.S. § 38-33.3-317(1) lists the categories every association must keep as its official records: itemized receipts and expenditures; construction-defect claims and settlement amounts; minutes of every owner and board meeting plus records of actions taken without a meeting; the current declaration, bylaws, rules, and responsible governance policies adopted under § 38-33.3-209.5; financial statements for the past three years and tax returns for the past seven; the board and officer roster with e-mail and mailing addresses; the current fee schedule for transfers, record changes, and status letters; the annual disclosures required by § 38-33.3-209.4; the most recent reserve study; contracts currently in force plus those performed in the prior two years; architectural approval and denial records; ballots and proxies for one year after the vote; and all general written communications to owners from the past three years.

Subsection (2)(a) sets the mechanics: the board may require a written request describing the records with reasonable particularity and may hold inspection to normal business hours or the next scheduled board meeting occurring within thirty days, but it cannot demand a reason. Subsection (3) lets the board withhold architectural drawings without the owner's consent, active contract negotiations, attorney-client communications, executive-session minutes, and other owners' individual unit files. Subsection (3.5) makes withholding mandatory for personnel, salary, and medical records, plus bank account numbers, phone numbers, e-mail addresses, driver's license numbers, and Social Security numbers, unless the individual member has given written, revocable consent to publish a phone number or e-mail. Copying charges under subsection (4) may not exceed the actual cost of production, copying, mailing, and special processing, and the board may collect the fee in advance.

A board that ignores a proper request is on the hook under § 38-33.3-317(4.5): once an owner sends the request by certified mail, return receipt requested, and pays any required copying fee, the association owes fifty dollars per day starting the eleventh business day after receipt, capped at five hundred dollars, or actual damages if those exceed five hundred. Separately, subsection (2)(b) bars using the membership list to solicit money or property, for any commercial purpose, or for sale, without the executive board's consent.