New Jersey Open Board Meetings, 14-to-60 Day Election Notice and Records Access

New Jersey's governance rules were rewritten by the Radburn law, P.L.2017, c.106, approved July 13, 2017. Section 9 of that act made the notice, nomination, ballot content, voting and vote distribution paragraphs inoperative until the first day of the third month after enactment, and applied them to each executive board election on or after that date. The result is a set of hard deadlines that override an association's older bylaws wherever the two conflict.

Open meetings come first. Under N.J.S.A. 45:22A-46(a) the bylaws must require that all meetings of the executive board be open to attendance by all association members and voting-eligible tenants, with adequate notice given in the manner the bylaws prescribe. The only meetings exempt on their face are conference or working sessions at which no binding votes are to be taken. Beyond that, a board may exclude or restrict attendance only for four listed matters: disclosure that would constitute an unwarranted invasion of individual privacy, pending or anticipated litigation or contract negotiations, matters within the attorney-client privilege to the extent confidentiality is required for the attorney to meet ethical duties, and the employment, promotion, discipline or dismissal of a specific officer or employee. Public comment is discretionary. The statute says participation of members in the proceedings or the provision of a public comment session shall be at the discretion of the executive board. Minutes, by contrast, are mandatory: minutes of the proceedings shall be taken, and copies shall be made available to all members and voting-eligible tenants before the next open meeting.

Election frequency is set by the governing documents, but with a floor. N.J.S.A. 45:22A-45.2(a) says that if those documents set no specific time or interval, elections shall be held at two-year intervals. If an association has not held a compliant election in two or more years, it must hold one within 90 days of the submission to any current board member of a petition signed by 25 or more percent of members in good standing, subject to the quorum number in the governing documents. Where an association has no board members at all and the membership does not act, any member may petition a court of competent jurisdiction, at common expense and after written notice to all owners, for authority to act temporarily and organize an election within 90 days of the court order.

The notice sequence in subsection c. applies in full to developments with 50 or more units. Written notice of the right to nominate yourself or another member in good standing must reach members no later than 30 days before the mailing of the election notice, and the nomination window must be at least 14 days from the mailing of the request for nominations. Written notice of the election itself, by personal delivery, mail or electronic means, must be given no less than 14 nor more than 60 days before the meeting, and must include a proxy ballot and an absentee ballot unless the bylaws prohibit them, listing all nominated candidates in alphabetical order by last name. Electronic notice is permitted only if the member agreed in writing to accept it or the governing documents permit it and another absentee or proxy voting method is available. A board term may not exceed four years. Proxies must carry a prominent notice that their use is voluntary and revocable before the vote is cast and that absentee ballots are available, and an association may not use proxies for a board election without also making absentee ballots available. Developments with fewer than 50 units get a shorter list under subsection b., but must still provide election notice, open nomination and voting, candidacy review, ready access to voting information, and non-fraudulent ballot counting.

Records access is narrower than the meeting rules. N.J.S.A. 46:8B-14(g) makes the association responsible for maintaining accounting records in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles, open to inspection at reasonable times by unit owners, and specifies that they include a record of all receipts and expenditures and an account for each unit showing shares of common expenses or other charges due, due dates, present balance, and any interest in common surplus. During developer control, N.J.S.A. 45:22A-45(d) separately requires copies of the annual audit of association funds to be available for inspection by owners or their authorized representatives at the project site. The statutes fix no page fee and no production deadline, so the enforceable standard is inspection at reasonable times rather than a set number of days.

There is no fine attached to a missed meeting notice. The remedy is procedural and administrative. A. A. 46:8B-14(k) for condominiums, which must be readily available as an alternative to litigation and staffed by a person other than an officer, a governing board member, or an owner involved in the dispute. A unit owner may notify the Commissioner of Community Affairs when an association fails to provide that procedure, and the commissioner has express power to order the association to provide one. A. A. 46:8B-14(g), and upon investigation the commissioner has the power to order the association to comply.

A. 2(a), followed by a petition to the Superior Court if the association still fails to act. A. 45:22A-46(d)(5) permits that only to conform the bylaws to State, federal or local law, or after notice with a rejection ballot, and the amendment is deemed defeated if at least 10 percent of members vote to reject it within 30 days of mailing. A. 45:22A-38, with penalties from $250 to $50,000 per violation.