Rhode Island Condominium Meetings: One Annual Meeting, 10 to 60 Days Notice, Records in 30 Days

Meeting mechanics for Rhode Island condominiums live in R.I. Gen. Laws § 34-36.1-3.08, which the General Assembly rewrote in 2025 by P.L. 2025, ch. 123, § 1 and ch. 136, § 1, both effective June 24, 2025. The base rule in subsection (a) is unchanged from 1982: a meeting of the association must be held at least once each year. The statute sets no fixed month and no maximum interval beyond the annual requirement, so the calendar comes from the bylaws.

Three groups can call a special meeting: the president, a majority of the executive board, or unit owners holding 20 percent of the votes in the association, or any lower percentage the bylaws specify. The 20 percent route is stronger than it looks. Where owners meeting that threshold ask for a special meeting to propose an amendment of the declaration or bylaws, reject the budget, or remove a director or officer and elect a replacement, the executive board must call it. The one carve-out is the general election of board members, which the statute assigns to the annual meeting.

Notice must be delivered not less than 10 nor more than 60 days in advance by the secretary or other officer named in the bylaws, hand delivered or sent prepaid by United States mail to the mailing address of each unit or to another mailing address the owner designates in writing. Subsection (e), added in 2025, lets an association substitute or add email delivery to an address the owner has designated in writing, or posting to a secure association website or portal, but only where the owner has given written consent, and the owner may revoke that consent in writing at any time. Subsection (b) fixes the content: time, place and the agenda, including the general nature of any proposed amendment to the declaration or bylaws, any budget changes and any proposal to remove a director or officer.

The 2025 amendment also authorized remote meetings notwithstanding anything to the contrary in the declaration or bylaws. Under subsection (c) the association may hold board and owner meetings fully or partially by telephonic or video conference or other interactive electronic communication, provided all participants can simultaneously communicate with each other, and electronic presence satisfies the quorum and voting requirements of §§ 34-36.1-3.09 and 34-36.1-3.10. The notice must identify the remote platform and give the access information. Subsection (c) also fixes venue for in-person meetings: they must be held in the county where the condominium is located. Rhode Island has no county government, so its five counties function only as geographic and judicial divisions, and this clause operates purely as a distance limit that stops a board from convening far from the property. Subsection (d) permits voting by email, telephonic or video conference, electronic voting platforms or mail-in ballot once a quorum exists, and allows electronically submitted signatures where the governing documents require them.

Quorum figures come from § 34-36.1-3.09: unless the bylaws say otherwise, 20 percent of the votes that may be cast for election of the executive board, present in person or by proxy at the beginning of the meeting, is a quorum of the association, and 50 percent is a quorum of the executive board. The board itself must have at least three members under § 34-36.1-3.06 and § 34-36.1-3.03(f), a majority of whom must be unit owners, and § 34-36.1-3.03(g) lets owners remove any non-declarant board member with or without cause by a two-thirds vote of those present and entitled to vote at a meeting with a quorum.

Records are governed by a single short section, § 34-36.1-3.18, amended in 2019 by P.L. 2019, ch. 285 and ch. 309. It requires the association to keep financial records detailed enough to comply with the resale certificate duty in § 34-36.1-4.09, and provides that all financial and other records shall be made reasonably available for examination within 30 days of a request by any unit owner and his or her authorized agent. The 2019 change is what added the 30-day deadline and the right of an owner's agent, such as an attorney or accountant, to inspect. The statute sets no copying fee schedule and lists no categories of exempt records, so the limits are the reasonableness of the access and the scope of what the association actually keeps.

Budget review is a separate calendar. Under § 34-36.1-3.03(c) the board must send every unit owner a summary of an adopted budget within 30 days of adoption and set a ratification meeting not less than 14 nor more than 30 days after the summary is mailed. The budget is ratified automatically unless a majority of all unit owners reject it, whether or not a quorum is present, and a rejected budget leaves the last ratified budget in force.

Rhode Island puts enforcement in the courts rather than with a state agency; there is no condominium regulator, and the Department of Business Regulation licenses real estate professionals rather than policing association boards. An owner denied records after 30 days, or held to a meeting called on short notice, sues in Superior Court. 17 provides that a person adversely affected by a violation of the chapter has a claim for appropriate relief with the court authorized to award reasonable attorney's fees. 08(b), a vote taken on business that was not on the noticed agenda, such as a declaration amendment or a removal of an officer, is exposed to challenge. 08(a) makes the call mandatory rather than discretionary for the listed purposes.