What is an open meeting?

An open meeting is one residents can attend, not just board members, whether that’s a regular board meeting, the annual meeting, or an open committee session. HOAs aren’t public entities, so the government “sunshine” laws written for a city council don’t automatically bind them, and whether any statutory open-meeting requirement reaches an HOA at all depends on the state and how the association is structured. Plenty of communities build the same basics into their own bylaws anyway: advance notice, minutes, and a genuine open forum for owner comment on the agenda.

Why does an open meeting matter?

Residents can tell when an open meeting is just theater, a vote on a decision the board already made behind closed doors, and they stop showing up once they sense it. Boards that keep the open forum real, and say so plainly when something was discussed informally beforehand, avoid the kind of quiet resentment that turns a small disagreement into a lasting dispute.

When You’ll Run Into This

This distinction matters most when a resident assumes state open-meeting law applies to their HOA and is surprised to learn the rules are set by the community’s own bylaws. Our complete guide to HOA meetings covers how most communities choose to handle this anyway.