Canceling Annual Meetings

What recourse do homeowners have when a board cancels the annual in-person meeting? Per Pennsylvania’s Consolidated Statutes Title 68, a Pennsylvania condominium must hold at least one general membership meeting per year.

If your association is a nonprofit corporation, the Nonprofit Corporation Act also requires annual meetings. However, nothing in either of these laws prohibits postponing the annual meeting. For instance, it is reasonable to postpone for a lack of a quorum, but nothing allows the annual meeting to be avoided completely.

You have four options if the board cancels the annual meeting. First, tell the board an annual meeting is legally required, per the statute. You would be surprised by how many board members are unaware of the law.

Second, request a virtual meeting. Act 115, effective May 2023, law now permits an association to hold meetings virtually. However, the association will likely need to amend its bylaws before holding a meeting online. Therefore, your association’s board could take the steps necessary to allow for virtual meetings in hopes of better attendance. The good news is your board can update the bylaws without obtaining a vote of the members if it obtains a legal opinion to authorize the update. Likewise, voting and notices of meetings may now be conducted electronically.

Your third option for violations regarding meetings is to contact the Bureau of Consumer Protection in the state attorney general’s office. Before asking the state to investigate possible violations, you should warn your board and allow them time to reschedule the annual meeting. A surprise letter from the state attorney general will probably just create more contention. I always suggest that homeowners band together and organize a group to bring demands to the board so that no one member is singled out for possible retribution.

Last is the possibility to sue the board to force the meeting to take place. This is certainly the last resort due to the cost and time delays.

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