The HOA secretary plays a key role in keeping the association organized and compliant with its governing documents. While the president often leads meetings and the treasurer oversees finances, the secretary is responsible for maintaining records, documenting board actions, and helping ensure important information reaches homeowners. Although the exact responsibilities vary by community, most HOA secretaries perform many of the same core duties.
What is an HOA Secretary?
The homeowners association secretary is an officer elected by the board of directors or the membership, depending on the association’s governing documents. The secretary serves as the association’s official record keeper and helps maintain accurate documentation of the board’s activities.
In many communities, the secretary works closely with the president, treasurer, management company, and other directors to keep the association’s records current and organized.
Is an HOA Secretary Required in Texas?
Homeowners associations and condominiums operate as nonprofit corporations in Texas. According to Section 22.231 of the Business Organizations Code, a secretary is one of two officers that corporations must have, the other being the president.
What Does an HOA Secretary Do?
While exact responsibilities can vary by association, some are more common than others. Here are the typical duties of an HOA secretary on a board.
1. Records Board Meeting Minutes
One of the secretary’s primary responsibilities is preparing and maintaining meeting minutes. Meeting minutes summarize the board’s discussions, motions, votes, and decisions. They become part of the association’s permanent records and may be reviewed by homeowners, auditors, attorneys, or future board members.
Sometimes the secretary will record the HOA meeting on audio or video. This makes it easier to participate in discussions and votes during the meeting. Later on, the secretary can review the recording to draft the minutes.
That said, recording HOA meetings is not always permitted. Boards must check their state laws and governing documents.
2. Maintains Association Records
One of the main duties of the HOA secretary is to maintain the association’s records in an organized manner. These records typically include the association’s governing documents, board resolutions, meeting minutes, election records, committee reports, corporate filings, and official correspondence.
Many associations keep both electronic and physical copies of these documents. Digital records allow the HOA to access important documents remotely. At the same time, if physical copies are damaged or destroyed, the digital copies come in handy.
3. Sends Meeting Notices
Another one of the homeowners association secretary’s duties is to send meeting notices. The secretary generally prepares and distributes notices for board meetings, annual meetings, special meetings, and membership votes.
Depending on the association, this responsibility may instead be handled by the community manager or management company. Even so, the secretary often ensures that notices are sent in accordance with state laws and the governing documents.
4. Maintains Official Correspondence
The secretary can prepare or review official communications sent on behalf of the board. This can include meeting announcements, election notices, policy updates, responses to homeowner inquiries, and official board correspondence. The goal is to maintain clear and consistent communication with the membership.
5. Oversees Association Records Requests
Many states give homeowners the right to inspect certain HOA records, and Texas is one of them. Making records available for member examination demonstrates transparency and accountability. It helps build trust within the community and lends more credibility to board decisions.
One of the HOA board secretary’s duties is to respond to records requests from owners. If the HOA is professionally managed, the secretary typically works with the manager to ensure that all requests are addressed. Failure to comply with legitimate requests can result in penalties or liability.
6. Maintains Corporate Documents
Most HOAs and condominiums are organized as nonprofit corporations. The secretary usually helps maintain corporate records, monitor filing deadlines, and ensure important organizational documents remain current. This can include maintaining officer lists, maintaining corporate resolutions, or assisting with annual state filings as needed.
7. Assists With Elections
Board elections generally take place every year. The secretary’s job is to help organize the elections by preparing notices, maintaining candidate information, coordinating ballots, and documenting election results.
Of course, exact responsibilities can differ depending on the association’s governing documents and election procedures. Some HOAs must hire an independent inspector or assemble an election committee to oversee these duties.
Does the HOA Secretary Have Decision-Making Authority?
While the secretary plays a role in decision-making, they don’t hold unilateral power. They can’t make decisions alone. Instead, they hold one vote on the board, just like other directors.
For example, even if the secretary is in charge of the minutes, they alone don’t get to approve them. Other decisions, especially important ones, must go through the entire board. These include adopting budgets, approving contracts, enacting rules, and authorizing major expenditures.
The HOA board must act as a unit. Even if a vote wasn’t unanimous, the entire board must still back the outcome.
Can the HOA Secretary be the Community Manager?
In general, the secretary can’t serve as the community manager as well. The secretary is a member of the board and serves as one of the officers. They represent the association.
Meanwhile, a community manager is a third-party professional that the HOA hires to manage the association’s daily operations. Having the secretary serve as the community manager is not only a major conflict of interest but also places a greater burden on the officer to fulfill two roles.
Of course, that doesn’t mean the community manager can’t perform administrative work that an HOA secretary normally does. The community manager may still assist the secretary by preparing meeting minutes, maintaining records, sending notices, or organizing association documents.
That said, even if the secretary delegates these tasks to the manager, the board remains responsible for ensuring the association fulfills its legal obligations. Accountability doesn’t just vanish simply because a professional is on the scene.
Tips for Being an Effective HOA Secretary
A good HOA secretary must have strong organizational skills, as they deal with documents most of the time. For those who wish to fulfill the role or already have the job, it is important to exercise these best practices:
- Organize records and make sure they are easy to retrieve.
- Prepare accurate and objective meeting minutes.
- Send notices within the periods required by state laws and the governing documents.
- Maintain confidentiality when handling sensitive information.
- Stay familiar with state laws, the governing documents, and fiduciary duties.
- Work closely with the community manager and other board members.
A Key Position
Working as an HOA secretary can feel tiring and thankless. Still, it is a crucial role that no community can function without. Understanding the duties of the board secretary and hiring a professional management company can be highly beneficial.
PAMco offers exceptional HOA management services to communities in Central Texas. Call us today at 512-918-8100 or contact us online to learn more!
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