Virginia Community Association Law Blog : Virginia Condo & HOA Lawyers & Attorneys in Williamsburg & York & Newport News & Hampton VA / Property Management Issues

By way of introduction, I am the team leader for LeClairRyan's national Community Association Industry Team. It is my pleasure to welcome you to the Virginia Community Association Law Blog hosted by our team.

Our clients and colleagues in this industry - whether they be developers, property managers, board members, attorneys or lenders - have repeatedly told us that they and/or their respective clients and customers have a strong, recurring need for free, up-to-date, and easily accessible information on community association law. This blog will serve as one of several resources provided by our team for such information.

Our team attorneys and guest bloggers will regularly update the blog with new posts on a wide range of relevant and timely topics. Our firm's library of webinars on community association law can be accessed by clicking on the "Webinars" tab. Our Community Association Industry Team frequently hosts live seminars and our team members speak at national and local events throughout the year, and we will be posting information about upcoming events and seminars on the blog so please stay tuned and check our blog regularly.

If you have any questions about our firm's Community Association law practice, or have any general suggestions about how we can improve the blog, I encourage you to contact me. Enjoy.

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Welcome to the Virginia Community Association Legal Blog! LeClairRyan’s Community Association Team is excited to launch this resource that we hope will prove to be valuable to board members of community associations, property managers, developers, lenders, and local governing bodies. We’ll be constantly updating the blog with posts that will discuss topics of interest to our readers. Our bloggers will be discussing topics related to the governance, management, and creation of associations, as well as providing updates on all of the latest cutting-edge developments in the world of community association law.

I’d encourage you to read the “About Us” section to become more familiar with our team’s experience, and to check out the “Blogger Bios” section for each team member’s biography. Also, feel free to click on the “Webinars” tab to be linked to the database of our team’s webinars on a wide variety of topics.

Thank you for visiting our blog, and we hope that you’ll continue to check back in with us as constantly update it. We hope to be your “go to” source for information and resources on community association law.

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We recently received a question regarding a community association board’s consideration of contracts in executive session. A contractor's bid can come in many forms, e.g. a formal written contract, a written proposal, or even an oral statement.  Regardless of the form, a contractor's "bid" is ordinarily the contractor's "offer" to perform a designated scope of work for a specified price.  An enforceable contract is formed when an offer is accepted.  The manner in which the offer is accepted will vary and may depend on the form of the contractor's bid or the level of formality required in light of the nature or scope of the work to be performed.

When a property owners’ association or condominium association requires the services of a contractor, bids will typically be solicited by its board of directors from several contractors.  The purpose of soliciting bids is to obtain "offers" to perform the required services - which offers, if accepted by the board, will form a contract between the association and the contractor.  The Condominium Act, at Virginia Code Sec. 55-79.75, and the Property Owners’ Association Act, at Virginia Code Sec. 55-510.1, each provide that the respective association's board may convene in executive session to "discuss and consider contracts."  It is therefore appropriate for an association's board to convene in executive session to discuss the terms of various bids received by contractors, in the course of considering whether to enter into a contract with any of the bidding contractors on the terms proposed in their bids.

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We recently received a question regarding the ability of condominium boards to legally convene in executive session pursuant to § 55-79.75 of the Virginia Code. Specifically, the question asked whether § 55-79.75’s provision stating that boards may convene in executive session to “discuss and consider contracts” grants boards the authority to discuss and consider bids.

Answer:

The discussion and consideration of bids for contracts relating to the provision of goods and/or services to a Virginia condominium is an important exception to the general requirement that condominium boards meet in the open. The bid process is an integral part of the contracting process. An association's ability to competitively bid out work is largely dependent on its ability to obtain bids from reputable contractors.

Discussing bids in an open session of the board risks contaminating this process and destroying the association's ability to get competitive contracts from licensed, reputable contractors. Many quality contractors would be reluctant to engage in the competitive bid process if they thought that their competitors would have access to their bids. In the case of competitive bidding, information is power. A condominium board in Virginia is acting responsibly and within its rights to discuss and consider contract bids in closed (executive) session. In fact, there is a strong legal argument that the board would violate its fiduciary duty if it were to discuss such bids in open session.

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Thank you to all those who participated in our March 31^st webinar on POA Disclosure Packets. To follow up, the following are answers to those questions you submitted that were left unanswered at the end of the program. Thank you for your insightful questions!

Q. Is HB 702, the new law regarding time of payment for disclosure packets (effective July 1, 2010), applicable to professionally managed associations as well as self-managed associations? 

A. The new law will apply only to self-managed associations. For the time being, professionally-managed associations should continue to ensure that fees for disclosure packets are collected at settlement.

Q. Must a copy of an insurance document or certificate for the Association be included in the disclosure packet, or only a notation of the coverage amount?

A. The disclosure packet must include a "statement setting forth what insurance coverage is provided for all lot owners by the association, including the fidelity bond maintained by the association, and what additional insurance would normally be secured by each individual lot owner." A document from the insurance company is not required.

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On April 17, 2010, LeClairRyan's Community Association Team will be presenting a free seminar in Williamsburg, Virginia, entitled "Advanced Legal Aspects of Community Associations."

We invite you to join attorneys Liz White, Dan Quarles, Megan Scanlon, and Will Sleeth as they will discuss four topics that board members and managers frequently encounter as they govern and manage associations: 

• Leasing Restriction Amendments
• Enforcement and Collection of Assessments and Fines
• Board Meetings
• Rules and Regulations and Architectural Guidelines

Resource and reference materials will be provided free of charge on a cd.

Again, the seminar will take place on April 17th, from 9 A.M. to 1 P.M., at Jamestown High School in Williamsburg, Virginia.

Space is limited and registration is required, so please click here to register, if you have not already done so. We look forward to seeing you, and encourage you to contact us if you have any questions.

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