Contract registers

What actually goes in the register

A contract register is not the contracts folder. It's a one-page index: vendor name, what they do, start date, renewal or expiration date, the notice period required to cancel or stop an auto-renewal, the cost, and who signed it. Landscaping, pool service, elevator maintenance, the management company agreement, bulk cable or internet, fire and life-safety inspections, whatever your association is a party to.

The point is speed. A new treasurer should be able to answer "what are we locked into, and when can we get out of it" in under a minute, without opening a single PDF. The underlying contracts still get filed and kept; the register just tells you which one to pull.

Why the minutes won't save you

Robert's Rules is explicit about what minutes are for, and it is not this.

"Minutes are a record of what was done at a meeting, not a record of what was said."

Source: Robert's Rules of Order Official Website, Frequently Asked Questions, Robert's Rules Association

The minutes might say the board approved a landscaping contract. They won't say it auto-renews every March unless canceled sixty days out, because that term was never spoken aloud as a motion, it was buried in an attachment nobody reads twice. A contract register captures exactly the detail minutes were never built to hold. See decision logs for the same gap on the reasoning side of a decision.

What the law actually requires

Two states have been checked against statutory text for this Course. Both require an association to keep contracts on file as part of its official records.

"A current copy of all contracts to which the association is a party."

Source: Florida Statutes Section 720.303(4), official records, Florida Legislature

Florida sets the retention floor at seven years for contracts specifically; bids that were received but not awarded only need to be kept one year. California's statutory list of association records subject to a member's inspection right separately names executed contracts. Outside Florida and California, check your own state's nonprofit corporation act or HOA statute. Retention periods and covered record categories differ, and this research did not verify them elsewhere.

Build it before you hand it off

None of this is required by law. Community Associations Institute guidance frames a related problem, professional management succession, around the same risk: an association's knowledge, history, and relationships are an asset a departure can put at risk, and the fix starts before anyone is walking out the door. CAI's onboarding guidance makes a parallel point for new directors: they aren't expected to master every document on day one, and are encouraged to lean on continuing board members, management, or counsel while they get there. A contract register is one of the cheapest ways to make that lean-on easier. It turns "ask someone who remembers" into "read the register."