Academy/Minutes & Official Records
Meeting recordings
Can an owner point a phone at your board meeting? In two states, yes, by statute.
In Florida and Virginia, any owner has a statutory right to record board and membership meetings; Florida lets the board set reasonable rules for how, not whether, that happens. Most other states have no statute in this evidence base confirming or denying that right. Check your own state's association statute, and your state's separate recording consent law, before you record or before you try to stop someone else from doing it.
What Florida and Virginia actually guarantee
In Florida, any parcel owner can record a board or membership meeting on video or audio. The board cannot ban recording outright, but it can adopt reasonable rules for how it happens, for example where a camera or recorder may sit so it does not block sightlines or disrupt the meeting.
"Any parcel owner may tape record or videotape meetings of the board of directors and meetings of the members. The board of directors of the association may adopt reasonable rules governing the taping of meetings of the board and the membership."
Source: Florida Statutes Section 720.306, Florida Legislature
Virginia bundles the same right into the notice owners are already entitled to.
"The right to have notice of any meeting of the board of directors, to make a record of any such meeting by audio or visual means, and to participate in any such meeting."
Source: Code of Virginia Section 55.1-1807, Virginia General Assembly
Reasonable rules are not the same as no recording
A board that wants to control recording in Florida has to work within "reasonable rules," not around them. A rule that a camera cannot obstruct exits or that recording pauses during a break is reasonable. A rule that recording is banned, or requires the board's advance permission every time, is not what the statute describes, since the statute grants the right to the owner, not to the board's discretion.
Whether that same recording right extends into an executive session is not addressed by the sources behind this lesson. Executive session is a separate confidentiality norm, covered in Executive-session minutes, and it is worth asking your board's attorney how the two interact before you assume either way.
Everywhere else, ask before you assume
Only Florida and Virginia are verified in this evidence base to grant owners a recording right by statute. Recording also runs into a second, separate body of law: your state's general audio and video consent rules, which exist independently of association law and were not written with HOA meetings in mind.
Before you record a meeting, or before your board tries to stop someone from recording one, check two things: your state's community association statute, and your state's general recording consent law. Neither question is answered by assuming Florida's or Virginia's rule travels with you.
Check yourself
Answer before you read the explanation, recalling it is what makes it stick.
A Florida homeowner starts recording a board meeting on her phone. The board never approved this in advance. What happens?
A Virginia lot owner asks to bring a video camera to a board meeting to record it. Can the board deny this?
A board in a state outside Florida and Virginia wants to ban all recording of its meetings. What should it check first?
Sources
- Florida Statutes Section 720.306, Florida Legislature
- Code of Virginia Section 55.1-1807, Virginia General Assembly
Minutes & Official Records
Next, see how a recording differs from the minutes themselves in Minutes vs transcript.
Whether owners may record meetings, and what rules a board may impose on that recording, varies by state. Only Florida and Virginia are confirmed here to give owners a statutory recording right; check your own state's association statute and general recording consent law.