HOA Can Withhold Information from Owner

This case involved a dispute between a condominium owner (“Owner”) and the condominium association of which Owner is a member (“Association”), a nonprofit corporation, over Owner’s rights to access various records pertaining to Association’s financial dealings under both the Nonprofit Corporation Act of 2010, and under the separate Condominium Act contained in the D.C. Code.

The suit was commenced by Owner in October 2015 against Association and its management agent for their alleged failure to provide Owner with access to various records that he had requested pursuant to the D.C. Nonprofit Corporation Act of 2010. Owner had requested fifteen categories of information from Association over the three-year period preceding the filing of the lawsuit.

The trial court found that eleven of the fifteen requests that had been made by Owner did not comply with the requirements of the Nonprofit Corporation Act, and that the remaining requests primarily sought information pertaining to personnel matters, pending or anticipated litigation, or files of members or individual unit owners, which Association could properly withhold under the provisions of the Condominium Act. Based on said findings, the trial court denied all but a portion of two of Owner’s requests that sought information about expenditures by Association that Owner was entitled to receive. The trial court further denied Owner’s request for an award of attorney’s fees because: