minutes

A coop board must keep minutes. If the building is a coop and the building truly does not have minutes for any meetings over the last 10 months, I would move on. This is not a building being run in a way you want to get involved with.

Required, but often heavily sanitized...

no minutes, no sale.

no minutes, no sale.

How big or small is the building?

If it's a small building, it could be that the person your lawyer is dealing with may not know where the minutes are (or that they exist). Can your lawyer ask to talk to the Secretary directly?

From what I've seen with small buildings, you have to go to the Secretary for the minutes, to the Treasurer for the budget, to the President or VP for contracts, etc., etc. There tends not to be a central repository, so unless you have a super-organized board member, the co-op record will be piecemeal and spread among several people.

lad (small building Secretary)

Keep in mind that many buildings will not disclose detailed minutes for legal reasons - only the bare basics of what was discussed. That said, even if they're "sanitized", the existence of minutes should be a sign of how well - or how seriously - the building considers good management practices.

it is a small building, 16 units, 4 floor walkup. the lawyer just left me a message that the minutes may not have been written up. not sure. hopefully, we can get answers. the managing agent referred her to the account executive who has not yet gotten back with her but at least all my questions were sent over. it seems the board president told the managing agent there were no minutes but it is vague how come. the building did have two sales in 2011 so they had banks lend to them and they did get a refinance so that was approved in 2011. can small boards just run things informally? the last minutes were end of december 2010. it is kind of disconcerting that it seems lax. but perhaps it will all get clear once the account executive answers the questions. thank you for your feedback. i will ask my lawyer to see about the secretary........

I think you are all overreacting especially given the size of the building. I am in an 8 unit coop, everyone in the building is on the board. We don't keep minutes yet we are still well run. Any questions that are asked by the buyer's attorney are answered.

Small building boards do tend to run things less formally, with a lot done over e-mail.

My building tries to meet quarterly and as needed, but in reality we sometimes go 6-9 months without a board meeting. Sometimes it honestly isn't needed.

We've also had a lot of turnover in the Secretary position. One quit unexpectedly and owed the Board minutes for several meetings at the time she quit. Some of those are lost for good, while others can be recreated from handwritten notes that other members took.

Welcome to life in a small building! I like it, but it's not for everyone.