Virginia condo board meeting notice rules explained

Who this page applies to

This page explains executive board meeting notice and open meeting rules for Virginia condominiums governed by the Virginia Condominium Act (VCA), Va. Code title 55.1, chapter 19, specifically § 55.1-1949 (meetings of the unit owners’ association and executive board) and § 55.1-1952 (quorum).

It does not cover:

• Virginia HOAs, which follow the parallel board meeting rules in § 55.1-1816 of the Property Owners’ Association Act.
• Unit-owner association meetings (elections, budget ratification, bylaws amendments), which have a separate and stricter notice schedule under § 55.1-1949(A) — 21 days for annual and regularly scheduled unit-owner meetings, 7 days for others.
• Cooperatives and other community types under separate chapters.

If your community is a Virginia condominium, § 55.1-1949 is the governing provision for both board and unit-owner meeting notice.

The rule in ordinary language

Virginia condominium meeting rules split into two regimes that operate side by side: a stricter regime for unit-owner association meetings and a more flexible regime for executive board meetings.

Unit-owner meetings: 21 days and 7 days. Under § 55.1-1949(A)(1), at least 21 days’ advance notice is required before any annual or regularly scheduled unit-owner meeting, and at least 7 days before any other unit-owner meeting. Delivery options are U.S. mail to the unit address, hand delivery with written certification, or electronic means with owner consent and written transmission confirmation (with a mail fallback if email fails).

Board meetings: no minimum day count. Executive board meetings operate under a different rule. Notice of the time, date, and place must be “published where it is reasonably calculated to be available to a majority of the unit owners” — no specific day count. Unit owners who submit an annual written request receive direct notice via first-class mail or email for board meetings, and email-only for committee meetings. For special or emergency meetings, notice “reasonable under the circumstances” must be given contemporaneously with notice to board members.

Open meetings are required. All executive board and committee meetings must be open to all unit owners of record. The board cannot use informal work sessions to avoid this requirement.

Executive sessions follow the same two-vote rule as the HOA statute. The board may enter closed session only on an affirmative vote in open meeting stating the specific purpose. Permitted topics: personnel matters; legal consultation; contracts, probable or pending litigation, and violation matters; and member liability issues. Any action taken in executive session becomes effective only after the board reconvenes in open meeting for a recorded vote.

Agenda materials are made available simultaneously. Packets distributed to board members must be available to unit owners at the same time, except for executive session materials.

Owner comment periods are mandatory. A designated period for member comments must be provided at every meeting. At special or limited-agenda meetings, comments may be restricted to listed topics. Members may record any open portion of a meeting.

What is actually different about Virginia condos

The 21/7-day clock is not the board meeting rule. This is the most common misreading. The 21-day and 7-day notice requirements in § 55.1-1949(A) govern unit-owner association meetings — the annual meeting, elections, budget ratification. The executive board’s routine monthly or bi-monthly meetings operate under the “reasonably calculated” standard with no statutory minimum. A board posting notice of its own meeting 24 hours in advance is technically compliant with § 55.1-1949(B) as long as the posting was reasonably visible to most owners.

Statutory board quorum is majority-of-votes, not majority-of-persons. Under § 55.1-1952, a quorum for executive board meetings is present if “persons entitled to cast one-half of the votes in that body are present at the beginning of such meeting.” Condominium instruments can increase this threshold but cannot reduce it below 50%. This is a statutory floor — bylaws that say “three of five board members” are fine, but a quorum rule lower than half the vote weight is not enforceable.

HOA and condo notice rules are parallel but not identical. The VCA executive board meeting provisions in § 55.1-1949(B) closely mirror the POAA provisions in § 55.1-1816(B). The practical difference is the existence of a statutory board quorum rule in the condo act (§ 55.1-1952) that has no direct parallel in the POA context.

Operational questions to ask

If you are on a board:

• Is your current board meeting notice method — common area posting, website, email list — actually reaching a majority of unit owners? The “reasonably calculated” standard is flexible but not toothless. A method that reliably misses most owners is harder to defend.
• Do you maintain a list of owners who have submitted annual written notice requests? Those owners are entitled to first-class mail or email notice for every board meeting under § 55.1-1949(B).
• When entering executive session, are you taking an open-meeting vote, stating the specific permitted purpose, and then reconvening for a recorded vote before any executive session action takes effect?
• Does a majority by vote-weight attend board meetings consistently? If a board with three members each holding one vote cannot convene without all three, that is a higher practical bar than the 50% statutory floor — review whether quorum rules in your condominium instruments are workable.

If you are an owner:

• Submit a written annual notice request under § 55.1-1949(B) if you want reliable advance notice of every board meeting. Without it, the association’s notice obligation runs to the publication method, not to you directly.
• The statutory comment period is your guaranteed floor — any meeting that skips it has violated § 55.1-1949(D). If this happens repeatedly, it is a documented procedural violation.
• The 21-day notice clock applies when you are being called to a meeting (annual meeting, budget vote, election). It does not apply when the board meets among itself.

What to do next

For the executive board quorum rules, read § 55.1-1952 at law.lis.virginia.gov alongside § 55.1-1949. For enforcement remedies, the VCA’s general enforcement framework parallels the POAA’s provisions at §§ 55.1-1819 and 55.1-1828.

This page is the explainer layer, not a legal memo. Confirm current statute text at the source link before relying on specific procedural details.