Is It Worth Trying To Pursue An Hoa For Violating Its Own By-laws And State Civil Laws?

Location: California

I had a disagreement with my HOA over who is responsible for the shared fence between my property and the HOA common area - they tried to initally claim the fence is 100% my property and responsibility even though it is 50/50 ownership (Civil Code 841) and the damage was only on their side and was caused by their landscapers. This matter is now resolved, however, in the process they made several claims regarding precedent and past issues regarding fences in our community. I requested to inspect the meeting minutes (by email) and my requests were ignored. According to our by-laws, the minutes can be inspected at any reasonable time at the association office. According to California Civil Code 4950(b), the annual policy must tell members how and where to obtain the minutes - and our annual policy says the same as our by-laws, the minutes can be inspected at any reasonable time at the association office.

I visited the office twice during business office hours to inspect the minutes. The first time, they informed me there would be a charge to inspect any minutes as they would need to print out and make copies for me to inspect. They advised me to use my own device and view the minutes using the homeowner platform. However, only 2023-2025 minutes were on the platform. Per Civil Code 4950(a), minutes are required to be available within 30 days of every meeting, but all 2026 minutes were missing. On the day of my visit, they uploaded all 2026 minutes, all well past 30 days of the meeting. I can clearly see on our platform that minutes were never provided within 30 days of any meeting - sometimes it took the association over 500 days to provide minutes after a meeting.

Per Civil Code 5210(a)(2), meeting minutes are subject to inspection permanently, meaning prior to 2023. Our community has been around since 1976. The second time I visited the office, they told me they do not have the records prior to 2023 at the office, they are stored off site and I would need to fill out a document request form to inspect the minutes. At the time, they advised me it would cost approximately $300 to retrieve the records. I voiced my concerns at the last board meeting regarding the legality of this fee and received no response. I submitted the form, and they got back to me 40 days after submitting my written request to inspect the minutes with the following: there are two boxes in storage that are labeled "AP" "Collections" and "Escrow" they cannot confirm the minutes are inside those boxes. If I wish to proceed, the cost to retrieve them from storage is $500 storage facility fee to pull the boxes plus $75 an hour association management fee. Are these fees legal to charge the homeowner?

Per Civil Code 5205, which covers inspection of records, certain costs may be charged to be the member and these are explicitly stated and listed in Civil Code 5205 (f),(g),and(h). Additionally, per Civil Code 5205(c), the association shall make the specified records available for inspection - and it sounds like they are not going to produce the specified records I requested, but rather two boxes that are clearly labeled with their contents.

Is this something worth speaking to a lawyer about or is this too small to be worth it? Would I be better off just forgetting about the minutes or is that their intention here - high fees as a means of deterrence? There are other by-laws they are clearly violating, such as the frequency of board meetings, often going 4 months without having a meeting. Should I try IDR before speaking to a lawyer? At this point, I have clear documentation of everything.