MEETING RULES: TEXAS
Texas meeting rules,
between elections.
Texas gives a property owners association two ways to notice a board meeting, and the fast one is hours rather than days: 144 hours posted for a regular meeting and 72 for a special one, plus an email to every owner who registered an address.
It also lists fifteen decisions the board may not make outside an open, noticed meeting, which is the part of Chapter 209 boards most often get wrong.
Our reading, to support your review, not legal advice.
Confirm with your attorney before the board acts.
Reviewed on Sep 1, 2026
Read at a republisher that prints the section text, because the state does not serve these pages to an automated reader. Confirm at the legislature before your board relies on it.
NOTICE
Notice for the annual meeting in Texas
Days below are counted back from the meeting date. Where the statute sets a ceiling as well as a floor, the notice has to land inside the window, not simply before it.
Property owners association
Texas Residential Property Owners Protection Act, Chapter 209
| Notice | The rule | Section |
|---|---|---|
| Election or vote at a meeting | 10 to 60 days beforeFor an election or a vote taken at a meeting of the owners, written notice goes out not later than the 10th day and not earlier than the 60th day before the date. This supersedes any contrary requirement in your dedicatory instrument.How it travels: Written notice to the owners entitled to vote. | Tex. Prop. Code §209.0056(a), (b) |
| Vote taken without a meeting | At least 20 days beforeFor an election or vote not taken at a meeting, which is the shape most online votes take, notice goes out not later than the 20th day before the last day a ballot may be submitted to be counted.How it travels: Notice to all owners entitled to vote on the matter. | Tex. Prop. Code §209.0056(a-1) |
Condominium
Texas Uniform Condominium Act, Chapter 82
| Notice | The rule | Section |
|---|---|---|
| Meeting of the unit owners | No day count in the statuteChapter 82 sets no day count of its own for a unit owners meeting. Notice follows the bylaws, and where the bylaws are silent it follows the notice rules for members of a nonprofit corporation. Your bylaws govern, so we cannot compute a date for you. | Tex. Prop. Code §82.108(d) |
Worked example: a meeting on Dec 1, 2026
- Property owners association, election or vote at a meeting: for a meeting on Dec 1, 2026, notice goes out between Oct 2 and Nov 21, 2026.
- Property owners association, vote taken without a meeting: for a meeting on Dec 1, 2026, notice goes out by Nov 11, 2026.
That is arithmetic on the day counts above, nothing more. Your bylaws may ask for longer, weekends and holidays are not adjusted for, and a date is not a ruling on your meeting.
BOARD MEETINGS
Board meetings in Texas
Open to owners
Regular and special board meetings are open to owners. A board meeting means a deliberation between a quorum of the voting board, or a quorum and another person, where association business is considered and the board acts. A quorum at a social event or a convention is not a meeting.
Executive session
The board may reconvene in closed session for personnel, pending or threatened litigation, contract negotiations, enforcement actions, confidential communications with the association attorney, invasion of an individual owner privacy, or a matter the affected parties asked to keep confidential and the board agreed to. Any decision made there is summarised out loud and put in the minutes in general terms, including a general explanation of what was approved to be spent.
Fifteen decisions need an open meeting
The board may act outside a meeting on most things, but not on these: fines, damage assessments, starting a foreclosure, starting an enforcement action, raising assessments, levying a special assessment, an appeal from a denied architectural request, suspending an owner right before that owner has had a chance to be heard, lending or borrowing money, adopting or amending a dedicatory instrument, approving or amending the annual budget, buying or selling real property, filling a board vacancy, building a new capital improvement, or electing an officer.
Where it happens
Unless it is held by electronic or telephonic means, a board meeting takes place in a county where part of the subdivision sits, or in a county next to it.
Property owners association
Texas Residential Property Owners Protection Act, Chapter 209
| Notice | The rule | Section |
|---|---|---|
| Board meeting, by mail | 10 to 60 days beforeOwners get the date, hour, place and general subject of a regular or special board meeting, including a general description of anything to be taken up in executive session. Mailed notice goes out not later than the 10th day and not earlier than the 60th day before it.How it travels: Mailed to each property owner. | Tex. Prop. Code §209.0051(e)(1) |
| Board meeting, by posting | No day count in the statuteThe alternative is counted in hours: at least 144 hours before a regular board meeting and at least 72 hours before a special one, posted and emailed. Keeping your email address current with the association is the owner own duty.How it travels: Posted on association common property or on an association website, and emailed to every owner who registered an address. | Tex. Prop. Code §209.0051(e)(2), (f) |
MINUTES AND RECORDS
Minutes and records in Texas
Written minutes
The board keeps a record of every regular or special board meeting as written minutes, and makes meeting records including approved minutes available to a member who asks in writing.
How long you keep it
The certificate of formation, bylaws and restrictive covenants are kept permanently. Financial books and records, minutes of owner and board meetings, and tax and audit records run seven years. Account records of a current owner run five. A contract with a term of a year or more runs four years past its end.
Ten business days
The association responds to a written records request on or before the 10th business day after it arrives.
What a copy costs
The board has to adopt a records production and copying policy that states the charges. Those charges may cover reasonable materials, labour and overhead, and may not exceed the state rates in 1 Tex. Admin. Code §70.3.
PROXIES AND QUORUM
Proxies and quorum in Texas
One method is enough
An owner has to be allowed to vote by one of three methods: absentee ballot, proxy, or electronic ballot. Unless a dedicatory instrument says otherwise, the association does not have to offer more than one of them.
Ballots make quorum
An absentee or electronic ballot counts as an owner present and voting for quorum, but only for the items on that ballot. An owner who then attends and votes in person overrides the ballot, and a ballot is not counted on a proposal that was amended at the meeting away from the wording the owner voted on.
Quorum by act
Chapter 209 sets no default quorum for a property owners association, so the number comes from your dedicatory instruments. A condominium does have one: at least 20 per cent of the votes for electing the board, present in person or by proxy at the start, and the bylaws may not push it below 10 per cent. A condominium proxy is void if undated or revocable without notice, and ends one year after its date unless it names a different term.
REMOTE MEETINGS
Meeting by phone or screen in Texas
Board meeting by phone or screen
A board meeting may be held by electronic or telephonic means if every board member can hear and be heard by every other one, if owners attending can hear all board members outside executive session, if owners may listen using any method a board member uses, and if the notice carries the instructions for getting in.
Owners meeting, since September 2025
Senate Bill 2629 added the owners meeting to this. From 1 September 2025 a meeting of the owners held under the notice section may be held by any method of communication, including electronic and telephonic means. The condominium act got the same addition for association meetings.
NEXT
What to do with this.
This page adds what the election page does not: The 144 and 72 hour posting alternative, the seven executive-session grounds, the fifteen decisions that need an open meeting, the seven-year minutes retention and the 10-business-day records rule. The ballot rules for Texas stay where they already are, on vote.direct, and that page is linked below.
Reading a statute is not the same as running a meeting. Send us your roster and we set your community up on the phone, in one sitting. Call or text (512) 222-8191.
QUESTIONS
Texas board questions, answered
How much notice does a Texas association have to give for the annual meeting?
For an election or a vote taken at a meeting of the owners, written notice goes out not later than the 10th day and not earlier than the 60th day before the date. This supersedes any contrary requirement in your dedicatory instrument. For a meeting on Dec 1, 2026, that puts the notice between oct 2 and nov 21, 2026. That is arithmetic on the statute, not a ruling on your meeting. Tex. Prop. Code §209.0056(a), (b). Our reading, to support your review, not legal advice. Confirm with your attorney before the board acts.
Are Texas HOA board meetings open to homeowners?
Regular and special board meetings are open to owners. A board meeting means a deliberation between a quorum of the voting board, or a quorum and another person, where association business is considered and the board acts. A quorum at a social event or a convention is not a meeting. Tex. Prop. Code §209.0051(b), (c); §82.108(a). Our reading, to support your review, not legal advice. Confirm with your attorney before the board acts.
How much notice does a Texas board meeting need?
Owners get the date, hour, place and general subject of a regular or special board meeting, including a general description of anything to be taken up in executive session. Mailed notice goes out not later than the 10th day and not earlier than the 60th day before it. Tex. Prop. Code §209.0051(e)(1). Our reading, to support your review, not legal advice. Confirm with your attorney before the board acts.
How fast does a Texas association have to answer a records request?
The association responds to a written records request on or before the 10th business day after it arrives. Tex. Prop. Code §209.005(e). Our reading, to support your review, not legal advice. Confirm with your attorney before the board acts.
How long does a Texas association have to keep its records?
The certificate of formation, bylaws and restrictive covenants are kept permanently. Financial books and records, minutes of owner and board meetings, and tax and audit records run seven years. Account records of a current owner run five. A contract with a term of a year or more runs four years past its end. Tex. Prop. Code §209.005(m). Our reading, to support your review, not legal advice. Confirm with your attorney before the board acts.
Can a Texas association hold its meeting online?
A board meeting may be held by electronic or telephonic means if every board member can hear and be heard by every other one, if owners attending can hear all board members outside executive session, if owners may listen using any method a board member uses, and if the notice carries the instructions for getting in. Tex. Prop. Code §209.0051(c-2). Our reading, to support your review, not legal advice. Confirm with your attorney before the board acts.
Do proxies count toward a quorum in Texas?
An owner has to be allowed to vote by one of three methods: absentee ballot, proxy, or electronic ballot. Unless a dedicatory instrument says otherwise, the association does not have to offer more than one of them. Tex. Prop. Code §209.00592(a-1). Our reading, to support your review, not legal advice. Confirm with your attorney before the board acts.
Does governance.center tell us our Texas meeting was properly noticed?
No, and it never will. We show you the statute, the date the arithmetic produces and the section it came from, so your board and your attorney can check our work. Your bylaws may set a longer period than the state does, and where they do, the bylaws govern. We never tell a board that it is compliant.
Our reading, to support your review, not legal advice.
Confirm with your attorney before the board acts.
Your bylaws may ask for a longer period than the state does, and where they do, the bylaws govern. We never tell a board that it is compliant. If something here does not match what your attorney reads, call (512) 222-8191 and tell us. We will correct it.