Chapter 8 - § 8.8 • RECORDKEEPING AND PRIVACY

• Jurisdiction: Colorado

§ 8.8 • RECORDKEEPING AND PRIVACY²⁰⁵

The CCIOA requires associations to maintain certain records.²⁰⁶ Some of those records concern individual owners. For example, the association or its agent must maintain a record of unit owners in a form that allows preparation of a list of the names of all unit owners and the physical mailing addresses at which the association communicates with them, showing the number of votes each unit owner is entitled to vote,²⁰⁷ and a copy of all written communications within the past three years to unit owners "generally as unit owners."²⁰⁸ Associations often require unit owners to provide information about who to contact in an emergency. To facilitate the enforcement of parking restrictions, unit owners may have to supply the association with information about their vehicles, including registration numbers. When association assessments are to be paid by direct withdrawal from an owner's bank account, the association will have the owner's account number. Many associations conduct a background check on new residents, usually by contracting with a company that performs these investigations for a fee. The applicant for residence must usually authorize the association to obtain access to credit information and may have to provide a social security number. The background check also generally includes an investigation of any criminal record of the applicant. The association may receive a detailed report, or simply a statement of the credit score and lack — usually — of any criminal record.

Any or all of this information may end up in the association's files, which presents obvious privacy concerns because all financial and other records of the association must generally be made reasonably available for examination and copying by unit owners and their authorized agents,²⁰⁹ and the management company, association attorney, and accountant, as well as their employees, all may have access to the records. The presence of private information in the association records presents an association with potential legal jeopardy on several fronts: invasion of privacy, defamation, and identity theft. These are topics beyond the scope of this treatise, but the association, the management company, and especially the association attorney need to consider:

• Limitations on access to personal information;²¹⁰
• Policies on proper disclosure of personal information;
• Destruction of records containing personal information no longer needed;²¹¹
• Protection

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