Can an HOA board meet by Zoom or conference call?
Reviewed by the OurHOA team · Updated June 2026
Whether an HOA board can hold meetings by video or telephone, the open-meeting and member-access conditions that still apply, and how a virtual meeting differs from an email vote.
The short answer
Yes, in most states - and it's now routine. After 2020, the great majority of states updated their community-association statutes to let boards meet and vote by video conference or telephone, and many associations have kept doing it because it lifts attendance and saves everyone a drive. But a virtual board meeting is still a board meeting: the open-meeting rules, the notice requirements, and the members' right to observe don't disappear just because everyone is on a screen. The format changed; the duties didn't.
It's still an open meeting
In most states, a board meeting where a quorum of directors discusses or votes on association business has to be open to the members, whether it happens in a clubhouse or on a video call. Texas, for example, requires regular and special board meetings to be open to owners (Property Code 209.0051). Members generally keep their right to attend and, in many states, to speak during an open-forum portion. A board can't relabel an open meeting a private Zoom in order to deliberate out of sight - doing the community's business in a closed video call raises the same problem as holding an unnoticed in-person meeting. Our guide on open-meeting and quorum rules covers what has to be open and what may be closed.
Member access is the real condition
The requirement that recurs across states is that members must be able to access the virtual meeting. California requires a teleconference board-meeting notice to tell members how to participate, and it has historically required designating at least one physical location where members may attend (Civil Code 4926), with newer Davis-Stirling provisions expanding fully virtual options under defined conditions. Florida lets directors attend and vote by telephone or real-time video and count toward a quorum. The throughline is the same everywhere: put clear join instructions in the notice, make sure members can actually hear and be heard, and never let a technology barrier quietly become a way to lock owners out.
Notice, quorum, and voting still follow the normal rules
Going virtual doesn't relax the rest of the procedure. The meeting still needs proper advance notice with an agenda, and in many states the board can only act on items that were noticed. Directors joining by phone or video generally count toward the quorum and may cast their votes where the statute and bylaws allow, exactly as if they were in the room. Decisions still have to be captured in the minutes. An executive session for the narrow set of permitted topics - legal advice, personnel, delinquent accounts, contract negotiation - can also be held virtually, with the same limits on what actually belongs in a closed session.
A video meeting is not the same as deciding by email
This is the distinction boards and owners most often blur. A real-time Zoom or conference call where directors deliberate together, with members able to observe, is a proper meeting. A round of emails where directors quietly poll one another and effectively decide a matter between meetings is action without a meeting, which most open-meeting statutes restrict and some permit only for genuine emergencies that then have to be ratified in open session. If your board is settling questions over email threads, that's a different and riskier practice than meeting by video. Our guides on whether an HOA board can make decisions by email and on electronic voting and virtual meetings go deeper on exactly where those lines fall.
How OurHOA helps
Meeting virtually only works when the notice, agenda, attendance, and minutes are handled the same disciplined way they would be in person - the screen is just the room. OurHOA helps small self-managed boards send proper notice, post agendas, and keep minutes and records in one place, so a meeting held on a video call still produces the paper trail members are entitled to and the board's decisions hold up later. It's software for running a community transparently, not a law firm; because teleconference and virtual-meeting rules vary by state and are still evolving, check your governing documents and your state's common-interest statute before you settle on a meeting format.
OurHOA is the friendly, affordable way self-managed communities keep dues, records, and reminders in one place. See how it works.
These guides are general education for HOA boards and residents, not legal, tax, or financial advice. Rules vary by state and by your community's governing documents - check with a professional for your situation.