California HOA board meeting notice: the four-day rule, the agenda, and what must stay open

What this guide covers

The Open Meeting Act inside the Davis-Stirling Common Interest Development Act answers three questions a California board asks every month: how far ahead the meeting has to be noticed, what has to be in the notice, and what the board may discuss behind closed doors. This guide covers board meetings of a common interest development association. Membership meetings are noticed under a different rule, covered in our annual meeting and election notice guide.

The short answer

• Notice of the time and place of a board meeting goes out at least four days before the meeting, and the notice must contain the agenda (Civ. Code § 4920(a), (d)).
• A non-emergency meeting held solely in executive session needs two days’ notice; an emergency meeting needs none (Civ. Code § 4920(b)(1)–(2)).
• If the governing documents require longer notice, the longer period applies (Civ. Code § 4920(b)(3)).
• Any member may attend any board meeting except an executive session, and the board must let members speak, subject to a reasonable time limit it sets (Civ. Code § 4925).
• The board may not discuss or act on anything not on the noticed agenda, with narrow exceptions for emergencies, late-arising urgent items, and items continued from a meeting within the previous 30 days (Civ. Code § 4930).
• Executive session is limited to litigation, third-party contract formation, member discipline, personnel, and a member’s own assessment-payment matters, and each closed-session topic is noted generally in the minutes of the next open meeting (Civ. Code § 4935).
• The board may not act on any item of business outside a meeting, and may not meet by a chain of emails except for an emergency with every director’s written consent (Civ. Code § 4910).

Step by step

1. Know when you are in a meeting

A board meeting is a congregation of enough directors to make a quorum, at the same time and place, to hear, discuss or deliberate on any item within the board’s authority — or a teleconference of that many directors connected by audio or video (Civ. Code § 4090). Because the definition turns on deliberation rather than on a vote, a quorum of directors talking business at a social event is a meeting whether or not anyone intended one. The board may not take action on any item of business outside a board meeting, and it may not conduct a meeting through a series of electronic transmissions such as email, except to hold an emergency meeting when all directors consent in writing and the consents are filed with the minutes (Civ. Code § 4910).

2. Send the notice four days out, with the agenda

Notice of the time and place of a board meeting is given at least four days before the meeting (Civ. Code § 4920(a)). The notice contains the agenda (Civ. Code § 4920(d)). It is given by general delivery, which means any individual-delivery method, inclusion in a billing statement or newsletter, posting in a location the annual policy statement designates for general notices, or posting on the association’s website if the annual policy statement designates it (Civ. Code § 4920(c); § 4045(a)). A member who has asked to receive general notices by individual delivery must get this one that way too (Civ. Code § 4045(b)).

Two shorter clocks exist. A non-emergency meeting held solely in executive session needs notice of its time and place at least two days beforehand (Civ. Code § 4920(b)(2)). An emergency meeting — one the act permits when circumstances could not reasonably have been foreseen, require immediate attention, and make notice impracticable — needs no notice at all (Civ. Code § 4920(b)(1); § 4930(d)(1)). A longer period in the governing documents controls over the four-day floor, but a governing-document rule does not apply to emergency or executive-session-only meetings unless it specifically says it does (Civ. Code § 4920(b)(3)).

3. For a teleconference, name a room

The notice of a teleconference meeting identifies at least one physical location so members may attend, and at least one director or a person the board designates is present there; the exception is a meeting held solely in executive session or under the act’s separate provisions for emergency and disaster meetings (Civ. Code § 4090(b)). Directors participating remotely count as present as long as all of them can hear one another and can hear members speaking on matters before the board (Civ. Code § 4090(b)). Members are entitled to attend the open portion of a teleconference meeting, and it must be audible to them at the location the notice names (Civ. Code § 4925(a)).

4. Stay on the agenda

At a non-emergency meeting the board may not discuss or take action on any item that was not on the agenda in the notice, although a member or resident who is not a director may still speak on issues not on the agenda (Civ. Code § 4930(a)). Directors, managers and staff may briefly respond to a speaker, ask a clarifying question, make a brief announcement or report on their own activities, refer a matter to staff, ask for a report back at a later meeting, or direct that a matter be placed on a future agenda (Civ. Code § 4930(b)–(c)).

The board may act on an off-agenda item only in three situations: a majority of the directors present determine an emergency exists; two-thirds of the directors present — or all of them, if fewer than two-thirds of the board is there — determine that immediate action is needed on a matter that came to the board’s attention after the agenda went out; or the item appeared on the agenda of a board meeting held not more than 30 calendar days earlier and was continued to this one (Civ. Code § 4930(d)). Before discussing any such item the board openly identifies it to the members in attendance (Civ. Code § 4930(e)).

5. Keep the doors open, and know when they may close

Any member may attend a board meeting except when the board adjourns to, or meets solely in, executive session (Civ. Code § 4925(a)). The board must permit any member to speak at any meeting of the association or the board, other than an executive session, within a reasonable time limit the board sets for all members (Civ. Code § 4925(b)).

The board may adjourn to executive session to consider litigation, matters relating to the formation of contracts with third parties, member discipline, personnel matters, or — at the member’s request — that member’s payment of assessments (Civ. Code § 4935(a)). Three topics require executive session rather than merely permit it: member discipline, if the member who is the subject asks for it, in which case that member may attend; discussion of a member’s payment plan; and the decision whether to foreclose on an assessment lien (Civ. Code § 4935(b)–(d)). Whatever is discussed in executive session is noted in general terms in the minutes of the next meeting open to the entire membership (Civ. Code § 4935(e)).

6. Publish the minutes

The minutes, draft minutes marked as such, or a summary of the minutes of any board meeting other than an executive session must be available to members within 30 days of the meeting, and distributed to any member on request at the association’s cost of distribution (Civ. Code § 4950(a)). The annual policy statement tells members of their right to the minutes and how to get them (Civ. Code § 4950(b)).

Common mistakes

• Deciding by email. A thread in which a quorum of directors reaches a decision is a meeting conducted by electronic transmission, which the act prohibits outside a properly consented emergency (Civ. Code § 4910(b)).
• Noticing a meeting without an agenda. The agenda is part of the notice, and without it the board is barred from acting on anything (Civ. Code § 4920(d); § 4930(a)).
• Adding “new business” on the night. Only the three exceptions in the act allow off-agenda action, and each has its own vote threshold or time limit (Civ. Code § 4930(d)).
• Using executive session for convenience. The permitted topics are a closed list, and the general subject still has to appear in the next open meeting’s minutes (Civ. Code § 4935(a), (e)).
• Holding a video-only board meeting. Outside executive session and the act’s emergency provisions, the notice must name a physical location where a member can attend (Civ. Code § 4090(b)).

Where software fits

Platforms that distribute notices and agendas and store minutes are compared in our best-of roundups; this page stays with what the law says.

When to involve counsel

Bring counsel in before disciplining a member in executive session, before any foreclosure decision, and whenever a member alleges in writing that the board acted on an item that was not noticed — the remedy for an open-meeting violation is in the act and turns on facts a board should not reconstruct alone.

Corrections and review history

• 2026-09-09: citations checked against the sections listed below on leginfo.legislature.ca.gov. Not yet published.

Sources

1. California Civil Code § 4090 (definition of board meeting; teleconference meetings) — accessed 2026-09-09
2. California Civil Code § 4910 (no action outside a meeting; no meetings by email) — accessed 2026-09-09
3. California Civil Code § 4920 (notice of board meetings — four days; two days for executive session; agenda) — accessed 2026-09-09
4. California Civil Code § 4925 (members' right to attend and speak) — accessed 2026-09-09
5. California Civil Code § 4930 (no action on items not on the agenda; exceptions) — accessed 2026-09-09
6. California Civil Code § 4935 (executive session topics) — accessed 2026-09-09
7. California Civil Code § 4950 (board minutes available within 30 days) — accessed 2026-09-09
8. California Civil Code § 4045 (general delivery / general notice methods) — accessed 2026-09-09