Delaware court: an owner portal satisfies the records-inspection duty, and volunteer directors are immune
Delaware court: an owner portal satisfies the records-inspection duty, and volunteer directors are immune
2026-08-22 · Delaware · Courts
A Superior Court decision arising from a condominium building New Castle County declared unsafe has produced four rules Delaware associations will use far more often than the facts that generated them — on volunteer immunity, on manager liability, on what satisfies the records-inspection duty, and on when legal fees may be charged to an owner's account.
Newton v. LeParc Condominium Association, Premier Community Association Management, LLC, and Edgar, C.A. No. N24C-02-008 KMM, was decided by Judge Kathleen M. Miller on April 7, 2026. Summary judgment was granted in part and denied in part.1
What happened
An owner held units in a LeParc building with known structural deficiencies. He made changes to his unit. New Castle County subsequently declared the building UNSAFE and barred occupancy.
He sued the association, its management company and the council chairman, over attorneys' fees charged to his account, over being denied access to meeting minutes, and over the locks being changed.
Volunteer board members are shielded by statute
The first holding is one many Delaware directors do not know they have. Delaware's Volunteer Immunity Statute, 10 Del. C. § 8133, shields an uncompensated council member from civil damages for negligent acts in connection with the organisation's activity. Only willful and wanton or grossly negligent conduct falls outside it.
The chairman, who had taken no action outside his board role, got summary judgment on that basis. The court also observed that the business judgment rule answers fiduciary claims — and that fiduciary claims are “quintessential equitable claims,” which is to say they belong in the Court of Chancery, not here.
A property manager is not the one who assessed the fees
The management company also won. As agent for a disclosed principal it is not liable for charges assessed by the association; it takes direction from the council. An owner unhappy with an assessment has a claim against the association, not against the company that mailed the invoice.
An owner portal can satisfy § 81-318
This is the holding with the widest reach. Under 25 Del. C. § 81-318 an association must keep minutes and make records available to a unit owner for examination and copying on a good-faith request for a proper purpose related to membership, with confidential and executive-session material excepted under § 81-318(c)(7).2
The court held that making minutes available through the manager's owner portal satisfied that duty on this record. The association did not have to produce paper on demand.
Two limits deserve emphasis before any board relies on it. It was “on this record” — the minutes were actually there, and actually reachable by this owner. And the court separately held that the Superior Court has no jurisdiction to compel production, because mandatory injunctive relief is exclusively Chancery's. An owner who cannot get records is in the wrong court if they file for money damages.
Records refusal remains the single most common complaint category reaching Delaware's Common Interest Community Ombudsperson. Our Delaware records inspection page sets out the statutory duty; this decision defines one lawful way of discharging it.
Legal-fee charges must be traced to authority and to cause
The association lost this part, and the reasoning is the most useful thing in the opinion for owners.
The association argued two statutory bases for charging its attorneys' fees to the owner's account, and the court rejected both. Section 81-302(a)(10) reaches fees relating to the use, rental or operation of the common elements — not this. Section 81-307, the maintenance and repair provision, does not supply fee authority either. Section 81-316 makes fees enforceable like unpaid assessments where properly incurred, which is a condition and not a grant.
And then the causation point: because the association had not established that this owner actually caused the underlying damage, its motion on the fee claim was denied and left for trial alongside the counterclaim.
The operative test that emerges is two-part. A fee charged to an owner's ledger needs (1) a source of authority in the statute or the governing documents that actually covers the circumstance, and (2) proof that the owner caused the thing the fees were incurred over. An association that has one without the other has an unenforceable charge sitting on a unit's account — and in Delaware such a charge functions as an inchoate lien, which is why it matters at settlement rather than only at trial.
The self-help claim failed for a structural reason
The constructive-eviction and self-help theory went nowhere because the plaintiff was the landlord of his units, not the tenant, and because it was the County — not the association — that declared the units uninhabitable. The association had not locked anyone out of anything the County had not already closed.
What it changes for Delaware boards
Check whether your directors are uncompensated. Section 8133 immunity turns on it. A stipend can cost a board member the shield, and the trade is rarely worth it.
Publish minutes where owners can reach them. A functioning portal is now documented as sufficient, which is cheaper and more defensible than fielding individual requests. Keep the confidential material out of it under § 81-318(c)(7).
Audit the ledger for legal-fee charges. Any fee sitting against an owner's account should be traceable to a specific authority and a specific causal finding. If it is not, it is exposure — and it will surface when the unit sells.
What to watch next
The fee claim and the counterclaim went to trial together, so the causation question in this case is not finished. No Delaware appellate decision has yet addressed whether electronic-only access satisfies § 81-318, and a board that has no portal, or an owner without access to one, is outside what this decision actually holds.
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