Michigan HOA Records Inspection

Key Findings

• Michigan runs condominium records through the Michigan Condominium Act, MCL 559.101 et seq. Its records provision, Section 57 (MCL 559.157), sets an availability standard — records open for examination “at convenient times” — rather than a fixed day-count. It names no response deadline, no copy-fee cap, no retention period, and no records-specific penalty.¹
• Because almost every association also incorporates as a nonprofit, the clock and the remedy come from the Michigan Nonprofit Corporation Act, MCL 450.2487. A member who serves a compliant written demand and waits five business days without satisfaction can take the association to circuit court, and the court must shift fees unless the association withheld the records in good faith.²
• LARA registers condominiums at the development stage and publishes the Condominium Buyer’s Handbook, but it cannot take complaints or force an association to open its records. Only a court can do that.³
• No bill in the 2025–2026 session touches the records-inspection statutes, and no Michigan appellate court has interpreted them in the association context in the past 36 months.⁴

Section 1: Overview

Michigan governs condominium records through the Michigan Condominium Act, MCL 559.101 et seq. Its records provision, Section 57 (MCL 559.157), tells associations to keep the books, records, contracts, and financial statements that concern a condominium project’s administration and operation open for examination by co-owners and their mortgagees at convenient times.¹ But almost every Michigan association also incorporates as a nonprofit corporation, and that second identity matters: the mechanics of an actual inspection — the demand, the deadline, the remedy — come from the Michigan Nonprofit Corporation Act, MCL 450.2101 et seq., at Section 487 (MCL 450.2487).²

Michigan leans hard on a form called the “site condominium,” which organizes detached single-family homes as condominium units instead of platting them as a subdivision. Because of that, the Condominium Act reaches many detached-home communities that other states would simply call planned-community HOAs.⁵ Genuine non-condominium planned communities fall outside the Act entirely. No dedicated Michigan HOA statute covers them; their records rights rest on the recorded covenants and, where the association incorporated as a nonprofit, on the Nonprofit Corporation Act.⁶

So the two statutes split the work. The Condominium Act fixes the standard — records available “at convenient times” — and the Nonprofit Corporation Act supplies the clock and the remedy.¹ That lands Michigan between two camps: the hard-deadline states (Florida orders HOA records within 10 business days and charges $50 a day up to $500 under Fla. Stat. § 720.303(5); California’s Davis-Stirling Act demands current-year records within 10 business days and older records within 30 calendar days under Cal. Civ. Code § 5210, with a $500 penalty per denied request under § 5235) and the states that leave inspection to ordinary corporate law.⁷ Before you apply any of it, confirm the community’s form. The Quick-Reference table and the sections that follow lay out who may inspect, how the request and response run, what an association may charge, when it may withhold, and how an owner enforces the right.

Section 2: Quick-Reference: Michigan HOA Records Inspection

Section 3: The records-inspection framework in detail

3A. Records subject to inspection

For condominiums and site condominiums, start with the statutory baseline in Condominium Act § 559.157(1): the books, records, contracts, and financial statements that concern a project’s administration and operation stay open for examination by co-owners and their mortgagees.¹ That language covers site condominiums too, because a site condominium is a condominium project under the Act and each detached home is a “unit” — so the same right applies whether the homes share walls or not.⁵ The provision runs short, and it names nothing beyond books, records, contracts, and financial statements.¹

Because nearly every Michigan condominium and homeowners association incorporates as a nonprofit, the longer and more specific list of inspectable records comes from Nonprofit Corporation Act § 450.2487.⁶ Section 450.2487(1) gives a member, on written request, the association’s balance sheet for the last fiscal year, its statement of income for that year, and, if one exists, its statement of source and application of funds. Section 450.2487(2) reaches the corporation’s stock ledger (its membership records), the member list, and “its other books and records,” and § 450.2487(9)(b) lets the member copy and make extracts.² Separately, § 450.2485 requires the corporation to keep books and records of account and minutes of its members’ and board’s proceedings.⁹

Genuine non-condominium planned communities have no condominium statute to fall back on. Their records right rests first on the recorded declaration of covenants and the bylaws, which usually speak to inspection only in general terms, and second on the Nonprofit Corporation Act right described above when the association incorporated as a nonprofit.⁶ What an owner may inspect in that setting tracks the corporate provisions (§ 450.2487 and § 450.2485) plus whatever the governing documents add. For a multi-state operator, the lesson is blunt: the community’s form — condominium or not — decides which records baseline applies, so confirm the form before you answer.⁵

3B. The request-and-response sequence

Standing to inspect a condominium’s records belongs to co-owners and their mortgagees under § 559.157,¹ and to members — and, under § 450.2487(4), directors — under the Nonprofit Corporation Act.² The Condominium Act does not, on its face, tie examination to a stated purpose.¹ The Nonprofit Corporation Act does: under § 450.2487(2), a member’s written demand has to describe, with reasonable particularity, the purpose of the inspection and the records sought, and those records have to connect directly to that purpose. “Proper purpose” means a purpose reasonably related to the person’s interest as a member. The financial statements in § 450.2487(1) need no proper purpose at all.² And in Vidolich v Saline Northview Condominium Association, the Court of Appeals held that even when the Condominium Act and the bylaws say nothing about it, a proper purpose is still implied.⁸

On form, the Condominium Act specifies none.¹ The Nonprofit Corporation Act wants a written demand delivered to the corporation’s registered Michigan office or its principal place of business; if an attorney or agent makes the request, the demand has to carry a power of attorney or other writing that authorizes the agent.²

On timing, the Condominium Act sets a standard, not a clock: records are available “at convenient times,” with no fixed day-count in § 559.157.¹ The operative window comes from § 450.2487(3): if the association won’t permit a compliant inspection within five business days after it receives the demand, or piles on unreasonable conditions, the member may ask the circuit court to compel it. For an incorporated association, that five-business-day figure is the practical response deadline.²

The inspection itself happens during regular business hours at the place the records are kept (§ 450.2487(2)). On charges, § 450.2487(9)(b) lets the corporation require a member to pay a reasonable charge for copies, enough to cover labor and material; it sets no dollar cap and says nothing about billing for staff time to gather or watch over records.² The Condominium Act is silent on copy charges.¹ The site-condominium wrinkle matters here too: a manager at a detached-home community has to figure out whether it is a site condominium (Condominium Act plus Nonprofit Corporation Act) or a non-condominium HOA (covenants plus Nonprofit Corporation Act) before reaching for the five-business-day mechanism.⁵

3C. Withholding, confidentiality, and the membership or owner list

The Condominium Act records provision carries no express exemptions; § 559.157 neither lists withholdable categories nor mentions privilege.¹ The withholding framework lives in the Nonprofit Corporation Act. Under § 450.2487(2), a member may inspect only records that connect directly to the stated proper purpose, which by itself trims overbroad demands. Under § 450.2487(7), the articles, the bylaws, or a board resolution may say that members and their agents have no right to inspect member lists, donor lists, or other books and records — but only on a good-faith finding that inspection would impair members’ privacy or free-association rights, impair the corporation’s lawful purposes, or, for donor lists, run against the corporation’s best interests.²

The membership or owner list gets its own handling. It is inspectable under § 450.2487(2), but when an association limits list inspection under § 450.2487(7), § 450.2487(8) makes it give members a reasonable way to communicate with each other about electing directors and other corporate affairs, and it may charge the requesting member the reasonable cost of doing so.² Michigan imposes no commercial-use restriction and no list-specific opt-out. Neither statute addresses attorney-client privilege or pending-litigation work product in the records context; an association that claims privilege relies on general Michigan law and, where it fits, a § 450.2487(7) limitation rather than a records-statute exemption.²

3D. Remedies and enforcement for noncompliance

No Michigan agency referees a records dispute. LARA says plainly that it has no authority to take complaints or enforce the Condominium Act against an association, and that only a court can order one to comply.³ Enforcement, in other words, is judicial. For incorporated associations, the main remedy is Nonprofit Corporation Act § 450.2487(3): a member whose compliant demand goes unanswered for five business days, or draws unreasonable conditions, may ask the circuit court to compel inspection. Section 450.2487(5) adds the lever that actually drives compliance — if the court orders inspection, it must also order the corporation to pay the member’s costs, including reasonable attorney fees, unless the corporation proves it held back in good faith on a reasonable basis to doubt the right.² The Condominium Act offers a parallel path in § 559.215(1): a person adversely affected by a violation of the Act, its rules, an agreement, or a master deed may sue for relief in a court of competent jurisdiction, and the court may award costs to the prevailing party.¹⁰ Section 559.207 lets a co-owner sue to make the association enforce the condominium documents.¹² Neither statute carries a per-day penalty or fixed statutory damages for a records violation. Trial-level disputes go to the circuit court; appeals go to the Michigan Court of Appeals, with discretionary review by the Michigan Supreme Court.¹¹

Section 4: Recent legislative and judicial activity

4A. Recent bills

No bill in Michigan’s 2025–2026 session (the 103rd Legislature) amends the records-inspection provisions, MCL 559.157 or MCL 450.2487, or otherwise changes records rights — the response window, copy fees, electronic records, or penalties. The only condominium bill moving in the relevant chapter is House Bill 5784 of 2026, and it amends MCL 559.205 (reserve funds), not the records provision.⁴

4B. Recent rulings

No Michigan Court of Appeals or Supreme Court decision from the past 36 months (June 2023 through June 2026) interprets the records-inspection right — MCL 559.157 or MCL 450.2487 — as applied to a community association.⁴ The leading appellate authority on association records inspection is still Bafna v Echo Valley Condominium Association, which predates that window but continues to guide Michigan practice.

4C. Active legislative debates

No proposal in the 2025–2026 session would bolt a fixed records-response deadline onto the Condominium Act, cap copy fees, write electronic-records rules, or add records-specific penalties. In the condominium space, lawmakers are looking at reserve studies (HB 5784), not records inspection.⁴

Recommendations

• Classify the community before you answer any records demand. Pull the recorded documents and confirm whether a detached-home community is a site condominium (Condominium Act plus Nonprofit Corporation Act) or a non-condominium HOA (covenants plus Nonprofit Corporation Act). That choice sets the baseline, and it is the single most common place people go wrong.⁵
• Treat five business days as the operative deadline for any incorporated association, condominium or HOA alike. The Condominium Act’s “convenient times” standard is no safe harbor; the enforceable trigger is § 450.2487(3), and missing it exposes the association to a court order plus mandatory attorney-fee shifting under § 450.2487(5).²
• Default to disclosure of non-privileged operational and financial records, especially anything tied to how assessments get spent. Under Bafna, a dues-related purpose usually qualifies as proper, and contesting it carries fee-shifting risk.¹³
• Adopt a board resolution under § 450.2487(7) that defines which records are open to review and the basis for any withholding, and document the good-faith determination as you make it. That resolution is the statutory mechanism for protecting member-list and sensitive records and for building the good-faith defense to fee-shifting.²
• Benchmarks that would change this guidance: a bill amending MCL 559.157 or MCL 450.2487 to add a fixed deadline, a fee cap, or electronic-records rules; a new published Court of Appeals or Supreme Court decision settling whether the Nonprofit Corporation Act overrides the Condominium Act on records; or enactment of HB 5784, which would add reserve-study and notice duties (not records duties). None of these has happened as of June 25, 2026.⁴

Caveats

• The Condominium Act and the Nonprofit Corporation Act overlap, and Bafna expressly declined to decide which one controls when they diverge; the safer course is to comply with the stricter Nonprofit Corporation Act timeline.¹³
• Bafna and Vidolich are unpublished opinions and bind no one under the Michigan Court Rules, though they remain the most directly on-point appellate authority on association records inspection.⁸
• The five-business-day window and the fee-shift apply to associations incorporated as nonprofit corporations; an unincorporated association would rely on the Condominium Act and its governing documents alone. Almost every Michigan association is incorporated, but confirm the form.⁶
• The Florida and California figures appear only to place Michigan on the national map; they reflect those states’ statutes, not Michigan law.⁷

Section 5: National positioning and related coverage

Michigan is a condominium-statute state, and its distinctive site-condominium form stretches the Condominium Act over many detached-home communities that other states would treat as planned-community HOAs; genuine non-condominium planned communities, meanwhile, get only recorded covenants plus the corporate inspection right of the Nonprofit Corporation Act, not a dedicated HOA statute.⁵ The records standard is an availability standard — records open “at convenient times” under MCL 559.157 — rather than the hard statutory clocks of Florida and California, with the Nonprofit Corporation Act supplying a five-business-day trigger for court action.¹ For a multi-state operator, the threshold job in Michigan is figuring out whether a detached-home community is a site condominium under the Condominium Act or a non-condominium HOA under covenants plus the Nonprofit Corporation Act, because the records framework turns on that answer.⁶ Recent legislative activity has not changed the Condominium Act records provision.⁴

HOA Weekly refreshes its Michigan records-inspection coverage each quarter, as the Legislature and the Michigan courts act. Federal frameworks — the Fair Housing Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act, and the OTARD rule — also apply to Michigan associations, whatever the state framework says.

Footnotes

1. Michigan Compiled Laws § 559.157, Condominium Act (Act 59 of 1978), “Books, records, contracts, and financial statements; examination; audit or review; opt-out” (eff. 1978; subsections (2)–(3) am. 2013 PA 134, eff. Jan. 14, 2014) ↩
2. Michigan Compiled Laws § 450.2487, Nonprofit Corporation Act (Act 162 of 1982), inspection of records; written demand; proper purpose; 5-business-day window; costs and attorney fees (am. 2014 PA 557, eff. Jan. 15, 2015) ↩
3. Michigan Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs, Condominium Act Frequently Asked Questions (“LARA has no authority to take complaints or enforce any requirements of the Condominium Act regarding the actions of condominium associations… Only a court can order an association to comply”) ↩
4. Michigan Legislature, House Bill 5784 of 2026 (“Housing: condominium; requirements for an association of co-owners to conduct a reserve study and establish a reserve funding plan; modify. Amends sec. 105 of 1978 PA 59 (MCL 559.205)”) ↩
5. Michigan State University Extension, “Zoning and condominiums” (site condominiums are single-family detached developments organized under the Condominium Act, used as an alternative to platted subdivisions under the Land Division Act) ↩
6. Michigan Compiled Laws, Nonprofit Corporation Act (Act 162 of 1982), MCL 450.2101 et seq. (governs Michigan nonprofit corporations, including most condominium and homeowners associations) ↩
7. Florida Statutes § 720.303(5) (HOA official records available within 10 business days; rebuttable presumption of willful failure and statutory damages of $50 per calendar day, up to 10 days, for failure to comply); cf. California Civil Code §§ 5210, 5235 (Davis-Stirling Act production deadlines and $500 penalty per denied request) ↩
8. Vidolich v Saline Northview Condominium Ass’n, unpublished per curiam opinion of the Michigan Court of Appeals, issued Dec. 5, 2017 (Docket No. 334579), 2017 WL 6028112 (proper purpose is an implicit requirement even where the Condominium Act and bylaws do not expressly reference it) ↩
9. Michigan Compiled Laws § 450.2485, Nonprofit Corporation Act (“A corporation shall keep books and records of account and minutes of the proceedings of its shareholders or members, board, and executive committee, if any”) ↩
10. Michigan Compiled Laws § 559.215, Condominium Act (a person or association of co-owners adversely affected by a violation may bring an action for relief in a court of competent jurisdiction; the court may award costs to the prevailing party) ↩
11. Michigan Court of Appeals (intermediate appellate court hearing appeals from circuit and probate courts; further review is by the Michigan Supreme Court) ↩
12. Michigan Compiled Laws § 559.207, Condominium Act (“A co-owner may maintain an action against the association of co-owners and its officers and directors to compel these persons to enforce the terms and provisions of the condominium documents”) ↩
13. Bafna v Echo Valley Condominium Ass’n, unpublished per curiam opinion of the Michigan Court of Appeals, issued Oct. 28, 2021 (Docket No. 353785) (analyzing record-inspection requests under MCL 450.2487 and MCL 559.157; declining to reach whether the provisions conflict) ↩