West Virginia HOA Records Inspection

Section 1 — Overview: How records inspection works in West Virginia

West Virginia operates under its own version of the Uniform Common Interest Ownership Act. The state law — known as the WVUCIOA, codified at W. Va. Code Chapter 36B — tracks the 1982 model act and covers condominiums, planned communities, and cooperatives created on or after July 1, 1986. Communities formed before that date fall under the older West Virginia Unit Property Act, W. Va. Code Chapter 36A. The key records provision for post-1986 communities is W. Va. Code § 36B-3-118 ("Association records"), which directs the association to keep financial records and to make all financial and other records "reasonably available" for examination by unit owners and their authorized agents.¹ For most associations, a second layer of rights runs through the West Virginia Nonprofit Corporation Act (Chapter 31E), which adds a separate member-inspection right as a matter of corporate law.² The court structure carries one important quirk: the highest court is the Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia — the court of last resort, despite the word "Appeals" in its name — and the state created an Intermediate Court of Appeals that opened on July 1, 2022.³ Nationally, West Virginia belongs to the reasonableness-standard camp, not the hard-deadline camp. Florida, for comparison, requires records within 10 business days and imposes $50-per-day statutory damages (up to $500) for willful noncompliance.⁴ California sets tiered deadlines of 10 business days for current-year records and 30 calendar days for records from the prior two years.⁵ The table and the detail that follow lay out what the West Virginia statutes require and where they are silent.

Section 2 — Quick-Reference: West Virginia HOA Records Inspection

Section 3 — The records-inspection framework in detail

3A. Records subject to inspection

For communities created on or after July 1, 1986, the controlling provision is W. Va. Code § 36B-3-118. It is brief: the association must keep financial records sufficiently detailed to enable compliance with the resale-certificate section (§ 36B-4-109), and all financial and other records must be made reasonably available for examination by any unit owner and authorized agents.¹ The statute does not enumerate categories beyond "financial and other records," so the reach is broad in principle but undefined in detail — consistent with the 1982 generation of UCIOA on which Chapter 36B is based.⁷ Under § 36B-1-204, § 36B-3-118 also applies to common interest communities created before the act's effective date, but only as to events and circumstances occurring after that date.¹⁶

Pre-1986 condominiums that elected coverage under the West Virginia Unit Property Act look to § 36A-3-13, which is narrower. That provision requires the treasurer to keep detailed records of receipts and expenditures — including expenditures affecting the common elements and maintenance, repair, and replacement expenses — and to keep assessment records; those records "shall be available for examination by the unit owners during regular business hours."⁶ The right there is essentially financial.

Because most West Virginia associations incorporate as nonprofits, the West Virginia Nonprofit Corporation Act adds a separate, more itemized records right as a matter of corporate law, not HOA law. Section 31E-15-1501 directs the corporation to keep as permanent records its meeting minutes and records of action without a meeting, to maintain accounting records and a member record, and to keep at its principal office its articles, bylaws, board resolutions, members'-meeting minutes and member communications for the past three years, and a list of current directors and officers.² Each category traces to its own statute, and the three sources operate in parallel for an incorporated post-1986 association.

3B. The request-and-response sequence

Standing under WVUCIOA is straightforward: any unit owner and the owner's authorized agents may examine the records, and § 36B-3-118 attaches no proper-purpose condition.¹ The corporate statute applies a higher bar. Under § 31E-15-1502, a member may inspect the basic Chapter-31E records on written notice at least five business days before the inspection date, while access to accounting records, the member record, and certain board-minute excerpts requires that the demand be made in good faith and for a proper purpose, described with reasonable particularity, and that the records be directly connected to that purpose.¹⁰

On timing, WVUCIOA sets no day-count. It uses an availability standard: records must be made "reasonably available."¹ What is reasonable turns on the facts. For incorporated associations, the corporate statute supplies more structure: the five-business-day written-notice mechanism in § 31E-15-1502, and, for records outside the basic set, a duty to allow inspection "within a reasonable time" under § 31E-15-1504.¹¹ The Unit Property Act ties examination of the treasurer's records to "regular business hours."⁶

On location and charges, § 36B-3-118 is silent beyond "reasonably available for examination," so the place and manner default to the declaration, the bylaws, and reasonableness.¹ The corporate statute fills the gap for incorporated associations: inspection occurs during regular business hours at the principal office or a reasonable location the corporation specifies, and under § 31E-15-1503 the corporation may impose a reasonable charge covering labor and material that may not exceed the estimated cost of production, reproduction, or transmission.⁹ WVUCIOA itself sets no copy fee and no fee cap.

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

WVUCIOA does not list any category of association record as exempt or withholdable, and § 36B-3-118 contains no confidentiality carve-out or redaction rule.¹ The statute also says nothing specific about the membership or owner list, commercial-use restrictions, or an opt-out, so on those points the matter rests on the governing documents.

The corporate statute is where confidentiality-style limits actually appear for incorporated associations. Section 31E-15-1502 conditions access to accounting records, the member record, and board-minute excerpts on a proper purpose, and it provides that a member may not copy the member record unless the articles or bylaws allow it.¹⁰ That same section preserves a member's separate litigation-discovery rights and the independent power of a circuit court to compel production of corporate records — which is how privilege and pending-litigation questions are typically handled: through ordinary discovery rules rather than the inspection statute.¹⁰

3D. Remedies and enforcement for noncompliance

WVUCIOA creates no records-specific remedy. Section 36B-3-118 carries no statutory damages figure and no per-day penalty.¹ An owner's recourse under Chapter 36B runs through the act's general enforcement provision, § 36B-4-117 ("Effect of violation on rights of action; attorney's fees"), and through ordinary civil remedies such as an injunction or mandamus to compel production.¹³

For incorporated associations, the corporate statute provides a more concrete remedy. Under § 31E-15-1504, if the corporation refuses inspection of the basic records, a circuit court may summarily order inspection and copying at the corporation's expense; for other records the court proceeds on an expedited basis, and if it orders inspection it shall also order the corporation to pay the member's costs, including reasonable counsel fees, unless the corporation proves it refused in good faith because of a reasonable doubt about the member's right.¹¹

Enforcement is judicial. West Virginia has no HOA regulatory agency and no agency records-complaint process, so a records dispute proceeds as a civil action in the West Virginia Circuit Court.¹⁴ For a final order entered after June 30, 2022, the appeal goes first to the Intermediate Court of Appeals, with further discretionary review by the Supreme Court of Appeals; for orders entered before that date there was no intermediate court and the appeal went directly to the Supreme Court of Appeals.¹⁵ The Supreme Court of Appeals is the court of last resort in West Virginia despite the word "Appeals" in its name.³

Section 4 — Recent legislative and judicial activity

A. Recent bills

No bill in the 2024, 2025, or 2026 regular sessions amended or proposed to amend the records-inspection provisions specifically (W. Va. Code § 36B-3-118, § 36A-3-13, or the Chapter 31E inspection sections). The official codified text of § 36B-3-118 carries a December 17, 2025 date stamp and remains in its original form.¹ Two UCIOA-adjacent bills sometimes flagged by trackers do not touch records inspection: the 2024 "Mountain Homes Act" (Senate Bill 188) created a state loan-guarantee fund in Chapter 5B and did not amend Chapter 36B, 36A, or 31E,¹⁷ and the 2025 House Bill 3377 (committee substitute) added a new Chapter 36C for infrastructure-only common ownership associations without changing § 36B-3-118.¹⁸ Because no qualifying bill exists, there is no audience-implication table for this subsection.

B. Recent rulings

No West Virginia appellate decision in the past 36 months interprets § 36B-3-118, the association records right, or the corporate member-inspection right as applied to a common-interest community. Two recent HOA or condominium appellate decisions addressed other issues. In Lindemuth v. The Woods Homeowners Association, Inc., No. 23-ICA-379 (W. Va. Intermediate Ct. App. Oct. 1, 2024), the Intermediate Court of Appeals affirmed dismissal of homeowners' declaratory-judgment claims for lack of standing, not on records-inspection grounds.¹⁹ In Walsh v. Beaver Ridge Resort Condominium Unit Owners' Association, No. 25-ICA-77 (W. Va. Intermediate Ct. App. Aug. 29, 2025), the court affirmed a judgment for the association on unpaid assessments and fines, again not a records-inspection holding.²⁰ Because no qualifying ruling exists, there is no audience-implication table for this subsection.

C. Active legislative debates

Recent West Virginia legislative attention to common interest communities has centered on developer-driven proposals to limit UCIOA's reach and on creating new association types, not on adding a fixed records-response deadline, copy-fee caps, electronic-records rules, or records penalties. No pending proposal would alter the § 36B-3-118 records framework.

Section 5 — National positioning and related coverage

West Virginia belongs to the 1982-UCIOA group of enacting states, the same generation as Alaska, Colorado, Minnesota, and Nevada, and its records right reflects that vintage.²¹ Section 36B-3-118 is an availability-and-reasonableness provision reaching primarily financial and association records, and it is less detailed than the records mechanics added in the later 2008 UCIOA amendments adopted in Connecticut, Delaware, Vermont, and Washington, which spell out categories, deadlines, and copy charges.²¹ The practical effect is that West Virginia sits closer to the reasonableness-standard and covenant-primary states than to hard-clock, agency-supervised regimes such as Florida, which pairs a 10-business-day deadline with Department of Business and Professional Regulation oversight and statutory damages,⁴ and California,⁵ with the corporate statute (Chapter 31E) supplying much of the operating detail for incorporated associations. Operators tracking appellate developments should note the distinctive court structure: the Supreme Court of Appeals is the court of last resort, and the Intermediate Court of Appeals added in July 2022 now hears most civil appeals first.¹⁵ No recent legislative session has amended WVUCIOA's records provision.¹

1. W. Va. Code § 36B-3-118 (Association records) ↩
2. W. Va. Code § 31E-15-1501 (Corporate records) ↩
3. West Virginia Judiciary (Intermediate Court of Appeals opened July 1, 2022; its decisions are binding unless overruled or modified by the Supreme Court of Appeals) ↩
4. Fla. Stat. § 720.303(5) (records must be made available within 10 business days; $50-per-day statutory damages, up to $500, for willful noncompliance) ↩
5. Cal. Civ. Code § 5210 (10 business days for current-year records; 30 calendar days for prior-two-year records) ↩
6. W. Va. Code § 36A-3-13 (Records of receipts and expenditures; examination by owners; records of assessments) ↩
7. W. Va. Code § 36B-1-204 (Applicability to preexisting common interest communities; WVUCIOA effective July 1, 1986) ↩
8. W. Va. Code § 36A-1-1 (Unit Property Act; short title) ↩
9. W. Va. Code § 31E-15-1503 (Scope of inspection right) ↩
10. W. Va. Code § 31E-15-1502 (Inspection of records by members) ↩
11. W. Va. Code § 31E-15-1504 (Circuit court-ordered inspection) ↩
12. W. Va. Code § 31E-15-1503 (electronic transmission of copies) and § 31E-15-1501(d) (form of records) ↩
13. W. Va. Code § 36B-4-117 (Effect of violation on rights of action; attorney's fees) ↩
14. West Virginia Judiciary, Intermediate Court of Appeals (court structure; judicial enforcement) ↩
15. W. Va. Code § 58-5-1 (appeal of a final order entered after June 30, 2022 lies to the Intermediate Court of Appeals) ↩
16. W. Va. Code § 36B-1-204 (application of § 3-118 to preexisting communities for post-effective-date events) ↩
17. W. Va. Legislature, 2024 Regular Session, Senate Bill 188 (Mountain Homes Act) ↩
18. W. Va. Legislature, 2025 Regular Session, Committee Substitute for House Bill 3377 ↩
19. Lindemuth v. The Woods Homeowners Ass'n, Inc., No. 23-ICA-379 (W. Va. Intermediate Ct. App. Oct. 1, 2024) ↩
20. Walsh v. Beaver Ridge Resort Condo. Unit Owners' Ass'n, No. 25-ICA-77 (W. Va. Intermediate Ct. App. Aug. 29, 2025) ↩
21. Uniform Law Commission, Common Interest Ownership Act (1982, 1994, and 2008 versions and enacting states) ↩