islerunner-ga,
New Jersey is one of numerous states that have adopted a piece of
model legislation known as the Uniform Electronic Transactions Act.
You can see NJ's version of UETA here:
http://www.njleg.state.nj.us/2000/Bills/PL01/116_.PDF
AN ACT creating the "Uniform Electronic Transactions Act;"
supplementing Title 12A of the New Jersey Statutes and repealing
R.S.1:1-2.4.
In essence, this law maeans that an emailed document can be just as
legally valid as a paper document in many cases.
It also means there are exceptions when an electronic document just won't do.
And of course, as with any law, there are gray areas where a certain
amount of interpretation is involved.
Before proceeding, though, please note the disclaimer at the bottom of
the page. Google Answers is not a source of legal advice, and I am
certainly no expert on New Jersey law for electronic documents.
With that noted, however, here's my understanding of the main points
of the above-mentioned law:
--both parties have to be in agreement to use electronic documents.
This can be an explicit agreement (as when a user clicks on an "I
agree" button on a website) or the agreement can be implied from the
context of the communications.
--emails or other electronic documents cannot be used for certain
items listed in the law, such as wills, court orders, eviction
notices, and so on.
--there is nothing that compels anyone to accept electronic documents
in lieu of paper. If a party to an agreement does not want to use
electronic documents, they are not obliged to use them.
Of course (and as weisstho-ga noted in his earlier remark), context
has a lot of bearing on whether a particular email has status as a
legal document. The provisions of UETA in NJ should help you to
evaluate the status of the email(s) you have in mind regarding the
condominium minutes.
I trust this information fully answers your question.
However, please don't rate this answer until you have everything you
need. If you would like any additional information, just post a
Request for Clarification to let me know how I can assist you further,
and I'm at your service.
All the best,
pafalafa-ga
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