I own one in North Carolina (Dunes South, Nags Head) I don't think it is a North Carolina thing vs a Florida thing. Some HOA's are just more transparent then others. Some provide more online info and some don't provide any info.
I have owned a few weeks at Dunes South years ago, and sold them all. The HOA was the problem. There are a number of wholly owned condos which also vote in the timeshare HOA. They were given 52 votes and as a result if they voted together they could control the HOA. The management company, Cape Management (later sold to different owners) was horrible and the management company owner inserted her own people onto the board. In fact, when board seats were coming up, those interested in running were instructed to contact the management company to express interest. Management had their slate whose names were printed on the ballots attached to proxies. Anyone opposing management's choices was told to come to the annual meeting and be nominated from the floor, but since they had no access to proxy votes, that was a hopeless effort.
I had owned at two other Outer Banks resorts that had very transparent, member-controlled HOAs and did their own management. The contrast was such that I dumped my Dunes South weeks. Even the handpicked HOA board finally smelled a rat and dumped Cape Management. IMHO, it is now reasonably well managed.
Dunes South has an interesting distinction in that its members kicked out its developer from control of the resort by filing a lawsuit in court, in which they prevailed at every level all the way up to the North Carolina Supreme Court. Members at the developers other three timeshare resorts then rose up and kicked him out of control of his other resorts, but after losing the Dunes South case, he waved a white flag in the others and none of them had to file their cases in court. After all of that, it was amazing that they got under the control of Cape Management which was worse than the original developer.
As to HOA's, they are all organized as non-profit corporations in North Carolina and there are member rights under law as members of a non-profit corporations. You have the right to inspect and copy minutes and many other records. Among them is the list of owners, but that is available only in a set time period prior to the annual meeting. In years past, the North Carolina Real Estate Commission, which oversees timeshare resorts was very proactive in coming down hard on developers and management companies that did not treat members correctly. Blackwell Brogden was their timeshare guru for decades and he even once took on RCI over the way it originally set up RCI Points and Brogden forced RCI to make rules changes to make it more member-friendly. He threatened to classify RCI Points as a timeshare developer instead of an exchange program if they did not make changes he wanted and he was campaigning with other state Real Estate Commission to join NC in that. RCI waived a white flag.
