Q: I live in a small co-op in TriBeCa with seven owners. We are all board members. Recently, my co-op held meetings to which I was not invited. I had installed an air-conditioner in my loft apartment without permission and they wanted to discuss the situation without me present. As a member of the board, I feel I should have been there. They said that these were committee meetings, but the committee included everyone except me. Is this legal? Can a member of the board be excluded from meetings for any reason?

A: Co-op boards set up committees to deal with matters large and small. A decorating committee, for example, might help divide the workload for a lobby redesign. A special committee could also give board members private space to freely discuss a thornier issue, like the questionable actions of one shareholder, even if that person happens to be a member of the board.

Your fellow board members may want to decide how to address your illegal air-conditioner before approaching you about it, and if you’re in the room, they can’t speak candidly.

“You’re not going to want to disclose any strategy to that person,” said Steven D. Sladkus, a real estate lawyer and a partner at the Manhattan firm Schwartz Sladkus Reich Greenberg Atlas.