33-1813
Is this the law right now:
33-1813. Removal of board member; special meeting
(d) If all of the requirements of this subsection for calling a special meeting are met and the board of directors fails to call, notice and hold a special meeting within thirty days after receipt of the petition, the members of the board of directors are deemed removed from office effective at midnight of the thirty-first day.
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Petition to REQUEST Special meeting for recall should contain just what? Print Name, Signature, Date, full mailing address, being a Property Owners Association the Parcel Number. As REQUESTS (petition) are being mailed our across the United States a witness can’t observe the signature – what do we do?
Joseph,
The petition to call for a special meeting of the members for the purpose of recalling board members can be very simply. It should contain a simple sentence to the effect of “We the undersigned members request the board of directors of the XYZ HOA call and hold a special meeting of the members for the purpose recalling board members (each individual by name). Each line should be printed name, signature, date and lot, parcel number or physical address.
The Provision of HB-2607 sited are Law but they do not become effective until October 30, 2023 based on the end of the legislative session this past Monday.
Dennis
What is the ‘new portion or provision’ of ars 33.1813 that will take effect on 10/30/2023? I found the house bill and it looks like a couple additional and clarifying items have been added to 33.1813. Would you mind elaboration on what has been added, removed or modified that is not yet in effect? Thank you
Carrie,
The new law simply added a new provision that states that if the board fails to call for and hold a special meeting of the members within 30 days of the receipt of a petition signed by the required number of eligible votes the entire board is removed from office as a matter of law at midnight on the 31’st day following receipt of the petition. That law is effective on October 30 2023.
Dennis
Thank you for clarifying the difference in the current vs. upcoming 10/30.
For the current 33.1813 statue, it states the special meeting must be noticed and held within 30 days, if not, there are no consequences?
For the upcoming revision of 33.1813 effective 10/30, the special meeting must be noticed and held within 30 days and if not, the new part of the statue then automatically removes the recalled member automatically?
With that said, does the special meeting need to have a 10 day window of time, prior to the meeting date? I am guessing this 10 day window allows for a ballot to be sent out?
Thank you
Carrie,
Your comment is not completely accurate. Under the new law if the board fails to call and hold the required meeting the entire board is removed from office not just the contested board members. Any meeting of the members must be notices and the ballots sent out consistent with the existing requirements of the open meeting laws. So yes if 10 days prior to the required meeting date the board has failed to notice the meeting and send out the ballots they are all in deep trouble and will soon all be terminated. Compliance with any part of the law is not optional, and the new bill finally establishes consequences for the board that does not require litigation to implement. While I don’t like removing good board members for the failure of the majority to act i strongly supported this legislation because of this enforcement provision and the deterrent effect this put on boards to in fact comply with the law.
Dennis
I forgot to add a question.
For the petition portion, does this require a wet signature? Can the petition be sent out electronically and sent back with an electronic signature?
What constitutes a ‘valid’ petition? How does that need to be formatted and stated? Does each page need to be numerically identified
(1 of 10, 4 of ten) and does each page require the petitioner’s information and signature, therefore validating each page?
I posted the following about an hour ago, which has to do with this post:
In Arizona, what does a ‘valid’ petition look like for ARS 33.1813?
Is it like a normal petition which states a (one) specific reason for the petition and nothing additional? Meaning, you ONLY sign the petition IF you AGREE with the singular statement of the petition?
We are currently dealing with a recall, for no cause, due to a small minority of homeowners who have been been legitimately noticed and fined for violation CCR’s and now they’re mad 🙄
The ‘petition’ that was put together is absolutely nothing close to a typical petition, it was a survey with Y/N under multiple questions:
1) Recall board president Y/N
2) Recall property management Y/N (even though that’s not a thing and worded incorrectly, replace vs. recall)
3) Increase board to: 5 or 7
4) Large fountain structure repair: Y/N
5) Which paint color do you like for community walls: A or B
To me, this doe NOT follow a petition format and petition purpose. Even though you can see some hand written signatures, there is no way to prove any of the circled options/selections were that of the person who signed in ink, any options that may have been circled or left un-circled, could absolutely be altered.
And the big problem to me, this was also sent out as a Docusign, sadly – only to the people they knew would give the “vote” they wanted and left 70% of the community in the dark and never included that 70%.
The law (33.1813) calls for a ‘signature’ many times regarding a valid petition. The law does not call for electronic signature, therefore would an electronic signature be a valid and counted signature, should the petition be a truly valid petition for recall via arms 33.1813?
At the end of the day, the purpose of a petition is to state one thing, it’s clear and concise. If you agree with the statement, you fill in your name, address and signature. If you do NOT agree with the singular statement, you do NOT sign the petition, as you are saying you DO NOT AGREE with the statement, by NOT signing.
The way this janky ‘petition’ was put together is not in a petition format, it was a survey with bubble options, which allows for corruption should one choose to do so.
On a valid petition with one clear statement of purpose, there is absolutely no opportunity to to alter a single thing. You either sign it in agreement or you do NOT sign it, because you do NOT agree with the purpose of the petition as stated in writing on the petition.
The purpose for a petition:
*It has one purpose
*It has one subject/statement which is clearly written out at the top of each petition page, to clearly align with any corresponding signatures
*It only requests a signature IF the party is in AGREEANCE with the statement
*Each page has the petitioner’s information stated at the bottom of each page
*Each page is signed by the petitioner
So, two questions:
1) Would this be considered a ‘valid’ petition?
2) Would a docusign ‘electronic’ signature be considered a ‘valid’ signature? (also on this particular docusign, the supporting documentation showing what each homeowner “selected” was not attached, therefore showing NO proof of the selections made, only the time stamp and IP information)
Thank you in advance, advice and answers are greatly appreciated!
I believe that my response to your earlier post answered all the questions included in this post. There is no required format or rules for the petition unlike petitions for other governmental actions. Typically, the petition format would contain the date, printed name, lot number or address and the signature of the member. This allows the association to validate that at the time of the signing you were an authorized voter in the community. Without this information is difficult for the association to validate the legitimacy of your signature to be counted in the required number. Homeowners should not push the acceptability of their petition by not providing this information.
Dennis
Thank you for your reply, however I am still a bit confused.
* When it comes to a recall petition, electronic signatures allowed in addition to wet signatures?
For the electronic signatures, the survey selections are not attached to each IP address electron signature stamp provided by Docusign, so there’s not proof of each electronic signature selection.
* Can a recall petition have multiple subjects with with a “circle Y or N” for each subject (since you can’t prove the signing homeowner circled the Y or N per subject.
* Last, for a special meeting to be called, the way I understand the law and your previous posts/reply’s, is the special meeting is specific to a single topic. When you have 25% signatures of a community with less than 1000 homes, a special meeting must be held for a single and specific topic.
In this case, there were 5 topics on the survey/petition with multiple options to choose from for an answer, as well as the option to not skip making a choice/selection. Not one of the five categories had full participation of people who chose to do the survey/petition. Some of the categories did meet the 25% participation requirement, but not all. However all 5 categories are lumped together in this one survey/document, making it very difficult to understand how the special meeting statute applies, as well as recall 33.1813 statute requirements
* So would this require 5 separate special meetings to be held if the 25% requirement is met per topic?
I tried to attach a photo of this survey/petition, but do not see an option for that. Thought it might help, to understand
where my questions are coming from.
Thank you much!
Carrie,
I’m not sure how I can answer this question any more clearly. What was supplied to you is not a special meeting petition it was simply a survey. If this was a petition for a special meeting to recall the board member than electronic signatures would be appropriate as long as they also provided the date and the printed name and lot or address of each signer. You cannot request a special meeting with a yes/no question on the potential subject matter of the special meeting. If anyone want to petition the members for a special meeting, they need to get their act together and ask everyone if they are willing to support a special meeting for a or any specific agenda items. As for the subject matter of the meeting the petition can identify any number of issues as long as the petition identifies all issues and the members actually have the authority to vote to decide the issue. Of the 5 issues on your survey the members only have the authority to recall the board members they have no authority to decide any of the other issues. You could identify issue for the members to discuss with the board at the meeting, but the board does not have to comply with the wishes of the members, and the members cannot force the board to act in any way. But if the board refused to consider the input from the community they could all be subjected to a recall vote themselves.
Dennis