Homeowner votes to change CCRs
Hello, CC&Rs have been recorded with the recorders office but its unclear who has voted for such changes? how can I find votes of the community and not just our board of directors?
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Maria,
The association is required by law to retain all votes cast by members and any related material for one year after any election or ballot measure. You are entitled to view any and all of that information upon request. If you have a community manager, provide a note to your community manager identifying that you wish to view the ballots and any related material relative to that CC&R amendment.
Dennis
Not defending the actions of your HOA board, but, with the passage of the 2023 HB2298 your board may have removed all references to “roadway regulation” on designated public streets in your community. Especially, if your CC&Rs were recorded after the Jan 1, 2015, they are compelled by State Law to correct and remove conflicts in the document and re-record. Those that existed prior to that date have to vote to allow or not, then change their CC&R declarations according the vote outcome.
In my case, the HOA board took upon themselves to consolidate and re-record an “Amended and Restated Declaration (CC&R’s)” without approval of the membership, only on recommendation by the HOA attorney ($$). They took the original declaration and combined the five amendments that existed for 17 years into a new declaration and re-recorded with the County. No committee to review and attest that everything is the same, no version tracking (strike-out removals & red-lines additions) were supplied prior to recording with the County. If that process had occurred, the spelling error recently found in our CC&Rs would have been caught – the original declaration did no have this error. In this day and age with the word processing & OCR technology available, spelling errors in legal documents is unacceptable.
A similar situation is created with the passage of the 2024 HB2325 as to the implied application of State laws to HOA CC&Rs. What is lacking in the Planned Community Act is definition of the order of law primacy; ie Federal, State, Local, then HOA’s or other contractually organized entities. Nonprofit HOAs are established & recognized under state laws, rules and regulation; County offices are defined by State laws as to their duties – the “official” repository of land related filing and documents. Some interpretation by HOA Boards and legal advisors use this lack of definition as tool “rule” rather than correctly comprehend and manage their HOA with a responsible fiduciary attitude.
Your Association directly violated the law and your own governing documents. Your attorney was totally FOS. Any amendment to the declaration required the approval of the members even if it consist of a consolidation of previous amendment. The Association board never has the authority to amend the CC&Rs without the prior approval of the members under current law. But if no one holds them accountable for this they will get away with it.
Dennis