Suspending voting rights
The association suspends members voting rights if they are not a “member in good standing” ie up to date on payments. Is this legal?
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Sheryl,
Currently, the eligibility to vote is dictated by the declaration (CC&Rs) of your community. While definitely wrong, it is currently legal. One of my priority legislative proposal would limit this only to property ownership and being current in the direct common expense assessment. All other fees and charges would not apply, and any alleged violations of governing documents would also not apply to the eligibility to vote. I’ve received bills addressing those issues for the last two years, but they were both killed in one committee based on the chairman’s refusal to hear them in his committee. I’ll keep trying until I can get the laws changed to protect your most valuable right to vote, relative to issues in your communities. While I’ll do all the legwork, this will not change until homeowners get involved and demand that their legislators support any of the legislation that I prepare for them and all of you. We have over 2400 people in this coalition yet when i ask for help to influence the legislators, I get support from fewer than 150 regulars. The rest do nothing but complain that they are being abused.
Dennis
So our CCR’s and Bylaws are extremely basic and include nothing at all about this. We do not levy fines or fees of any sort, but if the regular assessment is delinquent (in some cases severely) we think it appropriate to suspend voting privileges. The board would like to vote to do this and I want to be sure we can.
Sheryl
Under the law you are allowed to charge late fees and interest for delinquent assessment along with any collections cost you incur. You have a statutory lien on the property that is foreclosable based on statutory delinquency thresholds. What a statutory lien means is that the lien is automatic based on when the assessment payment is due, and you do not have to go before a judge to apply the lien. One thing that is important is that if you do not file litigation to collect on the lien in 6 years the lien amount is cancelled. Nothing in the law allows you to suspend voting right unless the CC&Rs specifically allowed that action. The obligation to pay assessments is unconditional on all homeowners and the associations power to collect on that assessment is very broad. You have the option to ask a court for a monetary judgement that allows you to garnish wages and physical and monetary assets, or you have the power to foreclose on the lien and take the homeowner’s home thru a sherifs sale. All of this is under Arizona law and irrespective of what your documents allow. You have extensive power to collect but you need to do it, you have no authority to suspend voting rights or apply fines and penalties other than late fees and interest on the amount owed.
Dennis