Class of Membership
Our current neighborhood has three different types of residences. Some of these types are allowed 2 votes for things that come up for full Association vote; the others have only one vote. I am reading our Articles of Incorporation and see this language:
“One Class of Membership. From and after the execution of the Articles of Amendment, there shall only be one class of membership in the Association.”
Am I reading too much into that, or does that article not return all residences to equal number of votes? I thought the class system was when the developer was still in the picture, which has not been the case in our neighborhood since 1992.
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Rhonda,
You are correct the typical class membership structure is one class for the homeowners and one class for the developer/declarant. After the end of the period of declarant control all membership reverts to the one class of the homeowners even if the developer still owns property within the community. This will be specified in the CC&R’s as the top-level document for the community. The Articles of Incorporation are the next highest-level document but no part of it can contradict a specific provision of the CC&R’s. After that come the Bylaws and then the rules of the communities. each lower-level document cannot contradict a higher-level document.
So, in you case for example if your bylaws provided the provision that allowed non-declarants to have two votes for one type of property the provision of your Articles of Incorporation would contradict with that provision and supersede that provision making the provision in the bylaws null and void. If however, that provision was in the CC&R’s then the statement you provided would contradict the provision in the CC&R’s and the provision in the articles would be null and void.
Dennis
Thank you, Dennis. To be sure I understand the language of all of these documents, can you confirm whether or not “CC&Rs” are the same thing as “Declaration of Homeowner Benefits and Assurances”?
The CC&R’s are commonly referred to as the Declaration. However you call the document is irrelevant what is relevant is that it is the recorded document that established the community in the first place. It is the only governing document that is required to be recorded by the county recorder to be valid. You may have a document that uses the term “declaration” in the title that is not the true Declaration for the community.
Dennis