Publishing governing documents

Started by BrianK1 • 5 replies • 1307 views

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BrianK1 (Colorado)
Posts: 54

Posted:

When there's a transfer of ownership, what physical publishing format for the documents do you give to the new owner? Each of the governing documents separately, or together in one binder? What do you use to bind 40-50 pages of your CC&R's and ByLaws?

RogerB (Colorado)
Posts: 5,067

Posted:

Brian, in Colorado homeowners are required provide all governing documents, financials, last annual budget and annual meeting minutes, and last 6 months of Board minutes to potential buyers. As the property manager we have these in digital format and provide them to the owner or their agent as well as having the governing documents available for anyone to view on web sites. We no longer need to provide hard copy.

TimB4 (Tennessee)
Posts: 21,059

Posted:

Brian,

Our HOA has created an owners manual that has all the governing documents. We print and bind it at staples, kinkos, etc. (who ever has the best price at the time). This manual, along with a 4-5 sheet disclosure statement meets what is required by Virginia law. We put the disclosure statement and owners manual in one large envelope.

Tim

NameW (Virginia)
Posts: 74

Posted:

We used to do that. Still no matter what color cover, no matter how attractive we made the disclosure packet, very few new buyers bothered to read it. What we wound up doing is hiring a DC area company that specializes in transcribing documents for courts and attorneys to go through all of our (some were 30 or more years old) Covenants, By-Laws, Articles of Incorporation, etc. into an exact copy in MS Word. That cost us about $140. Then we hired someone else to do a side by side comparison to make sure every comma and apostrophe was correct and in the correct place. Errors (2 trivial ones found in about 100 pages of typed pages) were corrected. Then the whole package was locked into a pdf format and backed up elsewhere. Nowadays, per VA Title 55, we just email (e-receipt required) a copy of that along with minutes and the other also required pdf documents to the real estate agent requesting a copy on the sellers behalf. Much easier and faster and it leaves the printing burden to someone else.

TimB4 (Tennessee)
Posts: 21,059

Posted:

All Associations can do is provide the information. No-one can make them read it.

True Story - I had authored a grandfather clause to be voted on by the membership. One member contacted me on the day before the meeting about wanting to change the wording. I informed him that the wording had been on the Association website for over 9 months. The Association newsletter had published the wording in the last 4 publications. The Non-Association newsletter had published the clause in the last 10 publications. All of the notices and publications had contact information on it and he wanted to offer suggestions less then 24 hours before the vote. I told him changes just weren't going to happen at this time and he would have to vote for or against it as it is written. The measure passed.

MaryA1 (Arizona)
Posts: 388

Posted:

Tim,

Also a true story.

At a board meeting of my former assn where I served as Treas, we were discussing an upcoming issue of our newsletter. The V.P. stated she didn't bother reading the newsletters; she just put them in the trash! The board members did not get advance copies so they had no idea what was contained in each issue. I was the editor of the newsletter and had full authority over the contents. Moral of the story: it may not only be the members who don't bother to read info about the assn.

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