Bylaws not signed

Our HOA has been running since the early 70's in Tulsa. Recently the board has discovered that we have CCR's and Declaration signed and filed with the Secretary of State in OK but our Bylaws seem to be a draft. We have unearthed many copies of it but none are signed. Are we able to enforce any of these bylaws without original signatures on the document? There is some conversation going around between homeowners and 'Directors' that if they are not signed then they are void and in effect there is no Board. What is the truth here?

Hi Wendy:

I concur with Melissa … your state statutes do not have much regarding HOA’s; however, the following is one item mentioned. You will note there is no mention of By-Laws as these are in essence description of board duties, voting, etc. as Melissa stated similar to the household rules. The Declaration of CCR’s is what is attached to everyone’s warranty deeds and run with the land. These are enforceable and everyone agreed to follow when they purchased their property.

§60 854. Membership Covenants and restrictions.
Membership of said owners association shall consist of recorded owners of separately owned lots in the real estate development. Membership is transferred upon legal transfer of title to the separately owned lots. The owners association may also enforce the covenant and restrictions of the real estate development when specified by the covenants and restrictions.

Thanks all, there is a meeting this evening, called by the membership because they are very unhappy with our 'President'. It is my hope that at this meeting we can vote in the bylaws we have, get them into the minutes and then go about adding any addendums. We'll have a revote to get those into the minutes at our next scheduled meeting. Again, thanks for your help!

It seems we have yet another issue. The original developer created a 'Master Association' to cover common areas, take care of assessments, etc. This was filed by the Secretary of State. Upon completion of each of 5 subassociation areas, it too was incorporated. Again, they all were incorporated separately and filed with the Secretary of State, State of OK. Unfortunately I have not found anything concrete yet that unites us under the Master Association although we have always, until now, functioned that way. One of our homeowners, a past director, says that the CC&Rs which are in our Abstracts state that we are to pay assessments to the Master Association. I have no problem with this but I need to be able to convince certain homeowners that they are not their own entity, that they do indeed fall under the umbrella of the Master Association. How do I go about doing this? What paperwork would I need?

I have since been elected President of the Master Association and your last response is how I read the situation as well. The problem is in helping one of our subassociations see it. They are set on the idea that since each sub is a corporation and the Master is another corporation, one doesn't have any tie to another. Even though it states in our CC&R that when they took possession of their properties they became members in the Master and were therefore obligated to assessments. And the assessments are not excessive. As a matter of fact we are working to try to lower them.