Changes to CCR's - Grandfather Clause?

Hi Martha:

As a general rule amendments take effect immediately after appropriate approval by the members.

I want to make sure you are not potentially confused with regards to the “grandfather” issue. There are some amendments which the HOA needs to for a reason or may be required by their state statutes to “grandfather” previous homeowners. To give an example a condominium may want to limit rentals in the future; however, they will “grandfather” current homeowners and allow them to rent units until such time as they sell said unit in the future. In many instances this is to potentially avoid legal issues, such as a homeowner already has the unit rented and cannot arbitrarily throw out a renter as it would violate “tenant renter” state statute.

“Grandfathering” is also sometimes done for amendments that will change something, but there are already homes which do not yet meet the standard. This example would potentially be a fence which was allowed in the past, but different standard is agreed and voted by the members. The members who currently have a non-standard fence are “grandfathered” until such time as they need to replace the fence in the future, at which time the replacement must meet the current CCR standards.

Thank you for your response. That is what I was thinking; I just couldn't find a state statute that talked about that.

Changing the CC&R's aren't as much a "Grandfathering" issue as it is updating/upgrading the documentation to reflect modern times. It's a living breathing document more or less. As long as you keep breathing life into it. You can't make changes to the documentation so as to enforce a rule. It's to reinforce new rules or standards.

We changed our CC&R's to remove the name of the developer who no longer owned or involved in our HOA. This change effected the Voting structure of the "A/B" voting. There was no more of that as the member has 1 vote per lot. The most updated change we had made was all the owner's had SEPARATE water meters and the HOA was no longer responsible for providing water. The HOA used to be able to turn off water to those who didn't pay but the water department came in and put separate meters in for everyone. This had to be changed in the CC&R's as the HOA didn't pay people's water bills any more.

These are the typical changes in a CC&R you might see. I also suggest looking for technological changes regarding satellite dishes or green power options like solar panels. You may want to look over the amount of votes it takes to change the documentation. Ours required 90% which is nearly impossible. We also changed the amount of required board members as 9 BOD members was impossible to have.

By-laws are more easily changed and not required to be filed. Those can be changed by simple vote and in the meeting notes. They really are more flexible and don't require as much as a vote to change. There's more grandfathering issues involved with them more than any other.

That I do not know. My thinking is that everyone currently living in the neightborhood would be grandfatyhered in, as they had to sign a document agreeing to the CCRs before closing on their homes. The CCRs are a contract and are binding. I'm thinking that the proposed chsanges, should they pass, would cover any new residents, RVs, boats, etc.

Tim,
I would agree with you,but is there a law we can check? Martha,makes sence to a point,am inclining more towards that if its not specifically mentioned is not automatically law. Dont you think?

Lets see if we can potentially clarify ... Grandfather clause is in essence a statement something to the effect of:

All fences in the back of homes are to be six (6) feet high and constructed of cedar. All current fences erected prior to filing of this amendment shall not be considered a violation and when replaced then must meet the current standard as stated herein.

What "grandfathering" does essentially is reference that items not meeting the new current standard are not a violation if installed prior to the filing of the amended document. Potentially it will not be very often that you will need to grandfather anything.