changes to rules, regulations, and by-laws

As a newly elected director on the Board of Directors I've been told that certain changes that have been made in the past were not done legally. I''ve been told that changes must be submitted to the State of New York and some have not been. Could you please clarify these issues.
Thank you so much for your cooperation. Ralph

Rules and regulations are internal, and the board sometimes has the power to change them, i.e. set dates and times of use of the community pools.

The method of changing Bylaws are found in the bylaws and again - MAY be under the power of the board to change OR the membership has the power to amend.

Neither of these documents would go to the state. They are not interested in internal rules of your HOA. (Only when filing original Articles of Inc. would they require a copy of your bylaws)

CCRs are another thing. Those usually need to be file at some governmental entity, like the county or state. You will find those laws by contacting your state governmental agency that oversees condos or housing issues.

Susan,
Thanks for your help. What are CCRs?

Brad is correct as far as Ohio goes as well. Maybe NY is different but to find out should be as easy as a call to your local city hall ?
The Declaration, Bylaws and any amendments to them probably are at you county recorders office. However, if you don't have the aprox dates that the changes were made, it might be hard to check for or locate them. In our county they are recorded by date and not always with the origional especially if the origional was earlier than their computerized records.
As a board member you should have access to the meeting minutes and any decisions about changes should be part of those minutes. You could check there.
Rules are different, but your bylaws also should state how rules are to be added or amended. Rules are not recorded outside of the HOA but still are legally enforceable. Sometimes those are changed improperly making them illegal.

I don't know about New York, but our documents (NE) state any amendment is not active until filed with the court.
A few years ago the Board at that time voted to change the age requirement from 57 to 50. This was not a valid amendment. It was never filed in the court in addition to being against federal law which requires residents of a senior communtiy to be at least 55 years old.

This is something that homeowners need to be aware of. As an example in our community (which at this time does not allow pets other than small bird or fish) passed an amendment to our documents to allow other pets, a person could not go out the next day to get a pet. That person would have to wait until the amendment had been filed at the courthouse.

I would assume it is common practice in almost any state that a change in the covenants is not valid until it is recorded with the proper district or authority