So.. we can just make new rules, right?

On the HOA, and we have some very old, out of date, and irrelevant rules currently (20 years old).

Our Covenants grant the Board the "power to formulate, publish, and enforce reasonable rules and regulations concerning the uses and enjoyment of the front yard space of each lot..."

By these words, does that give the Board the power to simply toss the old rules and publish new ones?

Thanks,

There is a volume of case law regarding rule making by an HOA, with court decisions for and against. The clause in your covenants gives you some authority - but not the ability to enact anything you want. In general a rule will be upheld if it:

1. Furthers the goals of the Association as stated in its Articles of Incorporation and Restrictive Covenants.
2. Complies with all local, state, and federal laws.
3. Follows the guidelines for making rules as spelled out in the Bylaws; including notification of members and filing in the corporate records.
4. Is applied consistently and impartially, never being used against a particular homeowner or class of homeowners.
5. Is reasonable.

The last item depends on the legal standard of "reasonable" that has been defined by the courts as:

1. Having some legitimate and explainable basis for existence.
2. Being in accordance with reason, fairness, duty, or prudence supported or justified by fact or circumstance.

There is a great deal of grey area here, but this gives you some guidance for making rules.

The other advice that I would give you is to be sure your rule is supported by a majority of the homeowners. Trying to push through a minority action is hard, will likely be reversed, and is probably a violation of the board's fiduciary duty.

I'm not clear if you're talking about general rules or actually amending your CC&R.

Rules can't contradict the CC&R (since that's the binding contract everyone signed) or city/state law.

Amending the CC&R is more involved.

I agree with Lawrence as well and emphasize the reasonable part.

Are these your CC&R's you want to update? That has the process on changing IN the documents. Ours took 90% of the membership and a special meeting. Our By laws and incorporation documents took 75% of the owners to change and special meeting. There are ways to get out of the special meeting requiremnt but can answer that lateer.

A HOa is governed by it's members for it's members. I recoomend every 5 to 7 years updating your docs. Technology changes and a HOA needs to adapt.

I'd suggest a lawyer be involved, One that specializes in contracual/busniess/ or corporate law. NOT a Real estate attorney. Your dealing with contractual law and corpoate. It took us over 2 years and about 3K to file the docs. CC&R'a and Incorporation docs require filing. By laws don't but can be with the CC&R's.