Advice to get more votes to restate Bylaws?

Started by CarolR11 • 7 replies • 1627 views

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CarolR11 (Colorado)
Posts: 2,563

Posted:

Our Board & our HOA attorney restated our 12-y.o. Bylaws. Their 20 pages are organized completely differently than the current ones, and 90% of the changes involve changes in CA civil code, specifically , the Davis-Stirling Act.

We have 211 residential units and 2 large commercial units in our downtown high rise twin towers. 43% of our residents are renters; an additional 10% use their condos only part time as vacation homes.

We need 108 of all units' approval to get the Bylaws passed. After almost two months we have only about 100 secret ballots brought into our mgmt. office or mailed in.. To make matters worse, two older men who are friends and who each served INeffectively on the Board, have been running around like old hens clucking about the inadequacy of the restatement, so among the 100 submitted ballots. I'm certain that despite their general ignorance about our governing documents, they've persuaded some to vote NO.

Here's what we've done so far:

Mailed out ballots with nice cover letters from our attorney and SASE's. Publicized in 2 monthly newsletters. Posted elevator notices off & on. Sent out 2 email blasts to about 100 owners (not units). Posted on our web site 3 times for several days apiece.

I guess our next step is to send targeted mailers? ANY OTHER IDEAS???? Thank you!

TimB4 (Tennessee)
Posts: 21,059

Posted:

As a board, you know who has responded and who hasn't.
Therefore, it's time to go knocking on doors with proxy form in hand.

CarolR11 (Colorado)
Posts: 2,563

Posted:

Thanks, Tim! I haven't actually looked at who's voted and who hasn't, but mgmt. has told me that most who did vote live on the premises full time, which makes sense. The problem is the apx. 53% who live away or only visit occasionally. I'll check the list soon.

JohnC46 (South Carolina)
Posts: 14,265

Posted:

Carol

I would think "restating" Bylaws might be like removing all references to the Declarant when the Declarant is no longer in control but the Bylaws are the same vesus changing the Bylaws. Which is it?

One way or another,you have a "selling" job on your hands made tougher by some that disagree with doing be it one way or the other.

It is meet, greet, talk to, beg, cajole, promise, etc. time to get votes, especially by proxy from the non-resident voters.

Hope this helps.

JeanneK3 (Maryland)
Posts: 562

Posted:

Carol:
I wonder why you are restating your bylaws. No one has to alter bylaws because of new laws since the new laws already take precedence over anything in your bylaws. What's the other 10%? I think your community is right to be very suspicious about totally restated bylaws. Too much homeowner unfriendly material can be slipped in by an attorney. To get the confidence of your community you must carefully explain the differences from your old bylaws sentence by sentence, in writing. However, if you need 100% you'll never get it. Better to only amend a few sections and work with that.
Jeanne
Jeanne

RichardP13 (California)
Posts: 1,767

Posted:

Carol

In 2010, we restated our Bylaws. All laws firms will restate governing documents, especially if you are eliminating any reference to the builder/developer. I live in a community of 317 detached SFR's. We needed 162 yes votes to pass. We got 240, and we could have got more.

We used our election rules, (since disallowed by our current board, to help us get the votes. Our election rules stated we needed three inspectors of elections and two of those were on our committee. We went door to door to collect secret ballots and immediately turned over to the inspectors, who were walking the streets with us in the evening. A lawyer threw out 10 ballots so we had 228 yes and 2 no. We had 12 people with a owners list and a plan.

Mission accomplished.

EricH8 (Virginia)
Posts: 116

Posted:

Seems to me that you could update your bylaws to conform to CA civil code regardless of how many owners voted for or against it. The owners can't override CA law with their votes.

CarolR11 (Colorado)
Posts: 2,563

Posted:

As explained earlier, I think, most owners who live here full time voted. It's the ones with vacay homes here or who have tenants, who haven't voted. They total about 53% of our owners but door-to-door doesn't work with them.

I guess we'll try a targeted mailer. And we'll make sure the accompanying letter clearly explains the changes. Sure, we can and certainly do comply with CA civil codes and corps codes. In the restated (our HOA attorney's word), Owner protections are spelled out--it's really a very owner-friendly doc. I know where to look them up the recent legislation, and so does our PM. Homeowners do not so until they get new bylaws, they'll be misinformed if they go by what they read in our existing ones.

Our current Bylaws, too, have a great deal of confusing developer language in them.

Anyway, thanks for your help.

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