WI HOA Law rquires a years advance notice for fee increase?

A past board member has indicated WI HOA Law requires a year's advance notice prior to any annual fee increase. I have gone through what I assume are the proper documents for our state and cannot find anything limiting board's ability to raise fees. Our bylaws only state the the notice must be included in our January billing statements with payments due by 3/31/2012.

Can anyone verify this and/or point to the appropriate language in WI statutes that would support or disqualify this statement of notice?

Glen:

Could not agree more. I did send the person a request for a link. I am awaiting a reply but chose to try and be proactive on this one.

Since it doesn't appear from my search that WI has dedicated HOA laws then you would default to the non-profit statutes and from a keyword search of (assessments) these are the only sections I found:

181.0302  General powers. Unless its articles of incorporation provide otherwise, a corporation has perpetual duration and succession in its corporate name and has the same powers as an individual to do all things necessary or convenient to carry out its affairs, including the power to do all of the following:
(16) Dues. Impose dues, assessments, admission and transfer fees upon its members.

And

181.0613  Member's liability for dues, assessments and fees. A member may become liable to the corporation for dues, assessments or fees. An article of incorporation or bylaw provision or a resolution adopted by the board authorizing or imposing dues, assessments or fees does not, of itself, create liability.

Sorry couldn't find any time requirement for increases.

Dave,

Perhaps this past board member saw it on the internet. After all, according to a particular commercial that's been seen on TV recently, "they can't put anything on the internet that isn't true."

Seriously, though, I agree with Glen. Whenever someone tells me something is "against the law" that I've never heard before and that I think is questionable, I always ask how they happen to know that. Often, it turns out that their source is unreliable and that their belief is incorrect.

I have a neighbor who always forwards emails he's received claiming this or that bad thing is happening. Whenever I've checked these claims out through reliable sources, I find them to be untrue.