Is there such a thing as "model covenants" or "model bylaws"

Hello all,

I am an HOA board member and our board is facing a problem. Like most HOAs, the organizing documents of our organization were written by the builder who originally built our community. That builder has long since moved on and we are are now running independently.

The problem is that the bylaws and covenants we are operating under are horribly written. They appear to have large sections that were cut and pasted from other communities the developer built, and there are parts of the documents that are literally impossible for the board to comply with. Some board members have been aware for years that these problems existed but the majority of the board always elected to ignore the issues as there was no actual impact in the day-to-day running of our community.

Several recent events have cast light on the fact that the board has not been strictly following the bylaws and covenants. The board is currently motivated to try to address at least the most pressing issues in the bylaws and covenants. Some board members are of the opinion that the easiest thing to do would be to amend the documents to address the issues we are aware of, while others are of the opinion that we would be better off with a complete rewrite in order to remove all the confusing, contradictory, and uncompliable language.

My question is whether there is any widely used "model" bylaws and covenants we could use as a starting point? Of course it would be possible to survey a bunch of different online HOAs to see how their documents read, but what I really am after is whether there is a generally accepted set of documents that represents "best practices" among HOAs?

Thanks!

HO

You already know what sections of your Documents cause issue. Use that as a starting point and draft changes to address those areas first. Then, since laws vary from State to State and every Association varies, I would suggest that you research as many available documents within your State first. Then pick and chose those sections that the Association feels is appropriate. If you have read the threads on this site you would have been able to identify the main issues within Associations.

When we rewrote our governing documents we started by forming a committee of homeowners to research the laws, look at documents of similar associations in our area and write a draft (showing the existing wording and the proposed rewrite).

This document was reviewed by the board, and after a few changes sent to the attorney for a review on the language. There were more changes based on their review and suggestions.

This review was than sent the membership (again showing the existing and the proposed) along with explanations of why that specific change was being suggested. The Board then held a meeting for feedback on the proposed changes. Additional changes were made based on this feedback.

A final draft was then sent to the entire membership for consideration. The document was then voted on as a whole rather than for each individual change (of course they could have also voted on each change individually). This whole process took a couple of years.

I wish you luck.

Tim