Attorney Fees

We had to pay a filing fee in our county of about $700. That is just the filing fee. Call the court house to find out that cost. Just so you will be able to add that into the factoring of cost. Overall it cost us about $2,500 for all of it. Our lawyer was much more involved than just reviewing it. Keep in mind that we had to have the membership vote of 90% of the owners to change the CC&R's and 75% to change the By-laws. The by-laws filing is a "courtesy" to be filed along with the CC&R's and not always required to be recorded with the county. Those can stay within the HOA.

My question is how exactly did you change your documents? Did you have proxies or petition signed by the owners agreeing to the changes? It is one thing to write up and modify the documents, but then you have to present that to the membership to review and sign agreement to. We also had a requirement to do it in a "special meeting". However, we could never get anyone to attend a special meeting to gather the required majority votes. Our lawyer had to draft up an additional petition to have signed by having the member give up their rights to attend a special meeting to sign the documents outside of that requirement. This freed us up to gather signatures door to door or at our monthly meeting.

As far as costs goes with lawyers... Pick the right one. A real estate lawyer is not always the way to go in a HOA. Your better off with a business/corporate law type of lawyer. The specialist in HOA law can cost you more. A general lawyer should suffice in the reading, verifying, and filing of the documents. After their changes though, they may have to be put up to vote again so the membership is aware of the changes and vote on it.

It is also best to have one source going to the attorney than each member of the board. Have the board make a decision of what to discuss and then send the representative you choose (Preference President). It will save you money this way. Lawyer do charge for emails, phone calls, and other communications. Which can be about $25 or more per communication. So be careful in leaving a call back number and name. Each office has a different policy on that.

Each lawyer is different in charging. A retainer may not be needed in your case. A legal service may suffice. Just talk to different lawyers and ask the charge and their policies in your area. It should be more than a few thousand dollars in the end depending on what finally happens with redlines and filing fees.

Michael,

Hourly rates vary by location, size of the firm, who is doing the work (the attorney who is a partner, an attorney who is an associate, a paralegal, etc.), and the experience of the firm (as it relates to how much research they have to do).

Living in the DC metro area, When we had rewritten all of our governing documents in 1993, the costs were between 2 and 4 thousand for the legal work.

When we last used legal services in 2011, the costs were $225/hr and $325/hr for the attorneys involved (I'm not sure of their positions in the firm).

You should probably plan on 300-400/hr for the work.