No "official" vote--cost me a home sale contract

Hello- My family and I had our home for sale here in Florida in a gated community with its own small HOA. There is also a larger HOA that our little neighborhood branched off of years ago--some of our little HOA members are part of this larger HOA as well.We are not part of the larger HOA, just our small gated neighborhood HOA. Nor is our direct neighbors on both sides.
Our house went under contract at a great price pending approval of a fence needed for the buyer's dog. The height limit in the larger surrounding HOA area was 6 feet originally when the lot was purchased as our smaller HOA had not adopted the larger HOA architectural guidelines as of yet. a year before we began building our home our small HOA had their annual meeting. As far as the meeting minutes report there was I believe enough for a quorum. However, they proposed what I think they all would agree was a pretty major motion, which was to adopt the architectural guidelines of this larger surrounding HOA since we were about to build.The problem is THERE IS NO RECORD OF A VOTE. There is a motion, a second, and then nothing, They voted on other maters at the meeting but didn't record this one. If this was not officially adopted, we would fall under our small HOA only which didn't have its own set of guidelines at the time for fences. None. And since we aren't members of the larger HOA, we wouldn't automatically inherit their laws.

Our ARB/HOA denied the fence request of 6 feet in favor of a 4 foot fence since this is what they say was voted on at that meeting. When asked about the missing lines in the record to adopt the law of a 4 foot fence (all of which have not been recorded with the county and is also in a changeable word document!)they say it was messy note taking and it's left at that. They say anyone at that meeting would agree the vote happened even though there is NO record.

Our buyer had to walk away because of the fence denial. Its a huge loss for us since we had such a great price in hand and have no idea when we will get another similar offer. ALso we're hitting the slow season and another couple of neighbors have placed their house on the market now as well---never a good thing.

My question is: Should we speak with a lawyer about this? The reason we would is b/c our buyers that walked said they would consider revisiting the purchase in the next couple of months after they return from vacation IF the fence issue is resolved and they can put up the 6 foot fence the asked for.
Can an HOA be this laid back about recording and note taking? We are to have a vote coming up where we outsource management of our HOA, mainly b/c our issue caused such a stir....

Thanks for the reply, GenoS. I suppose I was thinking that the HOA would t make the new owners take the 6 foot fence down once we got it approved based in the non-vote since they have allowed another neighbor to keep his 6 foot concrete wall since his was "grandfathered in" prior to the vote. I guess Inwas hoping that we could argue that this would technically be grandfathered in as well since it would be technically "prevote" since the vote was not official.
It may be a losing battle also b/c one of our neighboring lot owners is an attorney (he owns an empty lot that is not built on yet ) and is not in favor of the 6 foot fence. *sigh*

Thanks for the info, CrystalB. Yes, this is so confusing because our little HOA joined the big HOA in that vote that isn't recorded. But, OUR home and the adjoining lot and home on each side of us are not considered part of the larger HOA at the time of inception. We would have to voluntarily join the larger HOA, pay dues, etc. for that one--which we do not. So the architectural guidelines were virtually nonexistent before this vote that wasn't recorded. The only guidelines were vague and loose for the small HOA, which is what we're are for sure a part of.

Did I mention that I'm HOA president this year for our small HOA? So I'm trying to fix this going forward so that things are clear in the future. Everyone seems in agreement that an outside management company should handle all of this from now on because so much personal time was taken by the individual members with this.

The potential buyers said they would be open to revisit this if it were to be resolved--that's why I thought if an attorney looked at the paperwork, and decided that the ARB were acting within the covenants after all because of the faulty vote, that maybe they wouldn't feel the stress of granting a variance and the potential problems that come with that. But if a vote can actually count if it isn't recorded, then it won't matter. The buyer won't get the fence and the case would be closed.