HOA BOARD MAKES UNILATERAL DECISION TO CHANGE PAINT COLORS

I DO NOT read anything in my CCR&S or By-laws that addresses the BOD power to make a material change/alteration to the common area walls. Were the wall in need of painting....Yes. However, the color of some of the walls was changed that has adversely affected not only the appearance of the property, which I guess is subjective, but the color is so dark that the community name on the entry markers is now very difficult to read at night and there is discussion on how to remedy this. This "unintended consequence" of painting the markers is going to result is added expense. My concern is that there was no owner vote on a project that impacts the appearance and could affect the property values as a result. Is there any AZ statutes that apply? I have read some legal judgement in Florida that do not support the action of the BOARD. I thank you in advance for help on this.

Thanks Don....I was in attendance at the meeting along with about 5 other owners, one or two who did not seem to mind then color change and the reasoning given by the board was that the darker color might conceal blemishes that are sure to develop in the future. I did not speak against the color change as I had been involved in a very contentious discussion just prior and they would have had no patience to hear more from me. The color change was barely referenced in a community newsletter and had owners who were not tasked with the chore to repaint houses eight years ago, they would have no clue as to what was being done. In addition to the color change, the board said the HOA was NOT legally permitted to paint the rusted facings of mailboxes that are built into block stucco structures. A BOD said they were federal property and the cost to paint the stucco was going to have the added expense of papering out the metal. When I saw the prep for the structures, I immediately contacted the BOD and the PM and urged them to halt the papering and research what they were doing. they did not and so now they are getting bids to paint the rusted metal facings of the mailboxes. One cannot write these acts of negligence.

I have copied exact working from all minutes and other communications to owners regarding the project and at NO TIME is it written that there was specifically going to be a color change....they referenced the areas to be painted by names and color codes.

I do not know what the intent is to correct the inability for passerby to read the letters at night. Painting them a lighter color would not enhance the appearance of the markers.....illumination has been discussed and should be done. Maybe that will be the upside of the miscalculation and it is something that owners have been requesting for several years. I read in Florida that the BOD was made to redo their project if they could not get a majority of owners to approve what their board has done.

Thank you.

I know of nothing in either the statutes or the common law in Arizona that would require the board to even ask the members, much less allow a vote, before changing colors. Any requirement of that kind will need to be in your declaration or bylaws.

If this does effect your property values I would interested in seeing some proof.

I hope you are not one of those people that remain silent until there is something you disagree with and then start saying owners should get to vote on that.

We had one. It cost us several thousand dollars to straighten that person out even though the attorney said about the same thing that I told the owner.

You elect a board to make those decisions. Don't like it, run for the board. In our association everything is a board decision except changing documents and some financials.

AS I have been told, unless the ruling was in Arizona, it really doesn't matter. Florida has their laws, Arizona has theirs. So while that ruling may benefit owners in Florida, don't count on it to do much for owners in Arizona.

OK I take back what I said re Ivanovski v Golden Horn. It was an arbitration case involving a Florida Condo association and revolved around the definition of "material alteration". I suspect many people would disagree that paint color is a "material alteration".

Well regardless, the arbitration proved otherwise. Did it not say to have a vote of the members and if the owners want a change of the new color, the HOA would have to spend the money and change it back? Lots of chaos and expense just because the BOD did not include or consider a polling of the owner sentiment on the issue. My HOA has wasted thousands as in over $100K on bad projects where owners had no say. It never stops. And they just keep elected the same old people.....very sad.

I just tried and failed to find the text of of Ivanovski v Golden Horn. I did find the blog from which the OP quoted but there was no link to the source material; all I found on the blog was someone's interpretation of an arbitrator's opinion. I also found others who alleged that this was a Florida Supreme Court decision but this does not appear to be the case.

The blog nonetheless does contain one import phrase. The author wrote: "Failure to obtain a vote for a material alteration, when required, may result in the actual undoing of the change." The key phrase is "when required." If it is not required in the governing documents and not required by law then it is not required.

Larry, thanks for this information....I will do some more digging....not quite as good as you. Thanks so much.

Joanne

As Larry said, when required thus if silent then approval by owners is not required.

We get quite a few posts from people that never participated in nor understood the way their HOA operated until something happens that they do not like and they start demanding all vote. In many cases they are HOA's that have not had a quorum for years and voted on nothing until the one "incident" happened and someone is upset and demanding a vote.

We also have a few that want owners to vote on every single thing but that is another subject.

As a matter of fact, many of us initially got involved in our HOA as something happened we did not like. Many of we "always accused of being BOD supporters" were initially involved in replacing/overturning an existing BOD.

In a utopian world, a BOD would not make a lot of decisions without some owner input like posting paint samples and asking opinions. In the real world, requesting owner input on most things would be impractical.