BOARD NOT FOLLOWING STATE LAW

What is the exact wording in your bylaws that describes what the board must do when a request for a special meeting is made?

Tom,

The subject line of this thread is that the Board is not following State law.

What is the law the Board is not following?

I know everyone’s mad at the president, but the entire board should be held responsible for this, as he’s only one vote. It’s one thing to recall him, but you may want to check your documents to see where board officers come from –in most HOAs, the homeowners vote (or vote out) the board members and the board members then elect officers among themselves. That means someone from the current group will take charge (unless you plan to sack everyone).

A 38.5% assessment increase is hefty, but before you toss it altogether, you need to see what’s in it and why (you may have an underfunded reserve fund and/or deferred maintenance that’s caught up with you and needs to be addressed right now). That’s where a special meeting would be very helpful. If this board won’t cooperate, why not get a petition together of all the homeowners who feel as you do, and send a letter to the board AND association attorney stating that if the board doesn’t call a meeting, the homeowners will do it themselves – with the agenda featuring a discussion on a possible recall of one or several board members. Otherwise, the board is expected to attend and be prepared to explain to everyone the reason for the increase with supporting documentation.

If you go this route, you’ll need to have help in pulling this meeting together (date, time, finding a location, etc.) and if a recall becomes necessary, you’d better have people who are willing and able to step up and do the work (you perhaps?) Good luck!

Based on Community Association Act, specifically 57-8a-215, the Board does not require membership approval for a budget.

The membership has an opportunity to reject the board adopted budget at a meeting called for that purpose within 45 days of the budget being released to the membership.

Expecting that the Board informed the membership of the budget on December 1, 2015, you are already pass the 45 day deadline. Therefore, even if the board is recalled, the budget stands (at least that is my reading of the statute).

Or, are you within a condominium development?

If you are, per Condominium Ownership Act, specifically 57-8-7.5, there is the same 45 day deadline for rejecting the reserve fund (which you mentioned earlier). Again, it appears that this time frame has passed and the budget would stand.

Keep in mind that per the definitions of that statute,"Association of unit owners" means all of the unit owners: acting as a group in accordance with the declaration and bylaws; or
organized as a legal entity in accordance with the declaration.

Translation, the Association as ran by the Board of Directors (or you could simply substitute the Board of Directors for this term).

It does not mean the actual members. They are instead identified within that act as "unit owners"

Is there any limit on the amount or percentage in the increase of an annual assessment without membership approval?

It is in the 2013 session

Based on the link to SB-64, it appears it was enacted and is now part of the condominium statute I provided earlier.

Per that statute), how to fund the Reserves is a Board decision. This is also spelled out in the link to SB-64 the OP is relying on: "As I noted before, this law will give the decision back to the board of whether and how to fund a reserve."

The OP stated that they did get a petition for a special meeting to recall the President. That was a mistake. The petition should have been for a special meeting to reject the proposed budget. Now the 45 day deadline has passed.

The OP also believes that the budget is required to be discussed with the members and that the members have input prior to the budget being adopted. Even though that would be nice, it is not what the law requires. Hence the HOA attorney was correct in pointing out that budgetary authority rests with the Board. The membership may reject said budget but only if they request (using procedures outlined in their governing documents to call a special meeting of the membership) to hold a meeting for that specific purpose. Per Tom's posting, this was not done.

Tom, my suggestion is to use this as a learning experience. Gather support and vote the existing Board (as was pointed out earlier, the President is simply the voice of the Board but the decision was that of the whole Board) and replace them with individuals who will include the membership in such discussions (perhaps you).

I know that this isn't what you wanted to hear.
I hope it helps,

Tim

Sorry about the error on the Utah law. It should be 57-8-7.5.