Re-type HOA By-laws

MattT3 (Georgia)
Posts: 12

Posted:

My first time belonging to an HOA so forgive me if this is a stupid question.

We have recently become an HOA after a builder completed our neighbor. This neighborhood has had 3 builders since 2001 (the original property owner, who he sold to when he went bankrupt, and the final builder who completed about 80% of the neighborhood to complete it)
In all that time their has never been an electronic copy of the By-Laws. All we have is a photocopy of them which is not only a terrible copy, but not even straight on the page.

I recently mentioned we should retype it into a Word doc and convert it to a .pdf so we would have something that's easy to read and searchable. The board looked at me like I had just suggested we rob a bank! They all then said "it would be against the law to recreate the document".
Please know, I wasn't purposing we re-write all new By-Laws, just that we type exactly what is written into a Word document and save it as a pdf so we could reference and use it in a modern way.

Did I accidentally purpose we commit a crime? lol
Are there any problems with doing this in Georgia?

GeorgeS21 (Florida)
Posts: 3,808

Posted:

Matt,

A quick glance at the others posts, even in the first page of this site - and certainly with a quick site search, would show that others are amending their bylaws all the time.

However, a "retyped" copy is not a legal document ...

Get someone with Adobe Acrobat to scan and convert the doc ... it won't be perfect, but will do about 90% of the work.

Are the ByLaws changeable by the Board? If so, now is the timer to fix errors and issues.

Once completed and approved by the Board and/or Membership, don't forget to record them.

MattT3 (Georgia)
Posts: 12

Posted:

Hi George, thanks for the reply!

I did a search and found what you're mentioning, lot of people amending their bylaws. However I'm not meaning amendment. I'm purely meaning creating an electronic version so we can be pretend to be in this century with how we review, read, search, reference, etc, our bylaws.

I'm not looking to create a legal document. Just an E-version of the bylaws.

I own Adobe Creative Suite, I can scan and convert documents. I think you missed the part about it being a poor copy as well as crooked. It just doesn't scan well enough to convert automatically.

Are the bylaws changeable? To be honest I'm not sure. These bylaws, in my opinion, appear to have been written by some good ole' country boys making much of it vague and open to interpretation. Eventually, the current board would like to clarify everything but that gets back to your original question, are the changeable.

I'm guessing it should be okay to type the bylaws up. In all honesty I am a person short on time and want a fast way to search the bylaws, determine if there is a violation or whatever, and then be able to cut and paste the section into a violation notification letter for the homeowner to quickly reference what bylaw they are in violation of.

Thanks again for the assistance!!

GlenM4 (Tennessee)
Posts: 141

Posted:

There is no issue in doing that for your own purpose, how ever when ever a copy of the bylaws / ccrs need to be given to someone you should use the original , it usually has the seal of your county or town.

MattT3 (Georgia)
Posts: 12

Posted:

Thanks Glen!

RichardP13 (California)
Posts: 3,868

Posted:

Quote:

Posted By MattT3 on 06/15/2018 10:22 AM
These bylaws, in my opinion, appear to have been written by some good ole' country boys making much of it vague and open to interpretation. nce what bylaw they are in violation of.

You mean it was written by an attorney.

GeorgeS21 (Florida)
Posts: 3,808

Posted:

OK - crooked can sometimes be fixed for Adobe scan by cutting the paper edges to align with text, then aligning the text with the scanner axis.

If you are just recreating to make it easy to pass around, I would say OK to that, but it should be marked on the header that it is a retyped version and should note the actual doc's recording information.

If your Board has an issue with this approach, they are ... well ...silly. 🙃

MattT3 (Georgia)
Posts: 12

Posted:

Great point about the header! I'll make sure to do that.

Thanks again George!

GenoS (Florida)
Posts: 4,276

Posted:

Quote:

Posted By MattT3 on 06/15/2018 8:48 AM
I recently mentioned we should retype it into a Word doc and convert it to a .pdf so we would have something that's easy to read and searchable. The board looked at me like I had just suggested we rob a bank! They all then said "it would be against the law to recreate the document".

I did just that a couple of years ago. CC&Rs, Articles of Incorporation and Bylaws. As long as you don't try to cut-and-paste any seals or notary stamps (that could be considered forgery), and you include a disclaimer that says the re-typed document is NOT the original, I don't see a problem with it. It makes it easier to access, search, copy, etc. The intent is not to deceive anyone. Oh, and make sure you include any typos exactly as they appear in the originals.

MattT3 (Georgia)
Posts: 12

Posted:

Exactly, this is not an attempt to deceive anyone. This is about attempting to work more efficiently. After all, they aren't paying us to do this! hehe

I'll be sure to keep it exactly as is, typos, miss-spelled words, etc. With the exception of adding the header as George and you mentioned.

Thanks again all! You've been really helpful!!

JeffT2 (Iowa)
Posts: 880

Posted:

You can create a document that contains both the scanned copy of the original and the recognized text. The text can be searched ad copied, but you can see the original. In theory you can edit the text. I haven't used it. Does your version of Adobe have any of these features?

BenA2 (Texas)
Posts: 1,273

Posted:

Quote:

Posted By MattT3 on 06/15/2018 10:22 AM
Hi George, thanks for the reply!

I did a search and found what you're mentioning, lot of people amending their bylaws. However I'm not meaning amendment. I'm purely meaning creating an electronic version so we can be pretend to be in this century with how we review, read, search, reference, etc, our bylaws.

I'm not looking to create a legal document. Just an E-version of the bylaws.

I own Adobe Creative Suite, I can scan and convert documents. I think you missed the part about it being a poor copy as well as crooked. It just doesn't scan well enough to convert automatically.

Are the bylaws changeable? To be honest I'm not sure. These bylaws, in my opinion, appear to have been written by some good ole' country boys making much of it vague and open to interpretation. Eventually, the current board would like to clarify everything but that gets back to your original question, are the changeable.

I'm guessing it should be okay to type the bylaws up. In all honesty I am a person short on time and want a fast way to search the bylaws, determine if there is a violation or whatever, and then be able to cut and paste the section into a violation notification letter for the homeowner to quickly reference what bylaw they are in violation of.

Thanks again for the assistance!!

I think your board is being silly. Lawyers and legal websites retype laws all the time. It has no effect on the actual law and there is nothing improper about it. If the board is concerned, you can always mark it as an "unofficial copy." If there is ever a question of discrepancy, you would obviously go to the official document.

JenniferG11 (Texas)
Posts: 667

Posted:

Quote:

Posted By MattT3 on 06/15/2018 8:48 AM
My first time belonging to an HOA so forgive me if this is a stupid question.

We have recently become an HOA after a builder completed our neighbor. This neighborhood has had 3 builders since 2001 (the original property owner, who he sold to when he went bankrupt, and the final builder who completed about 80% of the neighborhood to complete it)
In all that time their has never been an electronic copy of the By-Laws. All we have is a photocopy of them which is not only a terrible copy, but not even straight on the page.

I recently mentioned we should retype it into a Word doc and convert it to a .pdf so we would have something that's easy to read and searchable. The board looked at me like I had just suggested we rob a bank! They all then said "it would be against the law to recreate the document".
Please know, I wasn't purposing we re-write all new By-Laws, just that we type exactly what is written into a Word document and save it as a pdf so we could reference and use it in a modern way.

Did I accidentally purpose we commit a crime? lol
Are there any problems with doing this in Georgia?

It should be recorded at the county, accessible on their website. I go to mine all the time and pull a pdf of whatever I want, at no charge.

ArtL1 (Florida)
Posts: 140

Posted:

Quote:

Posted By JenniferG11 on 06/15/2018 5:24 PM

Posted By MattT3 on 06/15/2018 8:48 AM
My first time belonging to an HOA so forgive me if this is a stupid question.

We have recently become an HOA after a builder completed our neighbor. This neighborhood has had 3 builders since 2001 (the original property owner, who he sold to when he went bankrupt, and the final builder who completed about 80% of the neighborhood to complete it)
In all that time their has never been an electronic copy of the By-Laws. All we have is a photocopy of them which is not only a terrible copy, but not even straight on the page.

I recently mentioned we should retype it into a Word doc and convert it to a .pdf so we would have something that's easy to read and searchable. The board looked at me like I had just suggested we rob a bank! They all then said "it would be against the law to recreate the document".
Please know, I wasn't purposing we re-write all new By-Laws, just that we type exactly what is written into a Word document and save it as a pdf so we could reference and use it in a modern way.

Did I accidentally purpose we commit a crime? lol
Are there any problems with doing this in Georgia?

It should be recorded at the county, accessible on their website. I go to mine all the time and pull a pdf of whatever I want, at no charge.

I'm kind of in the same boat. We're a 13 year old HOA. Developer is long gone. What's filed with the county is "crap quality" crooked scanned pages in "PDF image" format, so you can't cut&paste from it, can't do text searching, etc. I managed to track down the lawyer who's poorly trained monkey cobbled together our documents, hoping he might still have the original electronic document, but he couldn't find it. He probably burned that computer in shame for the crap produced on it.

I did a little bit of looking around...and there are services that will transcribe such PDFs into Word. Ours, IIRC, would cost a little more than $200 to have done. I have no idea what quality they'll produce. I actually do want to propose some amendments [to be voted on], so I've started re-typing the relevant sections.

KerryL1 (California)
Posts: 14,550

Posted:

Good to hear from you again, Art!

Our ca. 2001 bylaws and CC&Rs are good enough quality, but if I want to cite just one Article & Section, I have to retype it or copy the whole page. Very annoying

JenniferG11 (Texas)
Posts: 667

Posted:

Quote:

Posted By ArtL1 on 06/15/2018 7:58 PM

Posted By JenniferG11 on 06/15/2018 5:24 PM

Posted By MattT3 on 06/15/2018 8:48 AM
My first time belonging to an HOA so forgive me if this is a stupid question.

We have recently become an HOA after a builder completed our neighbor. This neighborhood has had 3 builders since 2001 (the original property owner, who he sold to when he went bankrupt, and the final builder who completed about 80% of the neighborhood to complete it)
In all that time their has never been an electronic copy of the By-Laws. All we have is a photocopy of them which is not only a terrible copy, but not even straight on the page.

I recently mentioned we should retype it into a Word doc and convert it to a .pdf so we would have something that's easy to read and searchable. The board looked at me like I had just suggested we rob a bank! They all then said "it would be against the law to recreate the document".
Please know, I wasn't purposing we re-write all new By-Laws, just that we type exactly what is written into a Word document and save it as a pdf so we could reference and use it in a modern way.

Did I accidentally purpose we commit a crime? lol
Are there any problems with doing this in Georgia?

It should be recorded at the county, accessible on their website. I go to mine all the time and pull a pdf of whatever I want, at no charge.

I'm kind of in the same boat. We're a 13 year old HOA. Developer is long gone. What's filed with the county is "crap quality" crooked scanned pages in "PDF image" format, so you can't cut&paste from it, can't do text searching, etc. I managed to track down the lawyer who's poorly trained monkey cobbled together our documents, hoping he might still have the original electronic document, but he couldn't find it. He probably burned that computer in shame for the crap produced on it.

I did a little bit of looking around...and there are services that will transcribe such PDFs into Word. Ours, IIRC, would cost a little more than $200 to have done. I have no idea what quality they'll produce. I actually do want to propose some amendments [to be voted on], so I've started re-typing the relevant sections.

Not being able to cut and paste is a bane of my existence daily. In another thread, someone asked me for the exact wording of a section, and I just can't, lol. I am worn out with transcribing over and over.

I thought that is because I don't have the proper software, though. For some reason, the pdfs the attorney sent me, I CAN copy and paste. I have no idea why those are different.

GenoS (Florida)
Posts: 4,276

Posted:

Quote:

Posted By JenniferG11 on 06/16/2018 4:20 PM
I thought that is because I don't have the proper software, though. For some reason, the pdfs the attorney sent me, I CAN copy and paste. I have no idea why those are different.

If the PDF was created directly from a word processing file using Acrobat's "Distiller" virtual printer, then the text is preserved inside the PDF. Scanned images of pages with writing on them remain "just images" unless some sort of OCR is done on them. Acrobat has had this capability for a while. It uses OCR to generate "searchable text" and does a pretty good job. If some of the printing is dodgy or out of focus the OCR function will skip it. I've gotten good results with it. The OCR was able to recogize all text in all of our documents and amendments downloaded from the county's website.

Other PDF processing software besides Adobe's Acrobat is probably also able to do this.

JenniferG11 (Texas)
Posts: 667

Posted:

Quote:

Posted By GenoS on 06/17/2018 3:27 PM

Posted By JenniferG11 on 06/16/2018 4:20 PM
I thought that is because I don't have the proper software, though. For some reason, the pdfs the attorney sent me, I CAN copy and paste. I have no idea why those are different.

If the PDF was created directly from a word processing file using Acrobat's "Distiller" virtual printer, then the text is preserved inside the PDF. Scanned images of pages with writing on them remain "just images" unless some sort of OCR is done on them. Acrobat has had this capability for a while. It uses OCR to generate "searchable text" and does a pretty good job. If some of the printing is dodgy or out of focus the OCR function will skip it. I've gotten good results with it. The OCR was able to recogize all text in all of our documents and amendments downloaded from the county's website.

Other PDF processing software besides Adobe's Acrobat is probably also able to do this.

OK, thanks, so it's not my lack of software that I can remedy. The Property Management Company has this ability. Perhaps they might convert our docs for us so that we can cut and paste. It would give me and others many hours of our life back :-)

MattT3 (Georgia)
Posts: 12

Posted:

Quote:

Posted By JeffT2 on 06/15/2018 4:47 PM
You can create a document that contains both the scanned copy of the original and the recognized text. The text can be searched ad copied, but you can see the original. In theory you can edit the text. I haven't used it. Does your version of Adobe have any of these features?

I have Adobe Acrobat 2018 DC and it does have OCR in it. However, it skips so much and many words are wrong because of the quality of the document its starting with that I just don't want to trust it. I've used it in the past and it worked great!
I don't think I'll need a transcription service, I work in IT and I type pretty fast so I think I can knock out the 25-30 pages in short time. Also, since the rest of my board in not in favor of this, I'm not going to come out of pocket to get it transcribed.

MattT3 (Georgia)
Posts: 12

Posted:

Quote:

Posted By BenA2 on 06/15/2018 5:12 PM

Posted By MattT3 on 06/15/2018 10:22 AM
Hi George, thanks for the reply!

I did a search and found what you're mentioning, lot of people amending their bylaws. However I'm not meaning amendment. I'm purely meaning creating an electronic version so we can be pretend to be in this century with how we review, read, search, reference, etc, our bylaws.

I'm not looking to create a legal document. Just an E-version of the bylaws.

I own Adobe Creative Suite, I can scan and convert documents. I think you missed the part about it being a poor copy as well as crooked. It just doesn't scan well enough to convert automatically.

Are the bylaws changeable? To be honest I'm not sure. These bylaws, in my opinion, appear to have been written by some good ole' country boys making much of it vague and open to interpretation. Eventually, the current board would like to clarify everything but that gets back to your original question, are the changeable.

I'm guessing it should be okay to type the bylaws up. In all honesty I am a person short on time and want a fast way to search the bylaws, determine if there is a violation or whatever, and then be able to cut and paste the section into a violation notification letter for the homeowner to quickly reference what bylaw they are in violation of.

Thanks again for the assistance!!

I think your board is being silly. Lawyers and legal websites retype laws all the time. It has no effect on the actual law and there is nothing improper about it. If the board is concerned, you can always mark it as an "unofficial copy." If there is ever a question of discrepancy, you would obviously go to the official document.

I agree! They are being silly. After all, this is 2018 and they still want to work like the only thing that exists are typewriters. It just cracks me up that they think its okay for them to type out sections of the bylaws in a letter, but for me to type out the whole thing so I can cut and paste is wrong. Ha! They are totally lost on how hypocritical that is and how I only have to type it correctly once so their way is inherently open to more mistakes.

MattT3 (Georgia)
Posts: 12

Posted:

Quote:

Posted By JenniferG11 on 06/15/2018 5:24 PM

Posted By MattT3 on 06/15/2018 8:48 AM
My first time belonging to an HOA so forgive me if this is a stupid question.

We have recently become an HOA after a builder completed our neighbor. This neighborhood has had 3 builders since 2001 (the original property owner, who he sold to when he went bankrupt, and the final builder who completed about 80% of the neighborhood to complete it)
In all that time their has never been an electronic copy of the By-Laws. All we have is a photocopy of them which is not only a terrible copy, but not even straight on the page.

I recently mentioned we should retype it into a Word doc and convert it to a .pdf so we would have something that's easy to read and searchable. The board looked at me like I had just suggested we rob a bank! They all then said "it would be against the law to recreate the document".
Please know, I wasn't purposing we re-write all new By-Laws, just that we type exactly what is written into a Word document and save it as a pdf so we could reference and use it in a modern way.

Did I accidentally purpose we commit a crime? lol
Are there any problems with doing this in Georgia?

It should be recorded at the county, accessible on their website. I go to mine all the time and pull a pdf of whatever I want, at no charge.

Thanks Jennifer! I'll look into this.

TimB4 (Tennessee)
Posts: 21,059

Posted:

Matt,

What you are asking to do would be a restatement of the Bylaws.