Previous CC&Rs Revisions (1998)

I'll do my best not to confuse nor convolute folks ...in 1998, our Board circulated a ballot measure to revise our CC&Rs in a few areas ....there are 95 total voting lots (less owners of course as a handful of owners own multiple lots) ....we are a 2/3rds majority rule for community approval of any ballot measure, revision, etc ....2/3rds of 95 = 63 or more yes votes required for approval .....recently, our attorney pulled the 1998 CC&Rs revision, our most current / latest iteration, from the county auditor's office and found, formally filed with the 1998 CC&Rs revision, signatures of only 38 lot owning Yes voters, not 63 or more .....upon counting all page numbers and inquiring with the auditor's office staff, those 38 signatures were all that were filed with the CC&Rs revision in 1998.....our attorney advised the Board, and myself as Architectural Committee for our HOA, based on this, the 1998 CC&Rs revision was not / is not valid nor legally binding for our HOA, thus reverting back to the last formally / legally filed rev of the CC&Rs from 1985 (to note: our HOA was incorporated in 1969) ......now things get tricky, as post our annual meeting that just happened a few weeks ago, our new Secretary located the actual physical ballots from the 1998 CC&Rs revision .....and those ballot Yes votes + signatures of the lot owners tally 49, again, not 63 or more .....so therein lies our questions to you astute folks, same as we posed to our attorney this week who has not got back to us yet, but we are wanting a consensus of opinion on this:

if the physical ballots & signatures from the 1998 CC&Rs revision, in the Board's possession, total 49 Yes voters and the formally filed signatures with the 1998 CC&Rs revision in the county auditor's office total 38 Yes voters (to note: none overlapping or double / mis counted), neither totaling 63 or more stand-alone, can the located 49 physical ballot yes votes & signatures be "added to" the 38 signatures formally filed with the CC&Rs rev in 1998 to equal 87, well over the 63 required? or did the Board in 1998 screw up and fail to file 63 or more yes voting signatures with the CC&Rs revision in our county auditors office?

I'll be digging into our WA State HOA laws and call-outs on this, as well as awaiting word from our attorney, but getting insight & feedback from this forum will help for sure, thanks in advance -

Marco,

You specified that at the time, some owners owned multiple lots.
Do those multiple lot owners make up the difference (as their signature would represent 2 or more lots each)?

In other words, of the 49 yea votes do they represent 63 or more lots?

If you can't prove the changes were properly done, then I agree with the attorney that the amended covenants are unenforceable and it's time for a new vote on the issue.

to directly answer your question Tim: "In other words, of the 49 yea votes, do they represent 63 or more lots?" ....NO, those 49 yea votes represent 49 lots, not more, and not 63 or more

The CC&Rs of some communities require 2/3 of all owners, and some require only 2/3 of those present (in person or by proxy) at a meeting with a quorum, which can be far fewer needed for approval.

Can you quote the amendment requirement from your CC&Rs?

What do the minutes for the 1998 meeting state?

it's like the Board secured 49 lots to vote yes by ballot, then the remaining lots that they did not get ballots back from were talked into signing off as Yes votes when they filed the amendment, but no ballots totaled 63 or more ....?????? and no 63 or more signatures filed with the amendment at the county .......????