Amendment recoverable or void?

In 2015 there was a special meeting for members to vote on three things:

* allow rentals of less than thirty days
* require all owners to be responsible in having home insurance
* increase the number of directors from 3 to 5.

Votes were received by over 67% of the community and all three amendments were passed.

The amendment was written up by a lawyer, signed by the secretary, notarized and stamped by the county.

The document was titled
"Second Amendment to Master Deed For {abc} Condominiums"

The document should have been titled
"Second Amendment to Bylaws and Third Amendment to Master Deed for {abc} Condominiums"

or be two different documents.

Six years later, there is a debate as to if the number of directors should go back to 3 because the title of the document was wrong.

Although, it was VERY clear in the special meeting of what members were voting on, despite the typo of the title of executing the document.

The relevant sections of the master deed and bylaws that were referenced are also correct.

Would the vote from 3 to 5 directors be null because of this typo or is it salvageable?

Condos | 145 units | Tennessee

You probably need to get a legal opinion, but I would think that the text of the amendment is what matters. On the other hand, legal stuff often doesn't make sense to the layperson, so I wouldn't bet money on it either way. :-)

If there is controversy about this amendment, it would probably be worth it to get the lawyer's opinion in any case even if things seemed pretty straightforward.

Janine, just who is "debating," and are these debates happening at Board meetings?

Janine wrote: "There has only been one special meeting in ten years..." Are you calling membership meetings, which usually are elections, special meetings?

I have no legal background but I'm thinking that the meeting notice and and the notary's tamped amendment, signifies that your HOA fully intended for there to be as the three amendments specified. It's possible intention outweighs the fact that the Board member limit amendment should have been in the Bylaws and not the CC&Rs (usually). But probably an HOA or contract attorney should be consulted,

Good advice.
Especially not necessarily needing an attorney in the HOA/COA field, but another field.

I also received the following advice from a lawyer (on a lawyer app, not someone I have hired)

"Ok so if this dispute cannot be resolved peacefully, then you will need to file an action in the court that has jurisdiction to adjudicate this controversy. Your argument that a simple "scriveners error" due to a mutual mistake will not void the voted on and agreed to amendment and thus a court should enter an order in the favor of allowing the scriveners error to be overlooked as it was based upon a mutual mistake. I would retain counsel to draft a demand letter to the other side demanding that if they persist in their unwarranted claims that he will file a court action and once the judge sides in favor of your side, that you will also be requesting attorneys fees. This will most likely settle the matter"

I am posting the response here as there is another open forum question from someone else regarding typos on documents.

I would not have known to google "scrivener's error" before.