Quote:
Posted By MichaelT21 on 11/09/2022 2:13 PM
Posted By KerryL1 on 11/09/2022 2:03 PM
Cathy wrote: * "As far as "cleaning up" the CC&Rs go, you're not saving the association's lawyer any time by doing this - in fact you're probably making more work. It's much easier if a board can provide a wish list of items that they believe are no longer needed and changes that the community supports and would like to have. If you provide a doctored version, the lawyer has to discard it entirely and ask for the list of proposed changes." This is sound advice for anyone in any association.
Not only would your attorney discard your "revisions," you'd spend $$ on the time it takes their team to to read through your suggestions. This is exactly the advice anyone will receive if they read the online resources about amending or restating their CC&Rs. Take the "wish list" approach. At the top of the list you'd write, "delete developer language," or similar. Another is delete or revise any sections that conflict with current statutes.
Nobody in my community will go to the efforts required in the CC&Rs to revise them. It requires an affirmative vote of 2/3 of all homeowners. By affirmative I mean that we would have to have 2/3 of all homeowners sign a piece of paper stating they are in favor of the revised change to the CC&Rs. That is a huge barrier to cross and thus will not happen. Ring doorbells have made it that much harder to collect signatures. We never, ever will get enough signatures to revise the CC&Rs in my opinion.
We conducted our amendment campaigns and voting entirely by snail mail. Our lawyer provided the text of the amendments, a "plain English" version so that people understood what the amendments were saying, and the ballots to be returned to our PM's office. The PM kept track of which units returned their ballots, and we did a second mailing to those who hadn't voted. There was some additional admin work, such as dealing with a few units that were sold while this was going on (the voting period remained open until everyone had voted).
There was no door-to-door anything, no issues with scheduling meetings, etc. In fact, the board had to keep their hands off the returned ballots, same as with any other voting that goes on. The process went well - and we need a super-majority of 75% to approve an amendment, so our barrier is pretty high.
So Ring door bells aren't the problem. In fact, if they do have a negative impact, maybe it's a sign that your procedure needs revision...?
My only regret is that I didn't campaign openly for the revised rental restriction. Obviously the board supported it, and I didn't want to appear to be trying to influence the vote. On the other hand, I think most owners don't fully understand the impacts on the community as the number of landlords go up or the fact that investor groups were targeting condo communities in my area. This is important information that can affect people's decisions, and most of them aren't aware of it. I think special newsletter editions and flyers spelling this all out would have been appropriate.