Are rules and docs vailid if not followed for a period of time

Jeff,
Well you certainly do have a casual association and Roberts Rules must be just something unheard of. But you have a Board, you have elections and probably many other required means of running the association. Kind of relaxed I would say. How long has it been running this way?

Do you enforce rules, covenants, architectural issues, meetings with minutes and other bylaws that are followed? It might be just a matter of getting back to more formal behaviors in following the bylaws that you already have.

in general, they are still valid, you just have a very hard row to how to enforce them.. failure to to business by your by-laws doesn't typically invalidate them. there is a doctrine of Laches that can be applied to some laws (ie, if you don't enforce for X time, you can't enforce), but even then, you can still "re-invigorate" your rules, and start enforcing them GOING FORWARD. You may have lost the rights to do anything about what has already occured, but.. you can renew the rules, and apply them from Point X forward.

In general, by-laws can be studied and enforced "anew" going forward without much trouble. Covenants will take more work, and cause more grief, but usually, they can be too.

IANAL, of course... YMMV. BNI.

It seems to me that with respect to your example the election is probably valid but agree with the prior comment that "it depends". If there were more candidates than open slots, there would be more of a question, but probably waiver by those in attendance at the meeting.

In general, failing to follow the rules for a while does not mean there is no way to overcome the past and get back on track. It may require a "new day" approach - publicly stating that "while we may have previosuly approved chain link fences in the past, henceforth this advises the members that we will no longer approve new chain link fence applications. Additionally, existing chain link fences cannot be replaced except with [whatever the new requirement is]." It may take 30 years in my example to get rid of chain link fences, but you can take stop the expansion of the problem and slowly get back on track.

Back to your example of elections, it gets really interesting when you analyze the next level - if their election is invalid, are action takens by a board consisting in whole or in part of those directors invalid? (including setting of dues, covenant enforcement actions...)

We have a somewhat similar situation in our HOA where the CCR's require annual meetings to be "on the same day of the same month" as the first annual meeting following developer turnover, which was, say, Jan 20 many years ago. I objected to a proposed annual meeting date in Feb. since I believe, after researching the question but finding no Maryland cases on the question, that a homeowner could successfully challenge any action taken by a board elected at a Feb meeting. In any event, why take the risk? (The board's explanation that there less chance of snow in Feb than in Jan 20 was unpersuasive to me but they finally relented some and agreed to hold the meeting in January but not on the designated date, but it is still an unresolved issue).

I would be interested in other examples.

FYI, if you are in Montgomery County, it has set up a Commission on Common Ownership Communities (CCOC) within the Office of Consumer Protection - see www.montgomerycountymd.gov/ccoc. Not sure if other counties have established similar agencies.

Everett
(current board member and retired attorney)

Yeowch.

That is going to be hard . . . and messy.

This is why I try to stress that boards really need to be consistent in enforcing the restrictions. It's not fair to those who have to "bat cleanup" when things get out of control like this.

And, once the board voluntarily decides this or that restriction isn't worth enforcing, it's always so easy to add to that list until you are not enforcing any.

My first advice would be to sort through what you have; you're not going to find the minutes.

Scratch that, my first advice is to get the address of the corporation changed at the secretary of state level and make sure that a board member is receiving the documents. We don't have an "office" either, which is why we ultimately decided to have our attorney act as our registered agent. The address of our common area is the "main office" address (there is a locked mail box at that location, even though it's simply a sidewalk that is the entrance to our retention basin).

Then I would clean up the records. Even if the only ones you have are for the units.

Finally, I would walk the neighborhood and make a list of the "violations."

I would then sit down with the board and go over a priority list.

Go for the "low hanging fruit" first. Meaning, tackle the easy ones, like garbage-can placement, lawn maintenance, etc.

After that, I just don't know! It's not going to make many people very fond of you guys, that's for sure!

Everet,

Contact your corporations department in your state to see who are registered as officers, etc for your association.

Are you condos or single family homes?

HOA for 25 years. 350 townhomes. About 1/3 are investment owners

I am currently a new board member and the board elect along with two other new board members. There are 4 old directors. We all want to make the changes. we created and standardized the rules. we went to the community via a meeting to get input before we adopt them. This was the chance for them to persuade us to make some changes before adopting them.

Well this meeting did nothing but bring out a lot of upset people. This was the end of April and the annual meeting is in June. They threatened to throw everyone off the board and reinstate the old people. The old group were the biggest complainers. The are intending to come out of retirement.