Process question - starting an amendment

in California:
Does the board need to vote in an open meeting to take action to contact an attorney to write an amendment?

At our past open board meeting we discussed under new business that we should consider doing this but we did not vote to approve funds or vote to do it. The Meeting Minutes if that meeting that was sent out to all owners afterwards mentions that the topic was discussed and mentions some board members thoughts about it and that one of the board members would contact attorneys about the prices to do so.

At this point can we contract to do this or do we need another open board meeting to vote to contract a lawyer?

I can see that I wasn't very clear and I even had words in one sentence that shouldn't have been there making it confusing. Let me try to clear up my concern.

I've read that boards can only take action in a board meeting. This is very difficult but we want to at least make some attempts to try to comply with the open meeting laws of the state, as I understand them. We want to add an amendment to our CC&Rs (not the By Laws, and not the Rules and Regulations) for a rental restriction clause. Our CC&Rs state that it takes 51% of the owners to approve an amendment. We want to contract an attorney to write the amendment to the CC&Rs.

We have informally polled enough of the membership to know that we now have at least 51% in favor of what we would probably put in the rental restriction amendment and this is prior to contracting an attorney. We also have announced in a recent open board meeting that we are considering amending or rewriting the CC&Rs although we were not specific and at the time were not officially asking for input.

I am asking on this forum if the board needs to hold another open meeting to vote to take the action to approve funds to contract an attorney to do the work? After that the attorney will produce the amendment and the ballot and we will then send it out to membership. And then at a followup meeting we will tally the votes per the laws (another thing I will need to learn) for tallying these type of votes.

I am asking whether this next open meeting to approve funds to start the process is necessary or can we at this point just contract the attorney considering that we did state that we were looking into doing this in the last meeting?

I hope that was a clearer explanation of my question.

Tiono,

I agree with Glen 100%. Make sure that whatever action was voted upon is put into the minutes of the next Open Board Meeting.

I also agree your Board did the proper thing and getting community assent prior to starting this process. WE wnet through a similar process, and while I am not on the Board, while the 30 day election was going on, checked to see where we stood and then went door to door to make sure the amendment passed. Last thing you want to do is spend the amount for the process and fail at the ballot box.

That would be the County Recorder aka the Registrar of Deeds; at least locally it must be in a specific format for the CR to accept it.

Which would you rather have another rented property or someone who walks away and abandons the property.

Do not forget the first mortgage holders; depending on your documents they may also have to approve the amendment but at the very least they will need to be notified. Our CC&R's state that even if the mortgage holders do not respond or agree; that the amendment is valid among the homeowners.

Directing the president to get the wording for an amendment from an attorney is not that big of a deal. That could have been handled by a motion outside of a meeting, and then ratified at the next meeting. But since the topic was on the table, the president could have requested the wording anyway, since you probably are on retainer or have an annual budget for attorney fees.

It's what you do with that Proposed wording that would require the open meeting.