Sunday, February 8, 2009

HOW TO AMMEND YOUR BYLAWS

Hi All,
Here is an interesting question from the CV Q & A:
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Author: Dorothy Schornick (---.proxy.aol.com)

Date: 02-07-09 18:38

Who and how does an association go about adding a new by law to the existing by laws This new by law was voted and passed upon at their anuual meeting.... Thank you for any input.

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Hopefully you have vetted this Amendment to your Bylaws as to legality.

You might consider running it by Randall Borchardt; as he has had much experience with such things. If he cannot help; and remember he cannot give legal advice, you might consider having an Attorney look at it.

After being certain that your Bylaw Amendment is indeed legal, and as you have stated that you have voted it in; all that remains is to file it with Clerk of Court of the 15th. Judicial District. You can do this yourself or have an Attorney do so for you.

Remember, your Amendment is NOT effective until you have filed it with the Court.

Dave Israel

5 comments:

elaineb said...

Previously Dave said ‘our model documents date back to 1999 and are fast phasing out of date.’ What exactly did Rod Tennyson do as regards the updating of our Documents? Did he roll amendment language into the whole? How can docs become out of date, I would have thought they remain as written, if there are no amendments they would still be up to date?

Anonymous said...

My assoc adopted several amendments from a Fogleman recommended list, we formatted them IAW UCO style and took them to the Court for filing ourselves. (That was when we trusted UCO)

UCO President said...

Hi Elaine,
Feb 8, 2009 9:18:00 AM,

Theoretically your hypothesis sounds good.

But Reductio-Ad-Absurdum; why wouldn't that apply to the 1991 documents or even earlier versions.

Simple; FS-718 morphs continuously and inexorably, and in due course, renders any set of Model Docs obsolete.

The case can be made that careful attention to the process of Amending our Bylaws can mitigate this issue to a degree.

That is but one reason that we need to rely on Legal Advice (Read an Attorney) to keep us on the "Straight and Narrow" from time to time.

Rod also would merge any variants that an Association had from the base Document into the Model Docs for that Association.

Rod or any equivalent competent Attorney, versed in Condo. law, is mandatory in effecting the process of Documents update.

Dave Israel

Anonymous said...

Elaine,
Go to www.pbcountyclerk.com/oris/records_home.html and enter 11019/728(Book/Page). This is the Master Amendment which details the additions/deletions/substantial rewording of the original Declaration of Condominium and Bylaws. This Master Amendment should be read in conjunction with the original documents... line by line, so you may follow the changes. This format is the "Amended as Follows". The "Amended to Read" document (which is the transformed document without the line-throughs and underlinings)can be found by inputting 11019/755.

You stated " I would have thought they remain as written, if there are no amendments they would still be up to date?"
They do remain as written. The body of this document was drafted in a general manner. Associations have different needs and many of the amendments such as rental restrictions, purchase restrictions, use and occupancy provisions, etc. must be voted on and recorded as attached exhibits (amendments). For example, in the "Use and Occupancy"
Article of the Declaration, social guests is not defined. Therefore, an amendment must be recorded which defines it as follows: "The owner of a unit shall occupy and use his apartment unit as a single family private dwelling, for himself and the adult members of his family, and his social guests, WHO MAY VISIT 30 DAYS PER YEAR, WHILE HE IS RESIDING, and for no other purpose." Make believe the capitalization is underlined and lower case, which indicates the addition (amendment)to this guest provision. Without such a recorded amendment, a guest could stay for months in a unit while the owner is away. This may not be a desireable situation. Some associations have an amendment which permits the adult children to stay in the unit during the owners absense. Some associations have rentals and others do not.

By the time I started working at UCO in 2003, well over a hundred associations had already adopted the 1999 Model Documents with the assistance of Bob Fogelman. For whatever reason, many associations did not record some very necessary amendments. To this day these associations are very unprotected and don't even know it. Since I am not licensed to practice law, and since Rod has bowed out of the amendment process, I have become reluctant to assist associations with their document amendments.

elaineb said...

Many thanks guys for your generous efforts in time and detail.