Legal Help Needed

I live in a lake area which is covered by an association. The association was started in the 70s and had rules and covenants. The rules have changed over the years but never the covenants.
The problem lives in the dues which was covered by the covenant. The covenant says all landowners must pay a association fee for use of the lake, beach house and other common areas. Several years ago we discovered that several members owned multiple lots yet only paid one fee. Upon speaking to an attorney we were told that the covenant did not fully address any requirement to pay multiple fees for multiple lots. We can only guess that no one ever thought of it. The attorney further said that we had no way of forcing the owners of multiple lots to pay multiple fees. The attorney suggested we re-write the covenant to address our concerns and bring them up to date. This was never done but about 3 years ago the association added a new rule to our list of association rules which says that from that date forward all members who purchased additional lots would be required to pay yearly fees for each lot.
My question is it legal to simply take the subject/requirement of fees from the old and most likely useless and void covenant and transfer it to a rule?

Depends on what your bi-laws and covenants state regarding implementing new rules/laws/procedures. Many times they may require majority vote 50.1% or 2/3 of owners. Then it gets tricky as far as the vacant lots and whether THEIR vote counts VS counting home lots only votes. Can an owner of say three lots have three votes? Again, depends on your bi-law/covenant language (likely any owner of any lot has a vote or multiple votes --- only a guess BC I haven't seen the association documents).

Also have to look at your documents and whether or not there is legal repercussion of owners that fail to pay dues. What happens when they don't pay? Fines, liens, sales of their property to pay for dues.

It gets MIGHTY complex and I would venture thoughts that many of the "vacant lot" owners would not want to pay additional dues on merely a "lot" VS a lot w/a home.

You all have a LONG journey ahead and possible "battle" with owners.


(DISCLOSURE: I am not a real estate attorney nor attorney spokesman. However, I have worked for law firms, have multiple rental properties, and a real estate agent....so I have had similar instances where this all came into play. Enter at your own risk).

Well

95g atl said:

Depends on what your bi-laws and covenants state regarding implementing new rules/laws/procedures. Many times they may require majority vote 50.1% or 2/3 of owners. Then it gets tricky as far as the vacant lots and whether THEIR vote counts VS counting home lots only votes. Can an owner of say three lots have three votes? Again, depends on your bi-law/covenant language (likely any owner of any lot has a vote or multiple votes --- only a guess BC I haven't seen the association documents).

Also have to look at your documents and whether or not there is legal repercussion of owners that fail to pay dues. What happens when they don't pay? Fines, liens, sales of their property to pay for dues.

It gets MIGHTY complex and I would venture thoughts that many of the "vacant lot" owners would not want to pay additional dues on merely a "lot" VS a lot w/a home.

You all have a LONG journey ahead and possible "battle" with owners.


(DISCLOSURE: I am not a real estate attorney nor attorney spokesman. However, I have worked for law firms, have multiple rental properties, and a real estate agent....so I have had similar instances where this all came into play. Enter at your own risk).

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The covenants are old and outdated. A attorney once told us they needed to be re-written, updated and voted on. Voting according to him would require a majority (75%) of those who respond to the written vote. So if we have 150 members and only 100 respond we would need 75 agree to the rewrite. The old covenant was the only original document which spoke of the requirement to pay dues. But I guess it never occurred to anyone to cover the requirement for dues on multi lots by one member. The board decided to write a new rule a few years ago which said from that date forward that people who bought additional lots would be required to pay the same fee for each lot. People who already owned multiple lots were grandfathered in and only had to pay one fee. No definite rule concerning member votes so not sure if get additional votes. But basically you get no benefits but just pay more.