While there is a Condominium Termination statute there is no corresponding statute for planned communities. The current Condominium statute is in a case before the Arizona Supreme Court to determine its constitutionality. We in this coalition filed an Amicus Brief to the Supreme Court in support of the unconstitutionality of the current law. This case will be heard on November 21st with a decision from the court expected in December or January. I fully expect to Court to find the current law unconstitutional. I’ve drafted proposed legislation that will fix this legislation and duplicate it for the planned communities. I’ve offered this to both the Speaker of the House and the President of the Senate but I suspect that they will not address this until the court ruling is finally issued. More to come soon.

Dennis

Debbie,
What you are experiencing is the dictatorial phase of all these communities known as the period of “declarant control “. During this period the declarant can grant themselves any right they want, they get to appoint the board that worked for the declarant and has absolutely no responsibility to the owners.

What I can tell you is that help is on the way. I’ve drafted legislation that will restrict the “period of declarant control for all communities to times periods established in state law. I have a sponsor for that legislation, and we held a meeting with all the stakeholders on Monday of this week to discuss this bill. The Builders association, Robson Communities, CAI, AACM and the Realtors were all there along with me. I believe that we are very close to a reasonable bill that will protect and establish the right of every homeowner to self-rule and the ability to participate in the governance of their communities. This will be a watershed bill and if passed will end your occupation 90 days after the effective date of that legislation. I’ll let everyone know when the bill is actually introduced for this coming session and will need everyone’s support from this coalition to help get this bill passed.
Until this bill is passed you and every other homeowner under declarant control have absolutely no say in your community.

Dennis

Tim,

What you have to be careful about in dealing with this issue is that most CC&R’s are written inb a way that increases the maximum assessment based on an initial valued established at the time of the creation of the document. That maximum increase is automatic and occurs every year. The is absolutely no relationship between the maximum and the actual assessment charged every year. So after 10 years the maximum assessment could be 3 times the actual assessment charged in year 9. The state law was written as a back stop to this fact. While some CC&R’s to establish annual increases in the actual assessment most do not. So, read your CC&R’s very carefully.

Obviously, the law is clear relative to open meeting notifications and 32 hours prior notification is not 48 hours and is a clear violation of the law. There are no authorized short cuts for 48 hours of prior notification.

Dennis

The law does not specifically address this issue but if any association has 3 board positions and only three candidates have legitimately come forward to be considered for those position no actual election need be held. So, election by acclamation is appropriate. Having said this if the board has restricted in any way the ability of any homeowner to be listed as a candidate for a board position that throws the entire issue out the window. The election must be held and either write-in allowed or the ballot must be modified to include those otherwise eligible candidates.

Dennis

Fish,

There is nothing in law that would allow any association from prohibiting the photographing of a public record of the association requested legally. I strongly recommend that practice to anyone that ask.

The web site has a google search feature on the bottom of the home page that will allow anyone to search all site post based on key words.

Dennis

Amy,

There are many management companies that have good accounting staff, but from all the companies that I directly interact with I cannot recommend any based on overall performance. The only thing that differentiates the performance of any management company is based totally on how the board manages that company and their agents. If the board oversight is clear and active any management company can do a good job, if not than every management company will simply try to do the least amount of work for the most amount of money.

Dennis

Ryan,

The answer to that depends on your governing documents. No HOA should have the authority to regulate in any way including parking on streets that do not belong to them. I’ve tried to get that changed in the law for some years now. A new law was passed last session that allowed the homeowners to decide by vote if they want the association regulating public streets. We will be introducing legislation this session that will once again attempt to get the law right and ban outright the ability of any association regulate in any way any streets that it does not own.

Dennis

Kyle,

You are correct satellite disc or reasonable size are protected by law and cannot be prohibited by any HOA or municipality.

Dennis

Kyle,

If your project was approved by either the board or the ARC then it is approved, and they cannot undo that approval. Obviously any documented proof of your projects approval will go a very long way to assuring that the association cannot change their mind.
Dennis

Got a response from the property manager. They advise the relevant statute in this case is Chapter 9 (condominiums), rather than the Chapter 16 (planned communities) of Tiltle 33. Looking at it further, I believe they are right…so I looked at all of Capter 9.

There is nothing in the language of Chapter 9 that regulates raising or lowering annual assessment fees. There is no annual maximum increase written up in any of the text. There is one mention of a 20% increase maximum from year-to-year on a one time fee that associations can charge new owners to administrate the change of ownership…but nothing anywhere about changes to the annual fee.

I conclude from this that, in the absence of statues on the subject of increasing annual assessment fees, the hoa governing documents should have the authority on the subject, if any limitations on the subject are posted therein.

Can I get an ‘Amen’ on this, from the room?