Dave
The law allows any member or any designated representative of that member to speak at any meeting of the board. If the board member is the title owner, he can designate his wife who is not on the deed to speak in his place as a member of the community at any meeting of the board. The board members get to vote on any issue, but they can allow any designated representative to speak for them at the meeting simply as a resident of the community.
Dennis

Helen
You have already done what you need to help people like you from the abuses that you experienced, you joined this coalition. I work to introduce legislation every year to address those problems, in fact every issue that you identified would have been corrected by legislation I had introduced this year. All of those bills died when they were never heard in committee based on the power of the HOA industry. To counter this power, I need everyone in this coalition to create an account on AZLEG.gov to be able to post position in favor or opposition to bills before the legislators. There is no greater power than the voice of the people in the districts each legislator represents. Without your active participation in our efforts the HOA industry will always win and nothing will ever change in your communities.
Dennis

Priscilla
I believe that I’ve answered your question via direct e-mail. The law is clear and starts the clock upon receipt of the petition. The board based on advice of their attorneys only to start that clock once they validate the signatures on the petition as valid and eligible voters. Nothing in law allows them to delay this timing, 30 days from receipt of the petition. To hold the association accountable to the law your would either need to sue them in Superior court of file a petition to ADRE and allow an Administrative law judge to force them to comply with the law. There was a bill introduced this session that would have allowed the homeowners themselves to call the meeting of the members if the association failed to comply with the law, but that bill was never heard in committee prior to the deadline and is dead for this session.
Dennis

Ron,
What this says is that the board can amend the bylaws but the members have the right to reject or further amend that provision in the bylaws by vote of the membership. The right to amend the bylaws is always specified in the bylaws themselves. Some say board only others say members only and then again some say either. Yours is a combination.
Dennis

Rhonda
The order of guidance for these communities is as follows :
State law
CC&R’s
Articles of Incorporation
Bylaws
Rules.
No provision in a lower document can contradict a provision in a higher document, if it does the higher document prevails.

When it comes to state law the standard is as follows
if the provision in state law starts with “notwithstanding” then the statute prevails
If the provision in state law uses “unless otherwise specified in the governing documents” the governing documents prevail.

Dennis

Darlene,
I’m not sure I understand your question.
Dennis

Mike,

This is a significant issue in many communities especially condominiums. Bylaw changes cannot in any way affect this issue. If your CC&R’s allow renting of units, to limit renting would require an amendment to the CC&R’s but more importantly such a change may require 100% of all units to approve that change. The required approval would depend on the exact language in the original CC&R’s and the proposed change where some my require only the super majority specified in the CC&R’s and other would require 100% under a recent Supreme Court ruling.
The is federal law that allows all FHA backed mortgages to be denied in greater than 50% of the condominium units are not “owner occupied”. That law defines what “owner Occupied” means. What that says is if 50% of the condo units are not owner occupied the remaining 50% cannot sell their units to a buyer that requires a mortgage, and can only sell their units to cash buyers. This is a significant impact to the property value of all units in the condominium.
National Common law for condominiums recognizes this issue and established the right of board to limit the use of non-owner-occupied units to below the threshold established by the lending institutions like Famie May, by rule alone to protect the value of the property. This is not statutory law anywhere but is common law as established in the Restatement of Law Property Servitudes. Long answer but basically the board can create a rule without owner input limiting the ability of any owner after a specific threshold less than the 50% mark to rent their units and not satisfy the owner occupant requirement of federal law.
Dennis

Rhonda;
The signed petition is a record of the association, while I doubt that they modified it in any way relative to validating the signature for eligibility, you have every right to see the document, especially since it was submitted by the homeowners.

Dennis

One additional question – Who runs the recall meeting; is it the Property Manager or Association Attorney?

Thank You!!

Yes, for sure we will contact you before any further action! I wanted to be clear on the 10-day issue, and as you said, we need to be sure we have all of our ducks in a row, which I believe we do. We exceeded the requirement by ~50 signatures and did ask the “are you the owner” question prior to receiving the signature. We checked the records of the Assessor’s office in cases where we were not personally sure of ownership status. We believe we only left vetting based on “good standing” to the Management Company and Board.