We are proposing to amend our Declaration of Covenants, Conditions, and Restrictions (CC&Rs), Articles of Incorporation, and Bylaws. We want to amend these 3 documents because the current versions are about 40+- years old, and there have been many changes to HOA law since they were drafted. We want to be current with the state and federal laws, as well as ensure we have the clarification in our governing documents to match what we do, and who we are as a community.

• Federal Law
• State Law (Colorado Common Interest Ownership Act (CCIOA) & Non-Profit Act)
• HOA’s Declaration of Covenants, Conditions, & Restrictions (CC&Rs) – The legally binding document when you purchase your house in an HOA.
• Articles of Incorporation – Filed with the state and establishes you as a non-profit HOA.
• Bylaws – Outlines how the HOA will run (meetings, directors, officers, etc.)
• Rules, Regulations, Policies, and Guidelines adopted by the board.

The required votes depend on the task at hand and can be confusing for owners. I’ll try to break it down a bit:

If an HOA doesn’t reach the required numbers, the documents remain unchanged (not amended), or the HOA can pursue the court petition process, which was created to help HOAs overcome homeowner apathy. It’s a pain in the butt, and I’ve never had to do it…but it can be done. Basically if the great majority of owners who did vote voted in favor, but you just couldn’t get enough participation, you can still get them approved.

• Regular meeting/business votes (QUORUM): 20% of votes (41 members either present or represented at a meeting)—this allows the HOA to conduct business at the annual meeting. Without 41 member representation, the meeting can not be held. The quorum requirements are not changing in the proposed amendments. 

• Governing document amendments may be subject to both quorum requirements AND amendment requirements Although these could potentially be done at a meeting, no HOA does CC&R amendments at a meeting because it’s too hard to get the needed participation. Below are the mail-in ballot requirements, which is how we will be conducting this voting process:

• Current: Articles of Incorporation: 75% of all members (152 of the 202 members)

• Proposed: Articles of Incorporation: Quorum + Majority of the votes cast (101 needed votes + 51 affirmative votes).

• Current: CC&Rs: 75% of all members, but CCIOA dictates that 67% of ALL members is the max. (136 of the 202 members)

• Proposed: CC&Rs: 67% of all members (max. per CCIOA)

• Current: Bylaws: 20% of all members (41 of the 202 members)

• Proposed: Bylaws: If the amendment is to comply with changing laws or is not changing quorum requirements: Board quorum & Majority of board approval OR Any bylaw change: Quorum (20% of members present/represented + Majority of votes cast (# needed depends on if it’s an in-person meeting or a mail-in ballow)

The confusing aspect is that the quorum requirements refer to a meeting. A mail-in ballot can constitute/replace a meeting. The reason why HOAs conduct mail-in ballots is because of the CC&R requirement of 67% of ALL members. There’s no way to get that at a meeting, so HOAs do mail-in ballots. It increases the quorum requirements, but they must reach quorum numbers anyway, and it allows owners who aren’t in the area to participate more easily as well.

If an HOA doesn’t reach the required numbers, the documents remain unchanged (not amended), or the HOA can pursue the court petition process, which was created to help HOAs overcome homeowner apathy. It’s a pain in the butt, and I’ve never had to do it…but it can be done. Basically if the great majority of owners who did vote voted in favor, but you just couldn’t get enough participation, you can still get them approved.

• March 2025-April 2026: Board received bids from law firms, chose Altitude Community Law, and worked with them to draft the needed amendments, making multiple revisions.
• April 28 – June 13, 2026: Asked homeowners to provide input.
• June 13, 2026: Conducted meeting for homeowner input and questions.
• June 14 – July 31, 2026 – Additional time for homeowner input.
• August 1 – September 30, 2026 – 60 day voting period for all homeowners.

Currently the HOA is responsible for HOA common area trees and homeowners are responsible for trees on their property. Although it would be nice for the HOA to be able to maintain all trees, there are a few problems with this:

• With over 600 trees throughout the property, and the size and age of the trees, the HOA would have to increase the HOA assessments a massive amount to afford this service. Having HOA assessments that are very expensive deters potential buyers from purchasing in a community.
• The HOA doesn’t and can’t have insurance on trees that are not on its property. The trees are privately owned by the homeowners, and covered by the individual homeowner’s insurance. If the HOA was legally responsible for ensuring the maintenance of all trees, and a tree fell over causing damage, it could leave the hOA in a very tricky position with holding responsiblility, but not holding insurance to cover that responsibility.

The proposed amendment allows the HOA to treat any tree for noxious pests at the discretion of the board. This will allow the HOA to treat trees for pests if it is in the best interest of the community. For example, we recently treated the ash trees for ash borer because if you treat some trees and not others, the disease spreads quickly. The treatment wasn’t very expensive and this will help ensure the shade and beauty of the community.

Currently Annual Assessments (the monthly dues) can increase up to 7% as part of the annual budget, which is approved by the board. The currently proposed amendment increases that to 10%, however, at the review meeting owners requested that this remain at 7%, so the board has agreed to keep this at 7%. for the final proposed amendment. Any increase over 7% requires a majority vote of the members/owners present at a meeting. So if the board wanted to increase assessments by more than 7% at the annual/budget meeting, they would need a quorum present or represented (20% = 41 owners), followed by approval from the majority of those members present. Example: If 50 owners attend/proxy a meeting (quorum), a dues increase over 7% requires approval by a majority of those 50 owners (26 of the 50).

No, it does not. This section allows home based business, as required by HOAs, per CO law. This does not address short-term rentals. There are a lot of laws prohibiting HOAs from restricting home based businesses. The possible difficulties from a home based business can be addressed with other rules, such as items in front of residence, number of vehilces, etc.

It was pointed out at the review meeting that our rules state that trailers, campers, etc. can be in the front areas of the houses for a short period of time for loading, cleaning, and other reasons for a short amount of time, but the proposed amendment says no overnight parking. The board agreed that this needs to match our rules. These amendments came from our lawyers, so they don’t know our specific allowances. The amendment we send out will allow for a little flexibility with moving, remodeling, cleaning, etc.

This was another great point brought to the HOA for revision. In the amendments presented for vote, we are going to remove the requirement that the smoke is bothering 3 or more residence.

The main reason we are making this change is because Colorado HOA law prohibits having a percentage requirement over 67%. Our current CC&Rs state 75%, but even for this amendment, it will be 67% because when there is a discrepency between state law and our governing documents, state law overrides our governing documents. A secondary reason is that you want it to be difficult to change your CC&Rs (because these can and do change what is allowable for homeowners, so they need a strong say), but you also don’t want it to be impossible to achieve needed changes.

The Articles of Incorporation provide the general structure of the HOA/non-profit for the state, and should be pretty vague. You can provide more structure within your bylaws. Having 3-7 board members in your Articles is good because there are times it’s hard to get enough people to volunteer to serve on the board. This provides that flexibility.

There are a few reasons the HOA is proposing this change:

• Getting 75% of all homeowners to vote at all is almost impossible, let alone getting 75% to vote affirmatively for the change. You want homeowners to have a strong voice, but you also want the processes to be achieveable.
• Articles of Incorporation don’t establish restrictions, conditions, and potential damaging rules for homeowners. the Articles are to establish the HOA as a viable entity with the state. By requiring a majority of the votes at a meeting, you are ensuring that homeowners are getting a vote and voice, yet also making it an achievable process.

This is all CCIOA (CO HOA law) driven. The board creates and approves a budget each year, that includes the assessments for the following year. They then are required to send that budget to all homeowners, and hold a “budget meeting” for homeowners to attend. If a great majority of members apposed the budget at the meeting, they could veto the budget, but I’ve never seen this happen. Typically the board presents the budget, and it is ratified. Most of the time the “budget meetings” is combined with the “annual meeting” to save on mailing and other expenses.

The great majority of the time when a board members joins an HOA board, they are doing so to help the community. However, there are times when a member is unhappy or dislikes HOAs and works to join the board to cause damage to the HOA and cause discord. This new section basically states that if a board member is breaking rules and/or not paying their assessments, they are automatically disqualified from serving on the board. There are still many protections and processes that protect a board member (and any homeowners) from unjust violation or assessment violations. So this really protects the homeowner serving on the board, as well as the board from having a board member who doesn’t have the best interest of the community.

This is all governed by CCIOA (CO HOA law). HOAs must notify all members for all member meetings via regular mail mailings. Director meetings have separate notification requirements for all directors. In all my HOAs my board notifies and communicates director meetings, but we don’t want to make it any more stringent than what the bylaws currently state. I’ve talked about this with The Vineyard board quite a few times because The Vineyards had a weird blend of membership/director meetings, and none of the required notifications were being followed. There are times when directors need to address an emergency or legal situation. They need to be able to call a director meeting without announcing it to all owners. These governing documents must work for regular, every day situations, but also for the most difficult and/or unique situations.

This is all CCIOA driven. All members must be notified of Annual Membership Meetings via regular mail. This section isn’t addressing that. This section is addressing board meetings. Members must still be able to attend open Board meetings, even when conducted electronically, as required by Colorado law. If a member requests to be included in a meeting, whether it’s in person, a Zoom call, email, or over the phone, they must be allowed that privilege. The HOA let’s members know of when board meetings are scheduled, but per CO law, it is not required. This allows fexibility to allow boards to call an emergency meeting due to a legal issue, or something like that.

The diredtors of the HOA are voted in by the members, and the only way to remove them is by a vote of the members, at a meeting set for that purpose (very awkward and rare). These directors manage the HOA, and it’s sub-contractors. The officers are positions within the board of directors, and are voted in by the board. They are almost always also board members. Officers can be removed from their positions by a vote of the board. For example: An HOA has a secretary that rarely comes to the meetings and thus it’s difficult to have someone take the minutes. The board may vote to remove that secratary and vote in another person to take that position. They can NOT remove that person from the board though.

The draft provided by the law firm allowed the 3 options to amend the bylaws:

• Majority vote of the Board – At the review meeting, it was decided that we will remove the option for the board to make a change by a majority vote by the board, unless it’s to comply with law. We want our homeowners to have the ultimate say.
• Majority of votes cast by owners, with a quorum presen
• Majority vote of the Board to comply with changes in law