CC&Rs, Bylaws, and Rules

Every argument with a board is an argument about a document. If you cannot name the document, you are arguing about a rumor.

The stack

The declaration, often called the CC&Rs, is the recorded covenant. It creates the association’s power to assess, to maintain common areas, and to enforce use restrictions. It runs with the land. Buyers take title subject to it whether or not the listing agent explained it.

The plat or map shows lots, units, and common area. Fences and “that strip is mine” fights often die here.

Articles of incorporation create the corporation. They are short and usually boring until someone argues about corporate powers.

Bylaws cover the corporation’s internal life: the board’s size, meetings, quorums, elections, and officers. A fight about a recall or a ballot is a bylaws fight as much as a statute fight.

Rules and regulations, resolutions, and architectural guidelines are what the board adopts later. They fill in details. They do not get to contradict the declaration.

State statute can override all of the above on specific subjects. A covenant that violates a solar statute or a fine cap does not win just because it was recorded first.

When they disagree

Use this order unless a lawyer tells you your state is different: law, then declaration, then articles and bylaws, then board rules. A rental cap that appears only in a newsletter is not a rental cap. A rental cap in a recorded amendment, adopted with the vote the declaration requires, probably is.

Amendments are their own trap. Ask for the recorded amendment and the vote certificate, not a retyped “consolidated” version the manager emailed. Consolidated copies are useful. The recorded document is the one that counts.

Get a complete set once

You want the declaration and every recorded amendment, the bylaws, the articles, the current rules, the fine schedule, the collection policy, and the architectural guidelines. Some states make the association provide this on request within a set number of days. Even where the statute is thin, the declaration usually requires the association to make the governing documents available.

Keep a PDF folder. The night you receive a violation notice is a bad time to discover you have never read the article they cited.