By-law on the requirements to accept the association budget.

[John Cummings]

Not sure of this question is appropriate for this forum or not, it is regarding Condo RSA and thoughts on a by-law in our association to make it more restrictive. If this isn’t appropriate and someone has a link to another forum I would greatly appreciate it.

This is regarding a very controversial NH Condo RSA regarding the votes required to pass an association budget.  I will post the full RSA below and summarize in my question.   The RSA is written in the negative and states that it requires 2/3 of the association owners to vote “NO” to reject a budget.  2/3s of our association would require 304 NO votes to reject the budget.   We rarely have greater than 250 owners that vote in our annual election so rejecting the budget is impossible and in theory the budget could pass without a single YES vote.

From my understanding, any association can enhance a Condo RSA with an association specific by-law providing the by-law makes the RSA “more” restrictive.   I would like to pass a by-law to make this more restrictive, but some are telling me my proposal is making the RSA less restrictive, but I disagree.  My proposal is simple and would be stated in the positive(yes votes) and not the negative(no votes) as the NH RSA is written.  It would be something along the lines of this.   “The passing of the budget requires >50% YES votes of the total votes cast”

Where I am butting heads with folks is in the rewriting the by-law in the positive, in terms of yes votes. They are telling me that my proposal is “less” restrictive than the NH RSA, but it certainly isn’t.  My proposal would make it harder to pass a budget and in my mind more restrictive. Currently it is very easy to pass a budget, but my proposal would make it harder and in my mind more restrictive.

Am I wrong?

 

Here is the NH RSA:

Chapter 356-B - CONDOMINIUM ACT

Section 356-B:40-c - Adoption of Budgets and Special Assessments.

Universal Citation: NH Rev Stat § 356-B:40-c (2016)

356-B:40-c Adoption of Budgets and Special Assessments. –

I. The board of directors, at least annually, shall adopt a proposed budget for the unit owners' association for consideration by the unit owners. Not later than 30 days after adoption of a proposed budget, the board of directors shall provide to all the unit owners a summary of the budget, including any reserves, and a statement of the basis on which any reserves are calculated and funded. Simultaneously, the board shall set a date not less than 10 days or more than 60 days after providing the summary for a meeting of the unit owners to consider ratification of the budget. Unless at that meeting 2/3 of all unit owners or any larger number specified in the declaration reject the budget, the budget is ratified, whether or not a quorum is present. If a proposed budget is rejected, the budget last ratified by the unit owners continues until the unit owners ratify a subsequent budget.

 

Thanks

John Cummings

[Atul Kapur]

1 hour ago, John Cummings said:

From my understanding, any association can enhance a Condo RSA with an association specific by-law providing the by-law makes the RSA “more” restrictive.

You should confirm this understanding before proceeding, with a lawyer familiar with NH Condo law.

I don't read, in the excerpted portion of the act, anything that says this provision can be changed in the way you propose (note that I am not a lawyer). The only flexibility I see there is that the declaration can make the number required to reject the budget higher than 2/3 of all unit owners (remember, I'm still not a lawyer). I don't see that the law gives you the freedom to change from a membership "veto" (which requires at least 2/3 of all unit owners to reject) to requiring an affirmative vote of unit owners to accept the budget.

[Richard Brown]

2 hours ago, John Cummings said:

Not sure of this question is appropriate for this forum or not, it is regarding Condo RSA

May I suggest that if you want our help, use terms that we are likely to recognize?  I'm a professional parliamentarian and a retired attorney and I have no idea what a Condo RSA is.  Not even after a very brief Google search.  It's not even mentioned in the statute you quoted from.  Are you by chance referring to some state's statutes, frequently called "Revised Statutes, Annotated" and abbreviated "RSA", as in "Louisiana Revised Statutes" or "Revised Statutes, Annotated?

[John Cummings]

15 minutes ago, Richard Brown said:

May I suggest that if you want our help, use terms that we are likely to recognize?  I'm a professional parliamentarian and a retired attorney and I have no idea what a Condo RSA is.  Not even after a very brief Google search.  It's not even mentioned in the statute you quoted from.  Are you by chance referring to some state's statutes, frequently called "Revised Statutes, Annotated" and abbreviated "RSA", as in "Louisiana Revised Statutes" or "Revised Statutes, Annotated?

Sorry, I mean the NH Condominium Act.   Not sure where the term RSA comes from, but it is mentioned in the condo act. I will keep looking.  Guess it could just be considered a label or identifier on each condo rule.  

 

[Guest Puzzling]

I think the original poster refers to the

New Hampshire Unit Ownership of Real Property Act.

See 

https://www.hopb.co/new-hampshire

(From the home owners protection bureau website)

http://www.gencourt.state.nh.us/rsa/html/XXXI/356-B/356-B-40-c.htm

The article

This is very legal, you need a lawyers advice, 

[John Cummings]

1 hour ago, Guest Puzzling said:

I think the original poster refers to the

New Hampshire Unit Ownership of Real Property Act.

See 

https://www.hopb.co/new-hampshire

(From the home owners protection bureau website)

http://www.gencourt.state.nh.us/rsa/html/XXXI/356-B/356-B-40-c.htm

The article

This is very legal, you need a lawyers advice, 

Yes, exactly and our association needs a lawyers advice.   I'm hearing that we can't override this with a more strict association by-law which really has us owners over a barrel. Oh well.

 

Thanks

John