Amendment to Declaration

We are a small HOA (12) homes and want to amend our Declaration. We submitted a voting document to all 12 homeowners and received a response from all 12 with more than 75% agreeing to the proposed changes. Now, we need to type up the amendment, get it notorized,filed then copies distributed to homeowners.
Is there a "format" to type an amendment? We are trying to handle this ourselves due to budget. Our state West Virginia doesn't address this on there website.

Sandy,

Did you check to make certain you didn't need more than 75% of the members to agree to the amendment? Also, did you follow the exact procedure to amend that should be outlined in the CCRs? If you answer "yes" to both of these questions, then you're good to go.

I would suggest typing the amendment with a heading: "Amendment to the Declaration (insert exact title) of the ____________________(insert name of your assn). Then just type the new articles as amended. At the end you may want to type a "certification". Following is one appearing on amended bylaws of my assn:

Certification. The undrsigned, being the duly elected secretary of ____________(insert name of assn) certifies that the foregoing amendment to the Declaration (insert exact title) of the association were duly adopted by (insert %) of the members of the association by ______________ (indicate whether by mail-in-ballot or meeting -- if a meeting indicate date).

Dated this _____day of ____, 2008. Signed by Secretary

If your state requires the Declaration to be recorded then you will have to also record the amendment. I don't know that it needs to be notorized.

We had a meeting which we discussed the proposed amendment items. Then we sent out an email with the voting ballet as well as sent out hard copies. I received 12 hard copy votes signed and dated by each homeowner with their "YES or NO" response by each item. We then sent out the Voting Results by email and by hard copy to each homeowner.

Now we need to type the amendment, get notorize, file at court house and send hard copy to all homeowners.

We had 8 items, 4 regarding boats, pop-up campers and RV's, 1 regarding above ground swimming pool, 1 to clarify what would NOT be considered business use (ex: yard sales, telecommuting, small home business), 1 to increase the size of outbuilding, and 1 to change the term of the 3 board members from 1 year to 2 years each.

This is a case in which it would best for you to hire a lawyer who is well versed in HOA to draft the admendment -which should have been done prior to you voting on it. In Oregon all admendments for Condos-have to be filed with the Real Estate for approval prior to filing with the county. If the admendment is not written correctly it could be denied-meaning back to square one. Even if your state does not require these steps, it is always best to make sure that you are following the language of the law-this protects the association and the board,and is important if any future owner takes issue with the said admendment. Too often association want to save money in areas that in the long run could come back to haunt them if not done correctly.

JB