Modification of covenants

I am a board member of a relatively new home owners association. We have covenants that passed on to us from the developer after the covenants were recorded with the courthouse. As with most developments, when most of the property is sold the developer will hand off responsibility for the covenant enforcement and dues collection, meetings, etc. to an association formed by the new community.

So we have elected officers and we are having meetings and collecting dues to make improvements and so forth.

During our meetings our members wanted to take the existing covenants and try to update them, expunging the name of the developer and inserting the name of our property owners association where they could. The changes would get rid of alot of the language that was initally used to start the association. This language, the members feel is no longer relavant.

I have a different view. I would like to preserve the original court recorded document and suppliment it or amend it with additional language. I feel that attempting to scrap or significantly change the original document may start to disturb the historical chain of responsibility for the development. I feel this is a bad move from a historical as well as a legal perspective.

Can anyone shed some advice on how to take an original document and move forward with it to keep its integrity, as well as add new and current provisions?

Stephen:

Why do they want to dramatically alter the document? If you are going to go to that extreme you really need the help of an HOA attorney to make sure your wording is appropriate and legal.