Tag: AB 806

Are you Giving Proper Notice When Using Reserves to Pay for Litigation?

NoticeHappy New Year! As we enter 2014, there have been some significant changes in community association laws in California (Click Here for our 2013 Legislative Update). Not the least of which is the restating of the Davis-Stirling Act. While we have already addressed the most significant changes in the new Davis-Stirling Act (Click Here for our Guide to the New Davis-Stirling Act), now that the revision has taken effect, and we are dealing with the new law on a day-to-day basis, new issues are being discovered which were not anticipated. As these issues pop-up, we will be writing on them to bring them to light, and provide some guidance on how to address these new issues.

Of course we couldn’t get far into the new year without the first of these “unforeseen” issues already coming to our attention. This one courtesy of Cathy Acquazzino of Progressive Community Management. Cathy noticed that under the “old version of the Davis-Stirling Act, when an association used funds from reserves to pay for litigation, the association was required to give notice of that decision to its members in the “next available mailing.” (Old Civil Code section 1365.5(d)). This language set the time period within which the board had to notify its members of the use of reserve funds to pay for litigation.

Under the new Davis-Stirling Act, 1365.5(d) is restated in Civil Code section 5520. One of the changes from the old language in this section is the elimination of the phrase that notice of the board’s decision to use reserve funds to pay for litigation must be given in the “next available mailing.” Instead, section 5520 simply states that the association “shall provide general notice pursuant to Section 4045 of that decision, and of the availability of an accounting of those expenses.”

Continue reading “Are you Giving Proper Notice When Using Reserves to Pay for Litigation?”

New Davis-Stirling Act Signed into Law

AB 805 takes effect on January 1, 2014, and comprehensively reorganizes and recodifies the Davis-Stirling Common Interest Development Act. The bill also revises and recasts provisions regarding notices and their delivery, standardizes terminology, establish guidelines on the relative authority of governing documents, and establish a single procedure for amendment of a common interest declaration. The bill also establishes an express list of conflicts of interest that may disqualify members of a board of directors of an association that manages a common interest development from voting on certain matters.

Governor Brown recently signed AB 805 and AB 806 into law.

AB 805 takes effect on January 1, 2014, and comprehensively reorganizes and recodifies the Davis-Stirling Common Interest Development Act. The bill also revises and recasts provisions regarding notices and their delivery, standardizes terminology, establish guidelines on the relative authority of governing documents, and establish a single procedure for amendment of a common interest declaration. The bill also establishes an express list of conflicts of interest that may disqualify members of a board of directors of an association that manages a common interest development from voting on certain matters. The bill also, among other things, revises provisions related to elections and voting, establish standards for the retention of records, and broadens the requirement that liens recorded by the association in error be released.

AB 806 deletes all of the existing cross-references to the Davis- Stirling Act in other code sections and replaces them with the new code sections created by AB 805.

Stay tuned for more details on what specific new changes the new law brings for community associations. While we are sure the signing of the new bill will raise some questions, there are no earth shattering changes, and managers and boards can rest assured that the changes are manageable. We will be preparing a guide to the new Davis-Stirling Act to help managers and boards understand the new law. Make sure to stay tuned to HOABrief.com, or sign up for our email newsletters to stay current on laws impacting California community associations.