New Board Election Laws Increase Time, Cost, and Administrative Burdens

California recently enacted new requirements for HOA board of director elections that took effect at the beginning of the year. The far-reaching changes makes some dramatic changes to the way most associations have traditionally handled elections.

“Now that it has taken effect,” says Kelly Richardson, a principal with Richardson Ober DeNichilo PC, a California law firm known for community association expertise, “the HOA management world is in an uproar because everyone is scrambling to keep up with a law that’s hard to comply with the first three months of the year. It’s a mess.”

California is not the only state to take such measures in recent years, and managers should be prepared for similar changes for their associations.

Richardson has studied the new California law extensively and notes several areas as particularly significant. He says the greatest single problem for HOAs is that the law extends the election cycle by at least 60 more days.

“The best you could do now, and I submit that it’s impossible, is to have the election 90 days from the start of the cycle,” he says. “It’ll be closer to 100 or 110 days minimum.”

To learn more about the new election requirements in California, and how tighter requirements have played out in another state, read our new article, State Laws are Complicating Elections.

Best regards,
Matt Humphrey
President