Can a Condominium Association Incorporate Without All Owners? If after purchasing a property in a Condominium Association, and it is discovered that the corporation was administratively "dissolved" years ago, can that association refile Articles of Incorporation and Bylaws without 100% approval of the owners? The association was dissolved administratively because they were not filing with the State of Washington.
As is often the case, the answer is "it depends." In this case, it depends on: 1) When the condo was organized. Washington law says that all condo associations organized after July 1, 1990, "shall be organized as a profit or nonprofit corporation." Since incorporation is a legal requirement for these condos, the Board must file for incorporation, regardless of whether members approve. NOTE: Washington law does not impose any penalty on condo associations that do not incorporate. https://app.leg.wa.gov/RCW/default.aspx?cite=64.34.300 2) What your By-laws say. As I recall, before July 1, 1990, Washington law did not require condo associations to incorporate. If I am right, the Association does not have to file for incorporation. Whether the Board has to get approval from the members before filing for incorporation depends on your Association's By-laws. The By-laws tell who has the power to make which decisions. 3) It may be worth it for you to talk to an attorney who specializes in condo law about your condo association. Washington law imposes many requirements on HOAs, and many HOAs ignore these requirements. An attorney can give you practical advice about bringing your condo into compliance with these requirements.
Since you did not provide the full text of your bylaws I will proceed by how I would imagine the language was written. I will give an alternative at the end of the answer. Your organization (HOA) created a set of bylaws. The bylaws indicated the method by which they can be amended. Later on the HOA added an amendment to these bylaws authorizing dues and instituting a specific procedure by which the dues could be increased. Now assuming this amendment was properly adopted (i.e. the original requirement was followed to amend the bylaws) it is now on equal footing to any other part of the bylaws. What this means is you now there is a process which can voluntarily be followed for increasing dues. You can either continue using the old process to amend bylaws and increase the dues that way or you can use this new process to increase dues through a majority vote of the members in good standing. Either way is valid to increase the dues. Thus the procedure as you described is a valid way to increase dues. However, if the language in your bylaws was poorly worded I might come to the opposite conclusion, which is possible. Suppose the amendment to the bylaws, which originally created dues, specified the dues as part of the bylaws (like exact dollar amount). Suppose that the language about increasing dues was poorly written and said exactly what you quoted: “Any increase in this amount must be approved by a majority vote of the Members in good standing of the Association”. Then there really needs to be an analysis of what procedure was indeed meant by the original adopters of the language or relevant case law in your state. It is unlikely, but possible, that this language could be interpreted to put another, separate, requirement on amendments to the bylaws that specifically increase the dues. I.e. dues increasing amendments must be both approved by the majority of the members and majority of the members in good standing. However, if at all competently written the bylaws should not require this method of approval unless it was intended to require this method.
Possibly If the texts are sufficiently precise that they constitute offer and acceptance then they would create a contract notwithstanding that “some documents” were never provided. First, your offer must have been sufficiently clear that it was open to acceptance by a simple “yes” or “ok”. Given that you had a lease, a simple offer to have another one would be enough as “on the same terms” is implied. Second, she must have accepted your offer unconditionally. “Yes, I’ll put together some documents to sign” is an unconditional acceptance even if the documents never appear. “Yes, I’ll put together some documents to sign first” or “Yes, I’ll put together some documents with the terms” aren’t. The first is a conditional acceptance and the condition wasn’t met. The second is a rejection with an intention to make a counter-offer that never eventuated. Third, real estate is heavily regulated. There may be specific requirements (such as a particular form of contract, or that it be witnessed) that mean there is no binding lease even though there would be a contract at common law.
No they can't. The lease says the premises need to be cleaned without going into details how. You cleaned them yourself before moving out. If the landlord was not happy with that, they should have raised their concerns and discussed options. The security deposit that the landlord holds is only supposed to be used when something goes wrong. When something goes wrong, the landlord is supposed to talk, not to silently chop off a slice of the deposit as they please (unless the lease allows it, which it does not here). If the landlord refuses to refund, read the manual and go to small claims court to tell them where to get off.
It depends on the location and the nature of the structure. In Seattle, for example, it requires a permit. Usually, any such structure does require a building permit, which means that the government has to approve the plans w.r.t. offset requirement, height requirements and so on. There may be a view ordinance, or not; you may have a view easement, or not. Whatever the case may be, you should not assume that the government agency in charge will vigorously work to protect your interests over the neighbor's interest. You own attorney is the one who will vigorously and professionally defend exclusively your interests (likewise, the neighbor's attorney). Your description doesn't explain how this would &quot;invite residents to congregate directly in front of my living room windows&quot;, which seems unlikely for a dwelling. If for instance this is really a bar and not a dwelling, then zoning issues about businesses arise.
Fully enclosed area means being inside something, likely a non-see-through fence. You will not convince anyone that a trash can is &quot;fully enclosed; it is a container, which is called out. Your chance of litigating this successfully is approximately zero unless your goal is to spend money and force the HOA to do the same. You can certainly ask what the expectation is or examples that meet the requirement. Your ability to fight your issue by citing other installations is limited unless they are forcing you to do something other homes are not required to do. &quot;I can see your can with a drone&quot; will not let you leave your trash can out.
The landlord may be confused about what is legal. Growing pot without a license (they do not have one: it cannot be grown at home, and certainly not if there is a minor present) is not legal, not even in Seattle (medical marijuana now requires a general marijuana license, and home-grown is not legal – some Dept. of Health pages don't reflect the new law). Under RCW 59.18.065, the landlord must provide a copy of the executed agreement to each tenant, and a replacement copy on request. Under RCW 59.18.150, the landlord may enter the unit in case of an emergency, and otherwise shall give the tenant at least two days' written notice of his or her intent to enter and shall enter only at reasonable times. The notice must state the exact time and date or dates of entry or specify a period of time during that date or dates in which the entry will occur, in which case the notice must specify the earliest and latest possible times of entry. The notice must also specify the telephone number to which the tenant may communicate any objection or request to reschedule the entry. The tenant shall not unreasonably withhold consent to the landlord to enter the dwelling unit at a specified time where the landlord has given at least one day's notice of intent to enter to exhibit the dwelling unit to prospective or actual purchasers or tenants A lease cannot be terminated without cause and a legal process (eviction hearing), rather, it runs out at a specific time (the end of July). The situation with dog-washing is unclear, since normally a landlord can't decide to use a person's apartment for a dog-washing operation (the common law right to quiet enjoyment). If there is such a clause in the lease then that would be allowed, but they can't now decide that they have this right (the terms of a lease can't be changed in the middle). They can restrict the cats from areas outside your unit. You may however have some (legal) misunderstanding about what exactly "your unit" is, specifically, is the dog wash part of a "common area" that isn't actually part of what you have an exclusive right to.
If an amendment restates the entire trust, I have been told by an attorney that you can throw away the original trust documents because they are no longer valid. Note: I am not an attorney. I do not have any formal training is law so my answer is not reliable.