Decisions requiring membership approval

The board runs operations; owners decide structure

State law generally gives the board authority to run the association's day-to-day business without asking owners first. Under Colorado's common-interest-community act, for example, the board can adopt and amend budgets, collect assessments, hire and fire a manager, sue or defend a lawsuit, and set rules for using common areas, all without a membership vote.

The exact list of unilateral board powers varies by state and by your own governing documents. Check your declaration and bylaws for anything your association has chosen to reserve to a member vote beyond what state law already requires.

Two decisions that almost always need an owner vote

A smaller set of decisions changes the structure of the community itself, not just how it runs day to day, and those typically require a supermajority of owners, not a board resolution. Amending the declaration is the clearest example.

"The declaration... may be amended only by the affirmative vote or agreement of unit owners of units to which more than fifty percent of the votes in the association are allocated or any larger percentage, not to exceed sixty-seven percent, that the declaration specifies."

Source: Colo. Rev. Stat. § 38-33.3-217, Colorado General Assembly

The same act requires a similar owner supermajority, at least 67 percent, to convey or encumber a common element, such as selling a clubhouse or granting an easement across common land. Giving up a limited common element used by only one owner takes that owner's unanimous consent instead. A conveyance made without meeting these thresholds is void. These exact thresholds are Colorado's; other states set their own percentages in their own common-interest-community statute.

What your own documents decide, not state law

Two of the questions boards ask most often about member votes, when a special assessment needs owner approval, and what percentage it takes to amend the bylaws, are not answered by a uniform state statute in the research behind this Course.

Check your declaration and bylaws for the exact percentage that applies to your association; if you cannot find one, ask your association's attorney. Treat any specific number you hear on either question without a document citation as a guess, not a rule.

Even broad board authority stays under the membership

Some bylaws give the board what reads like total control between meetings, language such as full power and authority over the association's affairs. Where an association has adopted Robert's Rules of Order as its parliamentary authority, that broad grant still does not make a board decision final.

"may later be countermanded, that is, rescinded or amended, by the membership at a later membership meeting"

Source: Robert's Rules of Order Newly Revised, Official Interpretation 2006-13, Robert's Rules Association

This applies only if your association has actually adopted Robert's Rules or a similar authority as binding. If it has not, your bylaws and state law govern whether and how a membership vote can revisit a board decision.