The WUCIOA[1] is applicable in its entirety to post-2018 communities, but it includes a few important provisions that are universally applicable to all HOAs and COAs – whether old or new. Thus, those particular provisions will apply to YOUR community.
Perhaps the most significant and impactful of these universally applicable WUCIOIA provisions are:
- RCW 64.90.525, which specifies the requirements for the adoption of annual budgets (comprised of both expenditures and assessments) and
- RCW 64.90.080, which provides that the provision of RCW 64.90.525 supersede and overturn any provisions in a community’s current governing documents that call for any different process, procedure or voting requirements for the adoption of the community’s annual budget than does RCW 64.90.525.
Accordingly, it is extremely important that the governing Boards of all HOAs and COAs become fully conversant with the new annual budget adoption procedures set forth in RCW 64.90.525. It is virtually certain that this new procedure is quite different than the procedure currently being used by your HOA or COA – unless it has already implemented the RCW 64.90.525 requirements. These new WUCIOA requirements are not optional; they are mandatory.
The new statutory requirements for annual budgets include, among others, a list of the required components of each proposed annual budget and provide that the budget proposed by the HOA/COA Board will be adopted unless it is rejected by a vote of a majority of the entire membership (not just the majority of a quorum).
This change will in many communities dramatically increase the HOA/COA Board’s power to successfully implement the expenditure and assessment regime that the Board members desire. This significant change in voting protocol for approval or rejection of budgets may represent a positive and beneficial change in some communities and an undesirable and unpopular change in others.
If you have questions regarding these specific new laws or other HOA or COA legal issues, we can help.
[1] enacted in 2018 but already amended multiple times since then with newer provisions that have taken effect during the 2019-24 period and even some provisions that will only take effect in future years.
