2024 Legislation

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Introduction

This legislative session the association industry continues its campaign to weaken – if not cancel altogether – the constitutional rights of homeowners to free and fair elections.

Why should homeowners care about association elections? Because voting

• Seats board directors and
• Board directors can raise regular assessments 20% a year and
• Directors can levy emergency assessments which (1) require no vote by owners and (2) by law have no dollar cap
• Boards can levy special assessments of a certain size that DO require a vote, but voting rights are increasingly weakened by the HOA industry
• Boards can foreclose – just like a bank or the county tax collector – for falling behind on assessments. Homeowners can – and do – lose their homes.

Homeowner associations (HOAs) are not social clubs. The California Legislature, the California courts, and California Administrative Law have all established that HOAs – in form and in function – have the powers and duties of municipal government. They have broad legal power over the lives and property of the 14 million Californians who live in them.

2024 Legislation

The industry-sponsored bills this session are:

• AB2159/Maienschein – that would let HOAs run elections over the internet. Assembly Bill 2159
  • If I can shop and bank online, why can’t I vote online?
  • Voting online is very risky. But hundreds of thousands of people are already doing it
  • UC Berkeley Report on Internet Voting
• AB2460/Ta that would let the HOA lower the quorum from 33-1/3 to 20% as the minimum required to seat board directors. Reducing the quorum is to be done AFTER homeowners have voted and WITHOUT individual notice to homeowner voters. Assembly Bill 2460

A third bill is SB900/Umberg that would require HOA owners to repair and replace utility lines (gas, heat, electrical, water) originating in common areas even if they extend into an owner’s home. Utility lines and easements are identified in the subdivision’s recorded map. To see a sample PARCEL MAP and CONDO PLAN with drawings, please register as an Online Member. SB 900 Fact Sheet

Role of Homeowners in Sacramento Legislation

The millions of Californians – renters and owners alike — living in associations are vital to HOA legislation: to what bills become law and which ones don’t. A lot of bad HOA legislation gets passed because homeowners don’t know about it or don’t realize how important it is to CONTACT THEIR STATE LAWMAKERS, who are voting on HOA bills. Lawmakers LISTEN to voters, especially ones from their district.

Posted on the CCHAL website is a booklet – comic-book style – showing in pictures “How a Bill Becomes a Law” in Sacramento. A companion YouTube video shows “How a Bill Becomes a Law” in Washington. Whether we’re talking about state legislation or federal, essential to the writing of bills – and their passage or defeat — is the participation of VOTERS.

As always, CCHAL will monitor the 2024 HOA legislation impacting the lives of HOA residents. We will let you know when bills are coming up for a VOTE. And we will also ask HOA owners to TAKE ACTION! To make phone calls, to send emails and faxes, to visit lawmakers – and to urge them to VOTE to protect the economic and civil rights of owners.

Don’t know who your state lawmakers are – the people VOTING for you in Sacramento? Go here to Find Your Rep.

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• Condo Plan
• How a bill becomes a law
• Parcel Map

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