Amendment & Restatement
Declaration + Bylaws
RCW 64.90 “WUCIOA”
🛑 Has your association’s attorney said your amendment and restatement might cost $20,000 to $30,000 or more?
Attorney Marlyn Hawkins recently spoke fire and brimstone to an audience of associations on behalf of WSCAI claiming extraordinary costs for amendments and restatements even before the advent of RCW 64.90 (WUCIOA).
💲Small HOAs should expect total costs between $7,500 and $10,000.
💲💲Most condominiums should expect total costs between $10,000 and $15,000.
💲💲💲Complex master- and sub-associations should expect total costs from $12,500 to $25,000.
Each association is unique, but restatements are not created from scratch because the law prescribes 75% of what’s required. If your attorney says there’s no template involved, they 1) are either not telling the truth or 2) will charge an arm and a leg for hours of unnecessary effort.
Cost is a driving force for every association! We recommend obtaining at least 3 bids that specifically outline the cost, deliverables, and process. Determine if there’s a fixed price vs. a “we’ll know the cost when we’re done” approach.
WASHINGTON STATE
Why should your association care about WUCIOA (RCW 64.90)? 🕰️ Because the clock is ticking…
SB5796 and SB5129 retrofit WUCIOA to ALL Washington State condos, co-ops and HOAs effective January 1, 2028.
RCW 64.32, RCW 64.34 and RCW 64.38 are all going the way of the dodo. Learn more at WUCIOA.info.
Why SMAARTE?
We know current law and what's coming next because we have a seat at the table working directly with state legislators.
We charge less than half the hourly rate of most attorneys.
We plan for 30 to 50 hours of professional effort working with your governance committee.
-
Restatements often require 67% homeowner approval. Your association’s goals, content considerations and lived experience all play a part of the adoption equation. Professional involvement cannot guarantee homeowner approval, but intentional preparation makes all the difference with a project involving 30,000 to 50,000 words across dozens of pages.
We put homeowners at the center from start to finish.
- We translate reams of run-on legal jargon into digestible chunks using plain language.
- Our web-based review tool facilitates collaboration and the frictionless exchange of ideas and information. Read our Restatement Overview.
Our detailed, customer-friendly restatement framework makes the entire process easier to understand.
-
We help compare and contrast your current documents and proposed updates by highlighting: 1) sections required by law, 2) recommendations based on best practice, and 3) items unique to your community. Every step is tailored to enable and encourage homeowner participation.
Creative solutions for smaller, amenity- and assessment-lite plat / HOA communities.
-
Our Requirements, Risks & Opportunities Matrix provides a customized, comprehensive overview of WUCIOA requirements compared and contrasted with your existing governing documents.
-
Identifies opportunities that can be realized with an amendment and restatement.
-
Identifies risks related to keeping your documents as-is.
-
Provides a checklist of “do this, not that.”
-
Potentially an ideal solution for smaller, amenity- and assessment-lite communities that are especially cost-sensitive.
Restatements reimagined. [rē-i-ˈma-jən]: to form a new conception of; to re-create
Are your association’s declaration and bylaws a bust? Have amendments and statutory changes left them in the dust?
Do you know what’s lurking in your CC&Rs? When’s the last time you took your governing docs for an oil change?
We’ve reimagined amendments and restatements from A-Z! Our question-oriented, compartmentalized approach leverages technology and integrates governance best practices to help homeowner volunteers navigate the restatement challenge efficiently and intuitively.
Get SMAARTE and make your restatement a reality!
What will it take to restate your governing documents?!
Why now?
One thing is certain: community association law will continue to evolve. SB5796 / ESSB5796 repeals and replaces RCW 64.32, 64.34 and 64.38 with 64.90 effective January 1, 2028 and the changes are immense. Given the volume of work involved and the reasonable limits of volunteer capacity, communities should expect to spend at least 12 to 18 months from inception to adoption of a restatement.
RCW 64.90 (WUCIOA) allows associations to amend their governing documents to eliminate language that conflicts with the law without a supermajority vote, but there are dozens of important provisions that can only be adopted by the members. Examples range from enforcement and dispute procedures to how expenses are recovered following a loss.
Adopting the provisions of WUCIOA is likely to be the most complex, costly and time-consuming governance project every Washington condo and HOA will face over the next few years. Communities that have not transitioned on or before January 1, 2028 are at increased risk of disputes related to materially violating state law due to the inherent challenges of navigating outdated documents that do not reflect current requirements. Even now, many communities are unaware of and/or non-compliant with statutory changes that became effective over the past six years.
In addition to state law, your declaration and bylaws are essential to the fabric of your community and provide the authority and framework for collections, enforcement and for every policy, procedure and resolution and application of Board discretion.
❓If your association has no plan to update your documents before January 1, 2028, what is your plan to ensure governance and operations comply with state law?
Restatements from the SMAARTE Group deliver:
a web-based workspace that encourages collaboration and eliminates email fatigue
a comprehensive restatement process framework and highly structured toolkit:
- project tracking
- email, phone and web meeting support
- examples, concepts and language for consideration
- references to statutes and your current governing documents
- dedicated restatement facilitation sessions for the Board, Committee members and homeowners
- assistance with final summation of volunteer work product, including an executive summary for homeowners