I realize that I’ve been remiss in posting anything for this legislative session. We’ve been extremely busy, but we’ll be making up for that by posting some of the new laws that affect community associations.

Act 13 (SB 1809) was signed by the Governor and became effective on April 15, 2008. It amends Hawaii Revised Statutes ยง514B-121(b). Previously, the Hawaii Condominium Property Act required that if 25% of the owners signed a petition calling for a special meeting, the Secretary or Managing Agent had fourteen days of receipt of the petition to mail out a notice of the special meeting to the owners. If the notice was not mailed out in that time frame, the petitioners could set the date, time and place of the meeting and mail the notice to all owners.

The law did not have a time period by which the special meeting was required to be held. For instance, as long as the notice was sent out within the 14 day deadline, it was theoretically possible for the special meeting to be noticed 7 months later. Act 13 requires that the special meeting be held within 60 days of the receipt of the petition. One timetable for special meetings for condominiums that wish to mail out standard proxy forms with the notice of the meeting would be as follows:

Event When
Receive Petition
Mail Notice of Special Meeting to Owners without Proxy Forms within 14 days of receipt of the petition
Post Notices of Distribution of Proxies ASAP but at least 21 days before you mail or otherwise distribute the proxy forms
Interested Owners turn in one page proxy solicitation statement within 7 days of posting the notices of distribution of proxies
Mail proxy forms to Owners with timely 1 page statements 21 days after the notices of proxy distribution is posted
Owners turn in proxies 4:30 p.m. on the 2nd business day before the special meeting
Special Meeting held within 60 days of receipt of the petition

There is no requirement, however, that the Association send out proxy forms to the owners at Association expense. If standard proxy forms are not mailed out by the Association, the notices of distribution of proxies do not need to be posted in prominent locations on the Project. It will be important, however, for interested owners (whether petitioners, board members or other owners) to distribute their own legal proxies at their own expense. Otherwise, the interested owners will be relying on the votes of those owners that attend the meeting in person or have their own proxy forms.