What is WUCIOA, and Will it Affect my Association?

Written on April 5, 2018 by Valerie Farris Oman in Condominium Laws, HOAs, WUCIOA

If your Homeowners Association was created before July 1, 2018, most of the Washington Uniform Common Interest Ownership Act (WUCIOA) won’t apply to you. The only change you’ll want to be aware of relates to how your community adopts its budget.

The Washington Uniform Common Interest Ownership Act (WUCIOA) will govern new condominiums and other planned communities, and the community associations and real estate cooperatives that manage them (known collectively as “common interest communities”). It is scheduled to take effect on July 1, 2018. Communities created before the bill goes into effect will still be governed primarily by existing laws.

The exception: Section 326 of the WUCIOA requires that every budget for every community be ratified by the community. A budget ratification under WUCIOA would happen like this:

The board of a homeowner’s association adopts a proposed budget.
Within 30 days after adoption, the board provides copies of the budget to the members of the HOA along with a summary of the budget.
The Board sets a meeting between fourteen and fifty days after providing the budget to the members.
At the budget meeting, the members have the opportunity to vote to reject the budget.
The budget is ratified unless a majority of the votes (that is, the total votes for everyone in the HOA, and not just the votes of the members who showed up to the meeting) reject the budget. Even if there is no quorum, the budget is ratified.
If the budget is rejected, or if notice is not provided, the last budget to be ratified remains in effect until a new budget is ratified.

Section 326 of WUCIOA also sets specific requirements for information that must be contained in the budget summary. These requirements include projected income and common expenses, the amount of assessments per unit and the date the assessments are due, the current amount of regular assessments budgeted for contribution to the reserve account, and the current balance of the reserve funding per unit. The budget must also contain a statement of whether the association has a reserve study that meets the WUCIOA’s requirements, and how close the budget is to meeting the recommendations of the reserve study.

Section 326 of WUCIOA takes the place of Sections 64.34.308(3) and (4) of the Washington Condominium Act and Sections 64.38.025(3) and (4) of the Homeowners’ Association Act. It also applies to condominiums created under RCW 64.32 and RCW 64.38.

If you have questions about WUCIOA and how it might affect your community, please contact us.

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4 Comments - Leave a comment!

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4 Responses to What is WUCIOA, and Will it Affect my Association?

Donna Colwell
December 13, 2019 | 3:07 am

We live in an association in Washington state created with both homes and condominiums in early 1980’s. Our budget has just passed with 59% of those voting rejecting the new budget (which by the way represents 115.7% increase while our CC&R’s require an annual budget cannot exceed 115%). We were not told about the changes in the law, our vote in October 2018 was tallied and reported as the majority of those voting (not total of owners). Now as the latest budget includes some considerably higher costs for existing areas, and residents started asking questions, we understand the board suddenly found this latest law in the final days of the voting period and passed the budget. It appears most of the requirements of the new law have been met except 1. I have not found where the budget creater affirms that the budget meets WUCIOA, and the requirement on the affect to the reserve study. Do we have any recourse? Thank you
Valerie Farris Oman
January 10, 2020 | 6:38 pm

The Washington Uniform Common Interest Ownership Act (WUCIOA) was passed by the legislature and signed into law quite suddenly, after it appeared to have stalled in committee. Many attorneys in our practice area were caught by surprise when that happened, so I’m not surprised that your association was not aware of it. Even now, 18 months after it took effect, we are coming across clients who have no idea that portions of WUCIOA apply to them.
The WUCIOA budget ratification requirements represent a change for all pre-existing associations, and depending on whether your community is an HOA or a condo association, some of the changes were more dramatic than others. If the budget ratification process did not comply with WUCIOA, that is a procedural defect that is relatively straightforward for the board to fix.
Unfortunately, we can’t advise you as to your options, as that is legal advice that would require us to establish an attorney-client relationship, and we represents associations, not individual owners. If you go to the Washington State chapter website for the Community Associations Institute, you can find a list of attorneys in our practice area, some of whom *do* represent individual owners. You might have some luck consulting with one of them.
Best wishes!
wayne duke
December 4, 2020 | 7:58 pm

I live in a PUD HOA with 81 Residents. Community was built in 1986. We are trying to Ratify a Budget in a special meeting.
WHAT IS THE NUMBER OF VOTES REQUIRED TO REJECT THE BUDGET?
Valerie Farris Oman
March 30, 2022 | 11:25 pm

Hi Wayne,
PUDs are subject to the budget ratification process outlined in WUCIOA. At a budget ratification meeting, unless more than 50% of the voting power in a community votes to reject the budget, it is automatically ratified.
Assuming each resident/owner within your PUD has equal voting power, and there are 81 “units,” 41 owners would have to vote to reject the budget in order for it to not be ratified. Put differently, if fewer than 41 owners vote to reject the budget, it is automatically ratified.
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