A few months ago, the Chairman and Secretary of a Pennsylvania community association were convicted by a jury of election fraud. The directors schemed to fill out ballots to stack the deck in upcoming board elections. An attorney in Las Vegas plead guilty to a similar charges a few years back. He was part of a plan to falsify ballots to elect board members that would direct business to certain vendors. read more

Community Association board members frequently ask, "What is the standard we're held to when we vote and make decisions?" The standard of conduct in Oregon and Washington is colloquially known as the "Business Judgment Rule." Application of the Business Judgment Rule comes into play in nearly all board decision making from deciding how far to pursue a collections matter to selecting a contractor for multimillion dollar repairs to raising or lowering monthly assessments. read more

Last month the Oregon Supreme Court recognized and seemingly affirmed a strategy to reduce taxable property value due to the existence of construction defects. In Oakmont, LLC v. Oregon Dept. of Revenue (2016), the owner of an apartment complex valued at approximately $21million negotiated with the county assessor to reduce the taxable value by sixty and seventy percent respectively for two years. The owner sought a similar reduction for an earlier tax year based on the presence of a "likely error" in the assessor's valuation then, but was denied. read more

In what appears to be the final word on claims for negligent construction, the Oregon Supreme Court ruled last week that such claims must be brought within two years of "discovery." In Goodman v. Kingman Plastering, Inc. (2016), the Supreme Court effectively overruled Riverview Condo. Ass'n v. Cypress Ventures (2014), a recent (lower) Court of Appeals case that ruled that negligent construction claims needed to be brought within six years of discovery. read more

We have been writing quite a bit over the last couple of years about the evolving legal landscape of first-party insurance claims in the Pacific Northwest. As more community associations that are otherwise outside of the window to bring construction defect claims for property damage instead bring claims under their own historical insurance policies, courts are getting more of an opportunity to address key issues. read more