Disbanding HOA in Oregon

[Ben Winchester]

Looking to see if anyone has any experience dissolving an HOA in the state of Oregon. I know each state is different and Oregon seems to be governed by a certain statute but I'm having a hard time figuring it out. Before I went and bought an hours time of a real estate attorney, I figured I'd post here.

Also, the CCR's don't have a dissolution section so it's not spelled out there like I was hoping.

[Ben Winchester]

Hi @David Gotsill

I thought I had notifications turned on, never heard anything, and assumed no one replied. I finally circled back to my post and saw you and another person replied. I need to get that figured out. I really appreciate your response and figured I’d update just to close the loop if anyone else stumbles upon this.

You are in fact correct with your guesses about the practical issues. I met with an attorney who asked all the same questions you did. The attorney basically wanted to know why we wanted to dissolve the HOA and were there common areas owned by the HOA. Some people wanted to dissolve the HOA because they were under the impression our neighborhood was not in an HOA. They probably didn't read their closing documents because it was pretty clear from the start. Those people didn't want to pay the dues and didn't like the idea of CC&Rs. We do have some areas that are owned by the HOA, they are actually protected tree zones that require some upkeep.

The attorney I spoke to basically said that it's possible to dissolve the HOA in a prefect world, but my situation would make it extremely difficult. Since the HOA owns these protected tree zones we would either have to convince the city to take them back, or find someone else willing to own, insure, and maintain those parcels. He said both are highly unlikely to happen since the city already pushed them off to the builder, and there is no value in the parcels for a 3rd party to want to own them. If that were to happen, it would then take a vote from the home owners, some legal filings, and then approval from the city. I don't remember the exact percentage of the vote but it was either 75% or 90%. He said something about 75% was doable but would most likely require some court arguments. 90% was sure fire.

His recommendation was to instead amend the CC&Rs to something everyone agrees upon and not to dissolve it entirely.