Reported / Citable
Background
In 1974, owners of 22 Amador County parcels created a road-maintenance arrangement that became a common interest development governed by California’s Davis-Stirling Act. The 1974 declaration capped annual per-parcel assessments at $200 and contemplated transfer of administration to a successor entity. Volcano Hills Road Maintenance Association (the Association) eventually took over.
At a 2019 annual meeting, members voted to remove the $200 cap. A few years later, the Association’s board voted on its own to raise the annual assessment from $200 to $1,000 — a fivefold increase. A small group of owners (the Ruffier plaintiffs) sued, alleging the board had no authority to impose that increase without the member vote that California law and the Association’s governing documents require.
The trial court denied declaratory relief. The owners appealed.
The Court’s Holding
The Court of Appeal reversed and directed entry of a declaratory judgment that the assessment increase was void. Under the Davis-Stirling Act and the Association’s bylaws, regular assessment increases above specified thresholds require approval of at least a majority of a quorum of the membership. The Association’s bylaws set the quorum at members holding 51 percent of the votes, but the increase here was approved only by the board.
The court rejected the Association’s contention that the 2019 vote eliminating the $200 cap also implicitly delegated unlimited assessment-setting authority to the board. The cap removal addressed only the ceiling on assessments. It did not eliminate the separate, statutory and bylaws-based requirement that future increases of this magnitude be approved by the membership. To read the cap removal as transferring assessment-setting power to the board would conflict with the Davis-Stirling Act’s protections for owners against unilateral board increases.
Because the increase was not properly approved, the court ordered a declaration that the new $1,000 assessment is invalid.
Key Takeaways
- Removing a cap on assessments is not the same as authorizing the board to raise assessments unilaterally. The Davis-Stirling Act’s owner-vote protections still apply.
- HOA boards must scrupulously follow the procedural mechanics of governing documents — including quorum, notice, and voting requirements — before imposing significant assessment increases.
- Even very small common interest developments (here, only 22 parcels) are governed by the Davis-Stirling Act and its formalities.
- Declaratory relief is the appropriate remedy when an HOA board acts beyond its delegated authority.
- Owners challenging an assessment should preserve their objection promptly and seek declaratory relief before the assessment is fully implemented or paid.
Why It Matters
This decision is significant for California HOAs of every size, but especially for the many small road-maintenance and rural common-interest developments that often operate informally. The court reaffirmed that the Davis-Stirling Act applies even to bare-bones associations and that boards cannot rely on broad-sounding member resolutions to authorize later unilateral action.
For HOA practitioners, the case is a reminder to draft amendments to governing documents with surgical precision — if the membership intends to delegate broader assessment authority to the board, that delegation must be explicit, must comply with statutory voting thresholds, and must be reflected in the governing documents themselves. Boards considering significant assessment increases should obtain legal review of their authority and follow Davis-Stirling’s procedures to the letter. For homeowners, the opinion confirms that a properly framed declaratory-relief action remains a powerful tool to police HOA overreach.