Title: Dogwood Valley Citizens Ass'n v. Shifflett

State: virginia

Issuer: Virginia Supreme Court

Document:

Present:  Hassell, C.J., Koontz, Kinser, Lemons, Agee, and 
Goodwyn, JJ., and Lacy, S.J. 
 
DOGWOOD VALLEY CITIZENS ASSOCIATION, INC. 
 
v.  Record No. 070143 
 
  OPINION BY SENIOR JUSTICE 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
ELIZABETH B. LACY 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 January 11, 2008 
 
RAYMOND JAMES SHIFFLETT, JR., 
ET AL. 
 
FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF GREENE COUNTY 
Daniel R. Bouton, Judge 
 
 
In this appeal, we consider whether the circuit court 
erred in determining that Dogwood Valley Citizens Association, 
Inc. (DVCA), a non-stock Virginia corporation, did not qualify 
as a property owners’ association under the Property Owners’ 
Association Act, Code §§ 55-508 through –516.2 (the POAA).  
Because we conclude that the filing of DVCA’s Articles of 
Incorporation and Bylaws did not constitute a declaration 
imposing on DVCA operational or maintenance responsibilities 
for the common areas or roads of the development, we will 
affirm the judgment of the circuit court. 
BACKGROUND 
We were first asked to determine whether DVCA was a 
property owners’ association under the POAA in Dogwood Valley 
Citizens Ass’n, Inc. v. Winkleman, 267 Va. 7, 590 S.E.2d 358 
(2004).  Qualification as a property owners’ association under 
the POAA requires that a declaration recorded in the land 
 
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records where the development is located impose on an 
association both the power to assess fees for road and common 
facilities maintenance and the duty to perform such 
maintenance.  Anderson v. Lake Arrowhead Civic Association, 
253 Va. 264, 271-72, 483 S.E.2d 209, 213 (1997).  In Winkleman 
we held that, although the restrictive covenants contained in 
deeds of dedication filed in the land records affecting the 
Dogwood Valley development conferred upon the developers and 
their assignees the power to assess an annual fee for the 
upkeep of the roads and common facilities, those covenants did 
not require DVCA to maintain the roads or common area of the 
development.  267 Va. at 13-14, 590 S.E.2d at 361.  
Specifically we said the DVCA “has failed to identify any 
document, recorded among the lands records . . . that 
expressly requires DVCA to maintain the common areas or the 
roads.”  Id.  Accordingly, we concluded that because such a 
power and duty were not contained in a recorded declaration, 
DVCA was not a property owners’ association as defined by the 
POAA and did not have the authority to enforce special 
assessments on landowners in the Dogwood Valley development.  
Id. at 14-15, 590 S.E.2d at 361-62. 
Following our decision in Winkleman, DVCA’s president 
filed in the land records an affidavit and a copy of DVCA’s 
Articles of Incorporation and Bylaws.  The Bylaws contained a 
 
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provision stating, “It shall be the duty of the Board of 
Directors to: . . . cause the roads and common facilities to 
be maintained according to the extent that the funds collected 
permit.”  DVCA then levied special assessments against its 
members under Code § 55-514.1  When some of the landowners 
refused to pay these assessments, DVCA filed warrants in debt, 
claiming that the landowners were indebted to DVCA for the 
special assessments.  The General District Court for Greene 
County denied DVCA’s claims.  On appeal, the Greene County 
Circuit Court held that filing the Articles of Incorporation 
and ByLaws did not qualify DVCA as a property owners’ 
association under the POAA, and therefore, DVCA did not have 
the right to levy special assessments, charge interest, charge 
penalties, collect attorney’s or docketing fees, “or any other 
charge other than the regular assessments set forth in the 
Deeds of Dedication.”  DVCA timely appealed to this Court. 
 
                                                 
1 Code § 55-514 states in relevant part: 
In addition to all other assessments which are 
authorized in the declaration, the board of 
directors of an association shall have the 
power to levy a special assessment against its 
members if the purpose in so doing is found by 
the board to be in the best interests of the 
association and the proceeds of the assessment 
are used primarily for the maintenance and 
upkeep of the common area and such other areas 
of association responsibility expressly 
provided for in the declaration, including 
capital expenditures. 
 
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DISCUSSION 
 
The POAA defines a property owners’ association as “an 
incorporated or unincorporated entity upon which 
responsibilities are imposed and to which authority is granted 
in the declaration.”  Code § 55-509.  “Declaration” is defined 
in the POAA as 
any instrument, however denominated, recorded among 
the land records of the county or city in which the 
development or any part thereof is located, that 
either (i) imposes on the association maintenance or 
operational responsibilities for the common area or 
(ii) creates the authority in the association to 
impose on lots . . . any mandatory payment of money 
in connection with the provision of maintenance 
and/or services for the benefit of . . . the common 
area. 
 
Code § 55-509. 
 
DVCA argues that the defect which prevented it from 
qualifying as a property owners’ association under the POAA in 
Winkleman was the failure to have a document on file in the 
land records that imposed on it the responsibility of 
maintaining the roads or common areas.  This defect was cured, 
according to DVCA, by filing the Articles of Incorporation and 
Bylaws in the land records because those documents provided 
the requisite duty to maintain the roads and common areas of 
the development.  Because those documents met the POAA’s 
 
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definition of “declaration,” DVCA contends it now qualifies as 
a property owners’ association under the POAA.2 
 
We reject DVCA’s argument that the plain language of the 
definition of “declaration” includes instruments such as 
articles of incorporation and bylaws if such documents are 
filed in the appropriate land records and create either 
certain assessment authority or maintenance duties for the 
property owners’ association.  Such a literal application of 
the phrase “any instrument” in the definition of “declaration” 
is inconsistent with the concept of “declaration” used in 
other provisions of the POAA.  
The POAA applies to “developments subject to a 
declaration.”  Code § 55-508(A).  A “[d]evelopment” is defined 
by the POAA as  
real property . . . subject to a declaration which 
contains both lots . . . and common areas with 
respect to which any person, by virtue of ownership 
of a lot . . . is obligated to pay assessments 
provided for in a declaration. 
 
Code § 55-509.  These two definitions along with the 
definition of “declaration” reflect the intent of the General 
Assembly to apply the POAA to real property subject to certain 
                                                 
2 Although DVCA asserted at trial that the Bylaws were a 
“supplement” to the declarations, it stated in oral argument 
before this Court that the Bylaws are not an amendment of or 
supplement to the declaration but rather constitute a separate 
and complete declaration under the definition of “declaration” 
in the POAA. 
 
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benefits and burdens that are part of the bundle of property 
rights conveyed with the transfer of ownership of the 
property.  Such benefits and burdens are generally described 
as restrictive covenants that run with the land.  See Sonoma 
Development, Inc. v. Miller, 258 Va. 163, 167 n.2, 515 S.E.2d 
577, 579 n.2 (1999); Burton v. Chesapeake Box and Lumber 
Corp., 190 Va. 755, 764, 57 S.E.2d 904, 908 (1950); Willard v. 
Worsham, 76 Va. 392, 396 (1882).  The POAA denotes the 
instrument imposing these restrictions as a “declaration.”  
Articles of incorporation and bylaws are not instruments that 
apply to real property and are not instruments that subject 
real property to certain burdens and benefits that pass as 
part of the property rights in the conveyance of the property.  
Thus, DVCA’s Articles of Incorporation and Bylaws could not be 
a “declaration” for purposes of the definition of 
“development.” 
Other provisions of the POAA treat declarations as 
instruments separate and distinct from articles of 
incorporation and bylaws.  Code § 55-512(A)(12) requires that 
the disclosure packet given to a buyer of a lot in the 
subdivision include “[a] copy of the current declaration, the 
association’s articles of incorporation and bylaws, and any 
rules and regulations or architectural guidelines adopted by 
the association.”  Code § 55-515.1 explains how to obtain the 
 
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consent of a mortgagee “[i]n the event that any provision in 
the declaration requires the written consent of a mortgagee in 
order to amend the bylaws or the declaration.”  (Emphasis 
added.)  These sections reinforce the conclusion that the 
General Assembly did not consider articles of incorporation 
and bylaws as synonymous with declarations.  Indeed, in this 
case, the Bylaws themselves refer to declarations as documents 
separate from the Bylaws. 
DVCA’s interpretation of “declaration” would allow a 
property owners’ association to acquire the right to issue 
special assessments under the POAA merely by filing in the 
appropriate land records a document, regardless of its nature, 
stating that the association has the authority to assess 
property owners for maintenance of common areas and the 
responsibility to maintain those areas.  Such a change in 
existing duties and responsibilities of an association and its 
members could occur without any notice to or concurrence by 
the property owners.  Yet the POAA considers a declaration a 
document that can be changed only if the lot owners have 
notice and agree to the change, see Code § 55-515.1, a 
condition consistent with the method of altering restrictive 
covenants applicable to real property.  See Hening v. Maynard, 
227 Va. 113, 117, 313 S.E.2d 379, 382 (1984). 
 
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Furthermore, the POAA allows unilateral action in only 
limited circumstances.  Code § 55-515.2 allows unilateral 
changes to a declaration in very limited circumstances such as 
correction of a scrivener’s error, a mathematical mistake, or 
an inconsistency.  A unilateral change cannot alter the duties 
of the declarant, and if made by the association, must have a 
two-thirds vote of the board of directors.  Code § 55-516.2 
allows the president of the association to take certain 
unilateral actions in connection with condemnation 
proceedings.  However, nothing in the POAA supports the 
proposition that the unilateral filing of a document without 
notice and concurrence of the lot owners can impose upon real 
property and subject owners of that property to conditions not 
included in a deed of dedication or by a properly adopted 
amendment to such deed. 
Finally, we have said that the responsibility for 
maintenance of common areas and roads must be “imposed” on the 
association; voluntary assumption of this duty is 
insufficient.  Lake Arrowhead, 253 Va. at 272, 483 S.E.2d at 
213-14.  A duty “imposed” on an organization for purposes of 
qualifying as a property owners’ association under the POAA is 
one that cannot be altered or eliminated simply by amending 
the associations’ bylaws.  While DVCA’s Bylaws recite that the 
board of directors has such a duty, the assumption of this 
 
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duty was voluntary and not required by the declarations in the 
deeds of dedication of the development. 
In this case the declarations applicable to the Dogwood 
Valley development did not impose on DVCA the duty to maintain 
the roads and common areas.  Winkleman, 267 Va. at 13-14, 590 
S.E.2d at 361.  For the reasons stated, we hold that DVCA’s 
Articles of Incorporation and Bylaws, although filed in the 
land records, are not a declaration as defined by the POAA.  
Accordingly, DVCA does not qualify as a property owners’ 
association for purposes of the POAA and we will affirm the 
judgment of the trial court. 
Affirmed.