West Virginia HOA Board Elections

Section 1: Overview — How board elections are governed in West Virginia

In West Virginia, one statute does most of the work. The West Virginia Uniform Common Interest Ownership Act — WVUCIOA — governs board elections in common interest communities, and it is a full Uniform Common Interest Ownership Act statute built on the 1982 model, reaching condominiums, planned communities, and cooperatives alike.¹ The Act sits in Chapter 36B of the West Virginia Code, at §36B-1-101 and following, and its management article locks down the core election mechanics that an association cannot simply rewrite by private agreement.¹ One exception is worth flagging up front: condominiums created before WVUCIOA took effect on July 1, 1986 may instead stay under the predecessor Unit Property Act, W. Va. Code Chapter 36A — enacted as House Bill 147, which passed March 7, 1963 (1963 Acts of the Legislature, Vol. 1, Ch. 153, pp. 712–727) — and that older law runs through a recorded code of regulations rather than the WVUCIOA framework.² Because most associations incorporate as nonprofits, the West Virginia Nonprofit Corporation Act, W. Va. Code Chapter 31E, fills in the corporate director defaults wherever WVUCIOA and the governing documents stay silent.³ Keep one timing point in mind: WVUCIOA tracks the 1982 Uniform Act, so its provisions read differently from the statutes in states that later adopted the 2008 amendments.¹ Disputes travel through the West Virginia Circuit Courts; the highest court is the Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia, and an Intermediate Court of Appeals of West Virginia began hearing cases on July 1, 2022, so most civil appeals now pass through that court before any further review.⁴ The sections that follow lay out the statutory architecture, the applicability rules that decide which communities are covered, and the nuts and bolts of running an election.

Section 2: The election framework

2A. WVUCIOA board governance and declarant control

WVUCIOA puts management of a common interest community in the hands of an executive board, which acts for the association on most matters — but it hands the election of those board members to the unit owners.⁵ Section 36B-3-103(f) drives the point home: no later than the end of any declarant-control period, the unit owners must elect an executive board of at least three members, a majority of them unit owners, and the board then elects its own officers.⁵ The board cannot elect its own members or set their qualifications, powers, or terms; those calls belong to the owners — though the board may fill a vacancy for the unexpired portion of a term.⁵ The declaration may set up a period of declarant control, during which the declarant appoints and removes board members and officers.⁵ That period ends no later than the earliest of three triggers: 60 days after owners other than the declarant take title to 75 percent of the units that may be created; two years after all declarants stop offering units in the ordinary course of business; or two years after anyone last exercised a right to add new units.⁵ WVUCIOA also seats owners on the board before control fully ends — within 60 days after 25 percent of the units are conveyed, owners other than the declarant elect at least one member and at least 25 percent of the board, and within 60 days after 50 percent are conveyed, they elect at least one third.⁵ The Act sets these structural floors — the board minimum, the owner majority, the control-termination triggers, and the two-thirds removal right — at the statutory level, and it leaves the number of directors, the terms, the nomination process, and the vote thresholds to the declaration and bylaws.⁶ And because WVUCIOA follows the 1982 Uniform Act, its declarant-control triggers and election provisions read differently from the statutes in states that enacted the 2008 amendments; the Community Associations Institute counts Alaska, Colorado, Minnesota, Nevada, and West Virginia among the 1982-version states, and Connecticut, Delaware, Vermont, and Washington among the 2008-version states.¹

2B. Applicability and the predecessor statute

WVUCIOA applies in full to common interest communities created in West Virginia after its July 1, 1986 effective date.⁷ For communities that came earlier, Section 36B-1-204 extends only an enumerated list of provisions — and that list pointedly leaves out the executive-board, meeting, quorum, and voting sections (§§36B-3-103, 3-108, 3-109, and 3-110).⁸ The consequence matters: WVUCIOA's board-election mechanics simply do not reach preexisting communities, which run their elections under their own recorded documents instead.⁸ Condominiums created before 1986 may remain under the Unit Property Act (Chapter 36A), where a recorded code of regulations — not the WVUCIOA management article — governs how the community is administered.⁹ So to figure out which statute controls, a manager should check the recording date and the formation documents: a community recorded after July 1, 1986 is a WVUCIOA community, while an older condominium presumptively falls under Chapter 36A unless its documents were amended to adopt WVUCIOA.⁸ Small and limited-expense planned communities — no more than 12 units and no development rights, or a declared annual common-expense cap — answer to only a handful of WVUCIOA sections unless the declaration opts into the whole Act, which strips the statutory election rules out of those communities as well.¹⁰

2C. Voting, corporate law, and the bylaws

Section 36B-3-110 handles voting and proxies: a unit's votes may be cast by a duly executed proxy, which stays valid until the owner gives actual notice of revocation to the person presiding over the meeting, and no one may cast votes for a unit the association itself owns.¹¹ When several owners hold a single unit, the section supplies default rules for sorting out how that unit's votes get cast.¹¹ The order of precedence runs in a clear sequence: WVUCIOA's non-variable provisions control first; then its default provisions as modified by the declaration and bylaws; then any unmodified WVUCIOA defaults; then the West Virginia Nonprofit Corporation Act as a gap-filler; and finally the association's own rules.¹² Whether a given WVUCIOA provision can be varied at all is something the Act's variation-by-agreement section decides.¹³ Treat the Nonprofit Corporation Act (Chapter 31E) as corporate scaffolding, not an HOA election statute; it supplies director and meeting defaults — quorum and voting rules for corporate action, for instance — only where WVUCIOA and the documents leave a gap.³ The operational takeaway is straightforward: read the declaration and bylaws against WVUCIOA, mark which provisions the Act makes mandatory, and confirm whether the community predates July 1, 1986 before you assume any statutory election rule applies.⁸

Section 3: Election mechanics

A. Eligibility and nominations

For WVUCIOA communities, the statute imposes a single eligibility requirement: a majority of the elected board must be unit owners. It sets no residency test and no good-standing test.⁵ Any additional candidate qualifications — and the nomination method itself — are bylaw-set under §36B-3-106, not supplied by statute.⁶ These rules apply only to communities created after July 1, 1986; for pre-1986 communities, the recorded documents govern eligibility and nominations from start to finish.⁸

B. Notice, annual meeting, and quorum

WVUCIOA requires at least one association meeting each year, but it never designates an election date, so the bylaws decide when the board is elected.¹⁴ Notice of any meeting must go out not less than 10 nor more than 60 days in advance, by hand delivery or U.S. mail, and it must state the agenda, including any proposal to remove a board member; for WVUCIOA communities, that notice rule is mandatory.¹⁴ The quorum to act is, unless the bylaws set a different figure, 20 percent of the votes entitled to be cast for board election, counted in person or by proxy at the start of the meeting.¹⁵ None of these three provisions reaches a pre-1986 community.⁸

C. Voting methods, proxies, and ballots

In a WVUCIOA community, in-person and proxy voting are statutory; a proxy must be duly executed and is revocable only by actual notice to the presiding officer.¹¹ The Act says nothing about absentee or mail ballots, electronic voting, or cumulative voting, so those methods are available only if the declaration or bylaws authorize them.¹¹ The vote threshold needed to elect a director — plurality or majority — is likewise bylaw-set, not statutory.⁶ These voting rules apply to communities created after July 1, 1986; pre-1986 communities follow their own documents.⁸

D. Terms, vacancies, removal, and recall

Director term length, term limits, and staggered terms are not fixed by WVUCIOA; the declaration and bylaws set them.⁶ The board may fill a mid-term vacancy for the unexpired portion of the term, unless the bylaws provide otherwise.⁵ Removal is the most prescriptive election mechanic the Act supplies: unit owners may remove any board member, with or without cause, by a two-thirds vote of all persons present and entitled to vote at a meeting with a quorum — except a declarant-appointed member — and this right operates notwithstanding any contrary provision in the declaration or bylaws.⁵ All of these provisions apply to WVUCIOA communities only; a pre-1986 community handles terms, vacancies, and removal through its recorded documents.⁸

Section 4: Recent legislative and judicial activity

A. Recent bills

No bill enacted in the 24 months before June 2026 touched WVUCIOA's executive-board, declarant-control, meeting, quorum, or voting provisions (§§36B-3-103, 3-108, 3-109, or 3-110). West Virginia's common interest community legislation in this window has circled adjacent topics rather than board-election mechanics. The closest measure surfaced in the 2025 regular session.

Earlier modernization proposals to add electronic-meeting and electronic-voting procedures to Chapter 36B, along with a 2023 effort to study or narrow the Act's reach, never became law. A property manager tracking change should watch the annual regular session — the 2026 session ran January 14 to March 14, 2026 — for any bill amending the §36B-3 management article.¹⁷

B. Recent appellate rulings

No West Virginia appellate decision in the past 36 months squarely resolves a contested HOA board election, a declarant-control transition fight, or a director-removal vote under WVUCIOA. The two closest recent decisions, both from the Intermediate Court of Appeals of West Virginia, deal with board authority and association enforcement powers rather than election procedure.

C. Active legislative debates

Recurring proposals to modernize Chapter 36B — by adding express electronic-meeting and electronic-voting procedures, for example — and periodic developer-driven efforts to limit the Act's scope have surfaced in recent sessions. So far, none of them has amended the board-election or declarant-control provisions.

Section 5: National positioning and related coverage

West Virginia sits among the full UCIOA states, but it adopted the 1982 model — and that distinction drives much of what follows. The Community Associations Institute groups Alaska, Colorado, Minnesota, Nevada, and West Virginia as the 1982-version states, and Connecticut, Delaware, Vermont, and Washington as the 2008-version states, which differ in their declarant-control triggers and election defaults.¹ Two features set West Virginia apart on this topic: the highest court is the Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia, and an Intermediate Court of Appeals of West Virginia — created by Senate Bill 275, signed April 9, 2021 — began hearing cases on July 1, 2022, so post-2022 civil appeals generally run through the intermediate court first.²⁰ For a multi-state operator, the practical message is direct: a manager who knows another UCIOA state should still check each West Virginia provision against the 1982 model, confirm whether a community predates July 1, 1986, and use the correct court names and the post-2022 appellate path.

Federal frameworks reach West Virginia associations regardless of the state setup — the Fair Housing Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act, and the FCC's OTARD rule among them.

1. W. Va. Code Chapter 36B, Uniform Common Interest Ownership Act, §36B-1-101 et seq. ↩
2. W. Va. Code §36A-1-1, Unit Property Act, short title. ↩
3. W. Va. Code §31E-7-724, West Virginia Nonprofit Corporation Act, quorum and voting requirements. ↩
4. Intermediate Court of Appeals of West Virginia, About the Court (opened July 1, 2022). ↩
5. W. Va. Code §36B-3-103, Executive board members and officers. ↩
6. W. Va. Code §36B-3-106, Bylaws. ↩
7. W. Va. Code §36B-1-201, Applicability to new common interest communities (effective July 1, 1986). ↩
8. W. Va. Code §36B-1-204, Applicability to preexisting common interest communities. ↩
9. W. Va. Code §36A-3-1, Administration governed by code of regulations. ↩
10. W. Va. Code §36B-1-203, Exception for small and limited expense liability planned communities. ↩
11. W. Va. Code §36B-3-110, Voting; proxies. ↩
12. W. Va. Code §36B-2-103, Construction and validity of declaration and bylaws (declaration prevails over bylaws except where inconsistent with the chapter). ↩
13. W. Va. Code §36B-1-104, Variation by agreement. ↩
14. W. Va. Code §36B-3-108, Meetings. ↩
15. W. Va. Code §36B-3-109, Quorums. ↩
16. W. Va. Legislature, 2025 Regular Session, Committee Substitute for House Bill 3377 (§36C-1-1). ↩
17. West Virginia Legislature, 2026 Regular Session (January 14 – March 14, 2026). ↩
18. Intermediate Court of Appeals of West Virginia, Opinions (Lindemuth v. The Woods Homeowners Association, Inc., No. 23-ICA-379, Oct. 1, 2024). ↩
19. Intermediate Court of Appeals of West Virginia, Opinions (Wilber v. Locust Hill Unit Owner's Association, Inc., No. 25-ICA-280, June 11, 2026). ↩
20. W. Va. Code §51-11-3, West Virginia Intermediate Court of Appeals created. ↩