Betsy, I used the term "extremely costly" because we are a member of a 200 member road association at our camp as well as being in this one at our home. The lawyer at the camp association says that it would be "extremely costly" to do so.
At the camp association, there is a faction that wants to have the By-Laws changed so that those who are summer residents do not have to pay for snowplowing. Snowplowing is a part of road maintenance. Road maintenance requirements are in the deeds and in the mortgages. Because of that, the lawyer over there says that it would be very costly to dissolve that Association because all those 200 deeds and mortgages would have to be rewritten and re-registered with the State in addition to having new By-Laws written and agreed upon by the majority of the owners.
In our Association, if that were not true and could be done at a reasonable cost, then it would still be disastrous for our 12-lot association to dissolve the non-profit status and reform with the remaining 6 landowners at the beginning of our street who do not contribute to road maintenance cost now.
I say disastrous because we have 5 out of 12 landowners in our subdivision that do not have homes on it and would LOVE to get out of contributing to the cost because they only pay because the By-Laws, the deeds and their mortgages say they have to.
In addition, there are at LEAST two other landowners that would not join the NEW road association due to the "new board" that is seeking to have it dissolved. It is a self-interest group that wants complete freedom to do illegal hunting, trespassing other landowner's property, using ATV and snowmobiles on our narrow plowed street within 200 feet of homes that do not want it, and on a road that is not suited for those things.
If the present association were dissolved, then joining the new association would be "voluntary" since it would not be a condition of the mortgage like it was when they purchased their properties beforehand. I for one would not want to be a part of that new association in any way. One of those members wants to be on the "new Board" and yet he did not pay his dues for 3 years until threatened with a lien, has done illegal hunting by trespassing on other members property and now also has a pig - which is against the town ordinance.
So yes, I agree, we do need to get the facts first. The camp lawyer's input is good to use but he is not our Associations lawyer. To be effective, we need to be able to quote our lawyer, of which this will be a question when we meet with him today.