Can condominiums with fewer than 50 units vote to avoid having an annual audit?  Only if their Declaration does not require an audit.

The statute that requires both New and Old Act condominiums to conduct an annual audit provides that with a vote of 60% of the owners, the association can avoid that audit.

The statute works to impose an additional obligation on condominiums to have audits even if the Declaration of Condominium does not have that requirement.  But it does not provide an option to negate any requirement written in the Declaration for an audit.

If the Declaration is silent regarding audit requirements, it would unquestionably apply just as stated in the statute.

So the question is, if the Declaration has a stricter requirement than the statute, does the statute negate the requirement of the Declaration?  Typically my answer would be no.  But the legislature answered the question for me in this case.

To quote the official comments to the Condominium Act, published by the Condominium Statutory Revision Task Force: “RCW 64.34.272…this section grants to associations with fewer than fifty units, which are not otherwise required by their governing documents to have an annual audit, the power to waive the audit requirement.”

So if your Declaration requires an audit, no matter how small the condominium, the audit must be performed according to the requirement in the Declaration.

If you have any questions we can answer, please feel free to leave a comment or contact us directly.  We look forward to continuing this conversation with you in our future posts!