What are bylaws under the Community Association Act? 

The act does not define [[snippet bylawsCA]], nor does it require an association to have bylaws.  It is therefore strange that the act specifies requirements for bylaws (in the event an association has them, presumably), including that an association's bylaws must be recorded no later than the date of the first lot sale, as well as specifics that must be included in bylaws.  The Act also dictates where in the heirarchy of governing documents bylaws sit if there is a conflict between two governing documents.  

The Act does not require an association to be formed as a nonprofit corporation.  Yet, Section 57-8a-221 apparantly views an association's bylaws narrowly as a creature merely of the incorporated form of the association and that exist only by virtue of the association's status as a nonprofit corporation, rather than as bylaws of an association that was created by a declaration to manage the property or affairs of a [[snippet common-interest community]], including administering the [[snippet servitude]] regime of the project.

Specifically, the section states that if an association is a nonprofit corporation and is administratively dissolved (for failure to renew, for example), the association may reincorporate and the board "shall readopt bylaws for the association that are the same as the bylaws that were in existence at the time of termination or dissolution."  This section presumes that the association's bylaws are somehow invalidated or nullified by dissolution of the corporate form of the association.  That simply is not true and misunderstands the purpose and nature of a common-interest community's bylaws, as well as the nature of the association itself.  The bylaws are not required by either the Community Association Act or the Nonprofit Corporation Act.  They are a contract between and among the owners and the association.  The association continues to exist regardless of whether it is incorporated or not, and so does this contract.

Indeed, if recorded before lots or units are sold, an association's bylaws often contain servitudes binding on the property in the community.  Such bylaws are not extinguished merely by the dissolution of the corporate form of the association. 

[[snippet bylaw]]