Every few years a board runs into something its declaration will not let it do. Leasing has got out of hand, the rules have no teeth, an obsolete provision is blocking a project. Someone says "we should amend the declaration," and the board discovers the process is less obvious than it looked.
The default is two-thirds — but check your own documents first
Section 27 of the Illinois Condominium Property Act sets the general amendment threshold at an affirmative vote of two-thirds of voting unit owners. That is the default, and it applies unless your condominium instruments specify a different figure.
Your instruments can set another majority, but not any number the drafter felt like. The alternative has to fall somewhere between 50% and 75%. So a declaration might require 60%, or 70%, and either is enforceable. If the documents are silent, two-thirds governs.
The practical instruction is simple and it is skipped constantly: read your declaration before you announce a number to owners. A board that campaigns for months on the wrong threshold either falls short of a bar it did not know about, or clears a bar it did not need to clear.
Some amendments require two-thirds no matter what your documents say
There is a category where the statute overrides whatever figure your instruments contain. Section 18 requires a two-thirds majority regardless of document language for:
- merger or consolidation of the association;
- sale, lease, exchange or other disposition of substantially all the property and assets of the association; and
- the purchase or sale of land or units on behalf of all owners.
These are the decisions that change what the association fundamentally is or what it owns. A declaration setting a 55% threshold does not lower the bar for them.
The step that gets skipped: recording
This is the single most common failure, and it is entirely avoidable.
An amendment is not effective until it is recorded. Section 17 of the Condominium Property Act governs this for condominiums, and Section 1-20 of the Common Interest Community Association Act does the same for common interest communities. Until the amendment is recorded, it cannot be enforced — no matter how decisively owners voted.
The failure mode is predictable. The board holds the vote, the amendment passes, everyone celebrates, and the executed document goes into a file. Two years later a new board tries to enforce the new leasing cap against an owner, the owner's attorney checks the recorded chain of title, and the amendment is not in it. The association loses, and it loses on a clerical omission rather than on the merits.
Treat recording as part of the vote, not as follow-up. The task is not complete until you are holding the recorded instrument with the recorder's stamp on it.
Mortgagee consent
Some declarations require the consent of mortgage holders for particular amendments — commonly those touching the percentage of ownership, insurance provisions, or reserves. Where your documents require it, Section 27 contains a mechanism for notifying mortgagees.
Boards discover this requirement late and it is a genuine schedule risk, because tracking down and notifying every mortgagee on a large building is slow work. Establish at the start whether your amendment falls into a consent category, because the answer changes the timeline by months.
A sequence that works
- Have counsel draft it. Amendments are recorded instruments that outlive every director who voted on them. This is not a task for a board member with a word processor.
- Confirm the threshold from your own declaration, not from what a neighbouring association used.
- Determine whether mortgagee consent is triggered before you set a target date.
- Explain the change plainly to owners well ahead of the vote. Amendments fail on confusion far more often than on opposition.
- Run the vote by the book — notice, meeting, and ballot procedure exactly as your documents require. A defective vote is worse than a failed one, because it produces an amendment that looks valid until it is challenged.
- Record it, and file the stamped copy with the governing documents.
- Distribute the recorded amendment to owners and give the current version to your manager, so the packet sent on the next resale reflects reality.
Why this matters beyond the amendment itself
Every unrecorded or badly documented amendment becomes someone else's problem later — usually at a closing, when a buyer's attorney asks for the declaration with all recorded amendments and the association cannot produce a clean set. That is the same file that drives Section 22.1 disclosure responses, and gaps in it surface at precisely the worst moment.
An association that keeps a complete, recorded, current set of governing documents saves itself a recurring tax it would otherwise pay at every sale, every dispute and every insurance renewal.
This article is general information about Illinois community association practice and is not legal advice. Amendment thresholds, consent requirements and recording procedure depend on your recorded declaration and which statute governs your association. Engage association counsel before drafting or noticing an amendment.