Your Bylaws Are a Recorded Document

The administration of every property is governed by bylaws, which may either be embodied in the declaration or set out in a separate instrument, a true copy of which shall be appended to and recorded with the declaration.

So there is always a recorded copy, and it is at the county recorder's office with the declaration. If your association gives you a set of bylaws that does not match the recorded set, the recorded set is the one to work from.

An Unrecorded Amendment Is Not Valid

The second sentence of Section 57-8-15 is short and absolute. No modification or amendment of the declaration or bylaws is valid unless it is set forth in an amendment and that amendment is recorded.

The chapter reinforces the point from the other direction. An initial or amended organizational document properly filed with the state does not need to be recorded, except for amended bylaws.

What to do with that. If your association is enforcing a bylaw provision adopted at some point in the past, you can ask for the recorded amendment. A vote in the minutes, a notice in a newsletter, or a revised handbook is not the same thing as a recorded amendment, and the statute is written in terms of validity rather than paperwork.

What Condominium Bylaws May Contain, and What They Need Not

Section 57-8-16 opens with the words "the bylaws may provide for the following" and then lists nine subjects. Every one of them is permissive. The condominium act does not require your bylaws to say anything at all.

The nine subjects include the establishment of a management committee, its size, how members are selected, its powers and duties, and whether it may hire a manager; the method of calling owner meetings and what percentage of owners constitutes a quorum; maintenance, repair, and replacement of the common areas and how that is paid for; the manner of collecting each owner's share of the common expenses; the method of adopting and amending rules governing the details of operation and use of the common areas; use restrictions on units and common areas designed to prevent unreasonable interference; and the percentage of votes required to amend the bylaws.

A condominium owner cannot assume the bylaws answer a governance question, because nothing in the chapter requires them to. Where the bylaws are silent, the answer usually comes from the Utah Revised Nonprofit Corporation Act, Title 16, Chapter 6a, whose default rules apply to most Utah associations.

The Smoking Provision

Restrictions regarding the use of units may include other prohibitions on or allowance of, smoking tobacco products.

This is worth knowing because it sits in the bylaws section rather than the rules section. In a condominium, smoking is expressly a proper subject for a recorded bylaw restriction. 

Where the Bylaws Sit When Documents Conflict

Section 57-8-40(5) sets the order that prevails in a conflict. From the top down:

1. the condominium act itself;
2. Title 16, Chapter 6a, or whatever other law the association is organized under;
3. the plat and the declaration, which control equally;
4. an organizational document filed with the state, such as the articles of incorporation;
5. the bylaws; and
6. a rule or policy adopted by the management committee, which yields to everything above it.

Two points surprise people. The plat is not a drawing that merely illustrates the declaration; it carries the same weight. And the articles outrank the bylaws, which reverses the intuition many owners bring from corporate life.

There is one express exception. Notwithstanding any conflict with the declaration or recorded bylaws, organizational documents may include an additional indemnification and liability limitation provision for management committee members, officers, or similar persons in a position of control.

Who Can Amend the Bylaws

This is the question owners most often get wrong, and the answer is not in the condominium act.

Section 57-8-39(1)(c) says the management committee may not amend a declaration. It says nothing about bylaws. The gap is filled by the nonprofit act, and it is filled in the board's favor: the board of directors may amend the bylaws at any time to add, change, or delete a provision, unless the chapter, the articles, or the bylaws reserve that power to the members or prohibit the board from exercising it, and unless the amendment would change one membership class's rights by changing another's.

Members are not shut out. Unless the bylaws provide otherwise, the members may amend the bylaws even though the board may also amend them.

So the practical question is what your own documents say. If the articles or bylaws reserve amendment to the owners, the board cannot act alone. If they are silent, the board generally can. That single sentence in your bylaws is worth finding before a dispute rather than during one.

Ceilings Your Documents Cannot Exceed

Section 57-8-39(1)(a) limits what the governing documents may demand for an amendment. For an amendment adopted after the period of administrative control, the documents may not require the vote or approval of owners holding more than 67% of the voting interests, may not require the approval of any specific owner, and may not require the approval of lien holders holding more than 67% of the first position security interests.

The documents also cannot put amendment out of reach for a stretch of time. Any provision that prohibits a vote or approval to amend any part of the governing documents during a particular time period is invalid.

Two qualifications keep this from being read too broadly. These limits do not apply to an amendment affecting only the undivided interests of owners in the common areas, unit boundaries, or owners' voting rights. And the 51%-present-then-majority rule in Subsection (1)(a)(ii) is written for an amendment to the declaration. For bylaws, the required percentage is the one your documents set under Section 57-8-16(8), subject to the 67% ceiling above.

Section 57-8-39 applies regardless of when the association was created.

Working Out What Your Bylaws Actually Require

Start with the recorded set at the county recorder, together with the declaration and the plat. That is the operative version, and Section 57-8-15 is the reason.

Then read for three things: whether the bylaws reserve amendment to the owners, what percentage they require, and whether the provision being enforced against you appears in the recorded set or only in a later handout.

If you cannot get copies, read records and record requests. For the amendment process itself, read amending governing documents. For how the articles fit in, read articles and organization. For the committee that adopts the rules beneath the bylaws, read management committees, and for the vote itself, ballots and voting.

Reviewed against Utah Code, current as of September 9, 2026.