I'm curious also, though our house has only a small portion rotted. If ya don't see it up there, ya won't paint, etc... and we didn't look.

What kind of ventilation do you have no, it doesn’t show in the photos… We went over our original plywood soffits with 1/2” hardi board sheets.

None of it is rotted, the ventilation is just lacking and I need to add a significant number of vents… The bigger issue is the peeling paint and longer-term maintenance. I’m trying to avoid having to repaint it every handful of years.

For others knowledge, in the future I would do the hardie soffits again but do LP fascia

Thanks for the update!