Arkansas HOA Laws: What Homeowners Need to Know in 2026
Arkansas regulates condominiums through the Horizontal Property Act (Ark. Code § 18-13-101 et seq.), amended by Act 516 of 2025 for regimes organized on or after September 1, 2025. A subdivision HOA outside that act answers to its recorded covenants and, when incorporated, to Arkansas nonprofit corporation law.
deed-or-bill-of-assurance-which-arkansas-rules-reach-you">Master deed or bill of assurance: which Arkansas rules reach you
Title 18 of the Arkansas Code (Property) has a chapter for horizontal property regimes, chapter 13, and no chapter for homeowners’ or property owners’ associations.
- Condominium (horizontal property regime). For a regime organized before September 1, 2025, the act applies when owners “expressly declare, through the recordation of a master deed,” their desire to submit the property to it; under Act 516 a regime “may be created under this chapter only by recording a master deed executed in the same manner as a deed by all persons who have an interest in the real property that will be conveyed to an owner of an apartment or unit” (§ 18-13-103).
- Which version of chapter 13. Act 516 of 2025 (SB 323, approved April 10, 2025) “is applicable to a horizontal property regime organized on and after September 1, 2025.” A regime organized earlier stays on the prior text unless it elects in “by amending the master deed and filing the appropriate reorganization documents.”
- Subdivision with an association. No chapter of Title 18 creates the association or its powers; the recorded covenants do.
If the association is a nonprofit corporation, check its incorporation date. The Arkansas Nonprofit Corporation Act of 1993 (§ 4-33-101 et seq.) applies to corporations incorporated on or after January 1, 1994. An older one “may elect to be governed” by it through an articles amendment approved by a majority of the members (of the directors, if it has none), and that election is irrevocable; otherwise it “shall continue to be governed by preexisting law” (§ 4-33-1701).
What a condo owner owes under § 18-13-116
Under the pre-2025 text, co-owners contribute “pro rata, in the percentages computed according to § 18-13-112” toward administration, common-element upkeep and other lawfully agreed expenses. For a regime under Act 516 the split follows “the percentages established by a master deed.” The older text adds that no co-owner may avoid the share by waiving use of the common elements or by abandoning the apartment.
Renting out a unit can cost more: the board may set an additional assessment for a co-owner who makes the unit available for rent or lease, but it may not exceed the amount reasonably calculated to cover the added expense of security, wear and tear on buildings, trash pickup, and other additional costs caused by the rental.
Section 18-13-116 mentions interest only in its Act 516 version: “A past due assessment or installment of an assessment may bear interest at a lawful rate established by the association.”
When a condo unit changes hands
Section 18-13-116 treats unpaid dues as a payment priority at sale. Unpaid assessments “shall first be paid out of the sales price or by the acquirer in preference over any other assessments or charges of whatever nature” with two exceptions: past-due, unpaid tax assessments, liens and charges on the unit, and payments due under recorded mortgages. The buyer is jointly and severally liable with the seller for amounts owed up to the conveyance and may recover them from the seller. Ask the association for the seller’s balance in writing before closing.
Books, bylaws and votes inside a horizontal property regime
Section 18-13-110 requires the administrator or board to keep a chronological book of receipts and expenditures. The book and its supporting vouchers “shall be available for examination by all the co-owners at convenient hours on working days that shall be set and announced for general knowledge.”
The bylaws must be recorded with the master deed, and § 18-13-108 lists what they must cover, including a rule “that a majority of at least fifty-one percent (51%) is required to adopt decisions.” Changing the system of administration takes co-owners holding two-thirds of the building’s total value, and the change is inoperative until recorded like the master deed (§ 18-13-109).
Arkansas statutes that bind subdivision covenants
Recording and amendment. A restrictive covenant, whether in a deed, a bill of assurance or another instrument, restricts nothing until the owners execute it and it is recorded with the county recorder (§ 18-12-103). When the covenant has separate clauses on duration and on amendment, the duration clause “does not limit the ability to amend a restrictive covenant at any time.”
Setback fights. In cases over encroachment of interior setback lines, circuit judges may balance the equities when deciding whether to award an injunction or damages (§ 18-11-501). If the judge finds the violation de minimis, “no attorney’s fees shall be awarded” to anyone enforcing the setback (§ 18-11-502).
Fees charged on a sale. A transfer fee covenant recorded after July 27, 2011, does not run with the title and cannot be enforced against the property or a later owner, purchaser or mortgagee (§ 18-12-107(b)); the section does not validate one recorded before that date. The statute’s definition leaves out four kinds of provisions:
- a term of a purchase contract, option, mortgage, security agreement, listing agreement or similar agreement obligating one party to pay another an amount that is payable only once, on the next transfer, and then stops binding later owners; a loan assumption or similar fee charged on a transfer by a lender holding or obtaining a lien on the property; or a licensee’s fee or commission for services on that transfer;
- a deed, memorandum or other document recorded to give notice of one of those agreements;
- a fee payable to an association “to be used exclusively for the purposes authorized in the document,” as long as no part must be passed through to a third party designated or identifiable in the documents;
- a fee payable to a § 501(c)(3) or § 501(c)(4) organization, used only to support cultural, educational, charitable, recreational, environmental, conservational or similar activities benefiting the property, or the community where it sits.
“Association” there covers any nonprofit, mandatory-membership owners’ group created by a declaration, covenant, bill of assurance, master deed or other law.
Meetings and member lists in an incorporated association
For a corporation under the 1993 act, notice of members’ meetings must be “fair and reasonable” and consistent with the bylaws. Notice is automatically fair if it goes out no fewer than 10 days (30 days if mailed other than first class or registered) and no more than 60 days before the meeting, an annual or regular meeting notice describes any matter that needs member approval under the sections listed in § 4-33-705(c)(2), and a special-meeting notice describes the matters it was called for (§ 4-33-705).
The member list must be open to any member who wants to communicate with other members about a meeting, starting two business days after notice goes out and running through the meeting (§ 4-33-720). The section’s one carve-out lets a religious corporation’s articles or bylaws limit that right.
Frequently asked questions
Does the 2025 Horizontal Property Act rewrite cover my condo?
Only if the regime was organized on or after September 1, 2025, or has since amended its master deed and filed reorganization documents to opt in.
Can my subdivision HOA charge a fee when I sell?
Arkansas law does not ban it outright: section 18-12-107(a)(5)(C)(iii) keeps a document-required association fee outside the ban on transfer fee covenants recorded after July 27, 2011, when it goes to the association, is spent only on purposes the documents authorize, and none of it must be passed through to a third party.
If the HOA sues over a minor setback encroachment, do I pay its lawyer?
Not if the judge finds the setback violation de minimis; § 18-11-502 bars attorney’s fees to any party enforcing the restriction in that case.