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Your rights · Arkansas
Arkansas gives homeowners one of the thinnest statute books in the country. Condominiums get the 1961 Horizontal Property Act — rewritten in 2025, but only for regimes organized after September 1, 2025 — which requires open books, a 51% majority for decisions, and recorded bylaws, yet never grants the association a statutory lien or a foreclosure power of its own. Subdivision HOAs get no act at all: your bill of assurance is the rulebook, read as a contract, and Arkansas courts strictly construe its restrictions in favor of the free use of your land. Thin law cuts both ways — the board's power has to come from somewhere, and here it can only come from documents you can read.
Guides in this state
Controlling law: Arkansas Horizontal Property Act (Ark. Code §§ 18-13-101 to 18-13-120); no general HOA act — subdivision associations run on recorded bills of assurance & the Arkansas Nonprofit Corporation Act of 1993 (Ark. Code §§ 4-33-101 et seq.)
Last reviewed July 10, 2026· Citations link to the statute text
If you own a condominium in Arkansas, your building sits under the Horizontal Property Act, Ark. Code §§ 18-13-101 to 18-13-120 — a 1961 statute that creates the regime through a recorded master deed, requires the bylaws to be recorded with it (§ 18-13-108), and obligates whoever administers the property to keep a book of receipts and expenditures open to every co-owner's examination (§ 18-13-110). In 2025, the legislature passed the first comprehensive modernization in decades (SB 323): sharper unit-boundary definitions, declarant obligations during build-out, interest on past-due assessments, and a default rule that amending the master deed takes the consent of all owners unless the deed itself says otherwise. Know the date that matters: the rewrite applies to regimes organized on or after September 1, 2025; an older condominium stays under the original text unless its owners amend the master deed to opt in.
If you own a house in a subdivision, no Arkansas statute governs your association at all. There is no HOA act, no fine statute, no records deadline, no meeting or election law. Your community runs on its recorded bill of assurance — the Arkansas name for the recorded covenants that created the subdivision — and on the corporate rules of the Arkansas Nonprofit Corporation Act of 1993 if the association is incorporated, as most are. That absence is the single most important fact about Arkansas HOA law, and it has a flip side boards rarely mention: every power the association claims, from fining you to liening your lot, must be found in the recorded documents, because the state never granted it.
The condo chapter's owner protections are few but concrete. Decisions of the co-owners require a majority of at least fifty-one percent under the bylaws floor of § 18-13-108, and the bylaws must be recorded — an unrecorded 'amendment' isn't your governing document. The system of administration itself can be changed by co-owners representing two-thirds of the property's value (§ 18-13-109), which is the statutory lever for replacing a failed management structure. The financial book and its vouchers are open to all co-owners at convenient hours on working days that must be set and announced (§ 18-13-110). A landlord co-owner can only be surcharged for the association's actual extra costs — security, wear and tear, trash — not punished with an arbitrary rental premium (§ 18-13-116(a)(2)). And when a unit sells, § 18-13-116 gives unpaid assessments a payment preference out of the sale price behind only tax charges and recorded mortgage payments, with the buyer jointly and severally liable for the seller's arrears — which is why an Arkansas condo buyer should always demand a written assessment status before closing.
What the state doesn't give you shapes every fight. No Arkansas statute requires notice or a hearing before a fine, caps a fine, sets a records-response deadline, mandates open board meetings, or protects solar panels. The Horizontal Property Act doesn't even create an assessment lien — it creates a sale-time payment preference, and any lien or foreclosure power an association wields must be rooted in its own recorded master deed, bylaws, or bill of assurance and enforced through the courts; Arkansas association foreclosures are judicial. Where the documents are ambiguous, Arkansas common law leans your way: restrictive covenants are strictly construed, with doubts resolved in favor of the free, unrestricted use of land.
The local twist
Arkansas has never passed a property owners' association statute. A subdivision association's power to fine, lien, or restrict comes entirely from the recorded bill of assurance and any recorded amendments, read as a contract, plus the Nonprofit Corporation Act's governance rules if it's incorporated. Demand the recorded documents before conceding any power exists — in Arkansas there is no statute for the board to fall back on.
Section 18-13-116 makes unpaid assessments payable at sale out of the price — or by the buyer, who is jointly and severally liable — with preference over everything except tax charges and recorded mortgage payments. What it never does is grant the association a statutory lien or power of sale. An Arkansas association claiming lien or foreclosure rights must point to its own recorded master deed or covenants, and must go through the courts to enforce them.
SB 323 (2025) modernized the Horizontal Property Act — declarant duties, unit-boundary rules, interest on arrears, unanimous-consent default for master deed amendments — but its own applicability clause limits it to regimes organized on or after September 1, 2025. An older building stays under the 1961-era text unless the owners amend the master deed and file reorganization documents to opt in. Which version governs you is the first question in any Arkansas condo dispute.
Arkansas courts have long held that restrictive covenants are not favored: they're strictly construed against limitations on the free use of land, and genuine ambiguity is resolved in the owner's favor. A vague clause in a decades-old bill of assurance stretched to cover a fence style, a parked truck, or a rental is exactly the kind of enforcement that doctrine exists to check.
Owner guides
Each guide explains your rights from the owner’s side, cites the controlling statute, walks the steps, and answers the questions boards hope you won’t ask.
Notice, hearing, and cure rights before a fine can stick.
When unpaid dues become a lien, and what limits foreclosure of your home.
The books and records you can inspect, how to ask, and the clock the board is on.
Quorum, ballots, proxies, recalls, and open-meeting rights that check board power.
ARC timelines, approvals, and the laws that protect solar, flags, and antennas.
Fined when a neighbor wasn't? How the docs and statute frame the defense.
Arkansas Horizontal Property Act (Ark. Code §§ 18-13-101 to 18-13-120); no general HOA act — subdivision associations run on recorded bills of assurance & the Arkansas Nonprofit Corporation Act of 1993 (Ark. Code §§ 4-33-101 et seq.), full text, section by section — the primary source behind every guide above.
The HOA and condo legislation we track in Arkansas, with plain-English notes on what each bill means for homeowners.
The violation-letter analyzer reads your fine or notice and points you at the Arkansas rights that apply.
Browse Arkansas associations — homeowner reviews, ratings, and the public records behind each community.