Homeowner rights in West Virginia

If your community was created after the Uniform Common Interest Ownership Act's effective date, condo, cooperative, or subdivision HOA alike, it runs on Chapter 36B (W. Va. Code § 36B-1-201). That is a real, distinctive feature of West Virginia's law: unlike states that split a separate condo act from a separate HOA act, West Virginia writes one unified statute for all three ownership forms. A homeowner in a planned-community subdivision and a condo unit owner across town cite the exact same sections, § 36B-3-102 for enforcement power, § 36B-3-116 for the assessment lien, § 36B-3-118 for records.

If your condo was created before that, under the old Unit Property Act (Chapter 36A), it isn't simply abandoned to whatever your declaration says. Section 36B-1-204 reaches back and applies a specific list of modern 36B sections to those older condos too, including the notice-and-hearing fining power, the assessment-lien mechanics, and the records right, but only for events happening after 36B's effective date, and only for the sections actually named on that list. Some modern protections did not make that list, which matters more than it sounds; know which chapter, and which specific sections, actually reach your community before you build an argument on a citation.

What West Virginia gives owners

On fines, W. Va. Code § 36B-3-102(a)(11) is unusual in where it sits: buried inside the association's basic list of powers rather than a stand-alone enforcement statute, it lets the association "impose charges for late payment of assessments and, after notice and an opportunity to be heard, levy reasonable fines for violations of the declaration, bylaws, rules and regulations of the association." That's a real notice-and-hearing floor, but the statute doesn't set a dollar cap or spell out how much notice or what the hearing looks like; those specifics, if you have them, live in your bylaws.

On money, § 36B-3-116 gives the association an automatic lien on your unit for unpaid assessments and unpaid fines alike, the moment either becomes due, but wraps it in real limits: a priority scheme that generally puts a first mortgage recorded before your delinquency ahead of the lien (with a narrow six-month carve-out for the association), a strict notice-and-recording process to perfect the lien against later purchasers, a three-year window to sue on it before it's extinguished, and a rule that awards attorney's fees to whichever side wins in court, not automatically to the board. On transparency, § 36B-3-118 makes "all financial and other records" reasonably available for a unit owner's examination, and a separate, faster right under § 36B-3-116(g) forces the association to hand you a written statement of what you actually owe within ten business days. And § 36B-3-108 requires at least one association meeting a year, with a defined notice window and required agenda content, though the statute is silent on quorum and proxy mechanics; that part is your bylaws' job. None of this is the board's favor to grant. It is your statutory floor, thin in places, real where it exists.