When Your State’s HOA Law Does Not Apply to You

Last verified: September 24, 2026 · See updates

Twelve states set a size, an age or a dormancy line that decides whether the statute you just read binds your association at all. Below 24 units in Vermont, below 12 in Kansas, before 2016 in Alabama, and the rule you were about to comply with may not reach you. This page gives the threshold, the statute and what still applies, for each of the twelve.

The twelve states at a glance

Links open the official state code or legislature page we read. Where a state publishes its statutes only as a chapter file, the link goes to that file and the section number is in the first column of the detail below.

Exemptions that turn on how many units you have

Vermont: 24 units, planned communities only

27A V.S.A. 1-203(a) reads: “If a planned community: (1) contains no more than 24 units and is not subject to any development rights; … it is subject only to sections 1-105, 1-106, and 1-107 of this title unless the declaration provides that this entire title is applicable.”

Those three sections are separate titles and taxation (1-105), local ordinances and building codes (1-106), and eminent domain (1-107). None of them governs meetings, records, budgets, assessments or elections. A qualifying Vermont planned community has no state statutory duties in any of those areas.

Two points the summaries usually drop. First, the section says “planned community.” A 6-unit Vermont condominium is fully inside the act. Second, there is a route that has nothing to do with unit count. Under 1-203(a)(2), the declaration may cap the average annual common expense liability of residential units at $300, as adjusted under 1-115. Optional user fees and insurance premiums are excluded from that cap. We did not compute the adjusted figure, and the statute does not print one.

For a planned community created before January 1, 1999, 1-204(b) applies the same 24-unit rule. If that community amends its declaration under 1-206, it loses the exemption and picks up the longer 1-204(a) list.

West Virginia: 12 units, planned communities only

W. Va. Code 36B-1-203 reads: “If a planned community: (1) Contains no more than twelve units and is not subject to any development rights; … it is subject only to sections 1-105 …, 1-106 … and 1-107 … unless the declaration provides that this entire chapter is applicable.” The three surviving sections are the same three as Vermont’s.

The heading of the section limits it to “small and limited expense liability planned communities.” There is no condominium equivalent anywhere in 36B-1-203, so a 4-unit West Virginia condominium is fully subject to chapter 36B.

36B-1-205 is the twin for communities created before the chapter took effect, and it is wider: it covers a “cooperative or planned community” of no more than twelve units. Still not condominiums. West Virginia also carries the limited-expense route, with the $300 cap adjusted under 1-114.

Kansas: below 12 units and the act does not reach you

K.S.A. 58-4605(a): “This act, and amendments thereto, apply to all common interest communities that contain 12 or more units that may be used for residential purposes and are created within this state after the effective date of this act.” K.S.A. 58-4606(a) applies the same 12-unit line to communities created before the effective date, with a carve-out: the act does not reach “actions or decisions of an association or its board of directors concerning events and circumstances occurring before the effective date.”

Three things to get right. The wording is “12 or more,” so the gate is 12 and an 11-unit community is outside the act entirely. The count is of units, defined in 58-4602 as “a physical portion of the common interest community designated for separate ownership or occupancy,” so count units and not lots. And the qualifier is “units that may be used for residential purposes,” so a mixed-use building’s commercial units may not count toward 12. We found no Kansas decision construing that phrase and do not suggest how a court would read it.

Alaska: 12 units before 1986, or a $100 declaration cap

AS 34.08.050: “If a cooperative or planned community created within the state before January 1, 1986 contains no more than 12 units and is not subject to any development rights, it is subject only to” the range running from AS 34.08.720 through AS 34.08.740, “unless the declaration is amended … to take advantage of the provisions of AS 34.08.060.” The three surviving sections are separate titles and taxation, local ordinances and building codes, and eminent domain.

AS 34.08.030 gives the same three-section treatment to a second group. The community must be a planned community created after January 1, 1986, with no development rights. Its declaration must state that average annual common expense liability of residential units may not exceed $100, as adjusted under AS 34.08.820. Optional user fees and insurance premiums are excluded from that figure.

Neither section says “condominium.” A small Alaska condominium has no size-based escape, and AS 34.08.020, the old small-cooperative section, is repealed. AS 34.08.820 adjusts the $100 in 10% steps. It runs against the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers on a 1967 base, with December 1979 as the reference index. The step only happens when the change reaches 10% or more. The statute prints no current figure, and neither do we.

An Alaska community created before 1986 that is too large for 34.08.050 still gets a shortened list under AS 34.08.040(a). That list leaves out meetings (34.08.390), quorums (34.08.400), voting and proxies (34.08.410), the board and budget section (34.08.330) and common expense assessments (34.08.460). It includes the assessment lien (34.08.470) and association records (34.08.490). So a pre-1986 Alaska board can have no statutory meeting rules and a statutory records duty at the same time.

New Mexico: fewer than 30 lots, and only if you formed before July 2013

NMSA 1978, 47-16-15(B): “Sections 47-16-9, 47-16-10 and 47-16-14 NMSA 1978 do not apply to homeowner associations created before July 1, 2013 and that have fewer than thirty lots; provided that any amendment to the community documents of an association created before July 1, 2013 shall comply with the Homeowner Association Act.”

Three sections drop away: 47-16-9 (proxy and absentee voting and ballot counting), 47-16-10 (the financial audit, review or compilation by an independent CPA at least every three years, assessed as a common expense) and 47-16-14 (attorney fee awards). The audit relief is the one with a dollar value attached.

The proviso is the trap. Amend your community documents and the amendment has to comply with the act. The exemption is not a permanent opt-out.

Nebraska: 25 units, but only the disclosure duties

Neb. Rev. Stat. 76-878(b)(7) exempts a “condominium composed of not more than twenty-five units which is not subject to any development rights” from the duty to prepare or deliver a public offering statement or a resale statement. It reaches sections 76-878 to 76-894 and no further. The rest of the Nebraska Condominium Act still binds a 10-unit Nebraska condominium.

The practical effect is on sales: in a qualifying Nebraska condominium a seller owes the buyer no statutory resale certificate. Boards and sellers get this backwards in both directions.

Louisiana: the budget duty starts at 26 lots

La. R.S. 9:1141.34(A)(1): “For planned communities consisting of more than twenty-five lots, the association shall submit, at least annually, a proposed budget for the planned community for consideration by the lot owners at a duly called meeting of the association.”

Read the boundary carefully. “More than twenty-five” binds at 26 lots. A 25-lot Louisiana planned community is outside the duty. That is the opposite boundary from Nebraska’s “not more than twenty-five,” which exempts at 25. Two states, the same number, opposite results.

What a covered association owes is more than a spreadsheet. Within 30 days of adopting a proposed budget, the board gives every lot owner a summary. That summary includes any reserves and the basis on which reserves are calculated and funded. The board also sets a ratification meeting not fewer than 10 and not more than 60 days out. If owners do not ratify, the last ratified budget continues.

Exemptions that turn on when your association was created

Alabama: a pre-2016 HOA is outside the HOA Act unless it votes itself in

Ala. Code 35-20-3(a): the Alabama Homeowners’ Association Act “applies to all developments subject to a declaration providing for a homeowners’ association recorded in the office of the judge of probate … on or after January 1, 2016, and any association formed prior to that time, provided the association, by a majority of its members, elects to be governed by this chapter.”

So the cutoff is not absolute. A pre-2016 Alabama HOA can bring itself under the statute by a majority vote of its members. Until it does, Alabama supplies no default HOA governance code for it. Its declaration and bylaws still bind, and if it is incorporated it remains under Alabama’s nonprofit entity law in Title 10A.

35-20-3(b) also excludes nonresidential developments, cooperatives, time-share developments, campgrounds, and any association regulated under chapters 8 or 8A of the title.

Alabama condominiums are a different story, and one we had wrong in our own notes. Ala. Code 35-8A-102(a) applies the Uniform Condominium Act to condominiums created after January 1, 1991, with a reach-back list for older ones. But 35-8A-102(b) says the older Condominium Ownership Act, Ala. Code 35-8-1 through 35-8-22, “do not apply to condominiums created after January 1, 1991, unless the declaration so provides in the case of a condominium containing four or fewer units.” That statute is still in the Code. A pre-1991 Alabama condominium is governed by the Condominium Ownership Act, plus the reach-back sections of chapter 8A. It is not ungoverned.

Nebraska: condominiums created before 1984

Neb. Rev. Stat. 76-826(a): “The Nebraska Condominium Act shall apply to all condominiums created within this state after January 1, 1984.” Older condominiums are not left alone. The same subsection applies an enumerated list to them for events and circumstances occurring after January 1, 1984, without invalidating existing instruments. That list includes 76-874 (the assessment lien), 76-876 (records) and parts of 76-860 (association powers). A pre-1984 Nebraska condominium board does have statutory duties.

Idaho: the turnover rules reach only associations formed after July 1, 2025

Idaho Code 55-3204A opens: “For any homeowner’s association formed after July 1, 2025, the following provisions shall apply.” The trigger is the date the association was formed. Almost no existing Idaho association is covered by that declarant turnover regime.

Idaho’s size exemption is narrow and is often overstated. 55-3204B(3): “The provisions of subsection (2) of this section shall not apply to a homeowner’s association with fewer than twenty (20) residences or during the declarant control period of the homeowner’s association.” Subsection (2) is two rules: no single owner may hold proxies for more than 50% of the total votes, and no two people from the same household in the same primary residence may both sit on the board.

Subsection (1) is not exempted. It restricts board membership to one owner per lot. A 12-home Idaho association is still bound by that. Anyone who tells you 55-3204B does not apply below 20 residences is reading subsection (3) too widely.

One open point: “residences” is not defined in chapter 32, and we checked the definitions at 55-3203. An association with 20 platted lots and 14 built homes has no answer on the face of the statute. We are not going to invent one.

Exemptions that turn on what the association did or failed to do

Montana: fifteen years without a meeting

MCA 70-17-210(3)(a): “an association or governing body of a real property development that has not met for a period of 15 years is prohibited from taking an enforcement action against the owner of an interest in real property subject to a covenant, condition, or restriction whose use of the property is substantially similar to the nature and scope of the use of other properties in the development.”

Read what this does and does not do. The trigger is fifteen years without a meeting, not fifteen years without enforcing. The bar protects one owner at a time, and only an owner whose use looks like the neighbors’. An outlier use is not protected. And 70-17-210(3)(b) keeps six categories enforceable anyway.

• Compliance with federal, state and local law.
• Easements and rights-of-way.
• Maintenance of infrastructure or improvements.
• Compliance with a court order or a government approval.
• Installation, maintenance or removal of utilities.
• Abatement of a nuisance.

Two more provisions in the same section decide most dormant-HOA arguments. Subsection (2) gives an owner an abandonment defense. The owner offers evidence that no enforcement action has been undertaken for the period set in MCA 27-2-202. Subsection (4) defines an enforcement action as one where “the covenant was equally and consistently enforced under whatever method an association uses to enforce covenants on all properties subject to the covenant over at least a 2-year period.” Sporadic or selective enforcement does not count.

Whether a dormant association can cure this by resuming meetings is not answered on the face of the statute, and we will not guess. This section has been amended twice since it was enacted and is one to re-read each Montana session. We read it on September 24, 2026.

Separately, MCA 70-17-901 limits what an association can enforce against an existing member. It may not enforce a covenant in a way that restricts the types of use allowed when that member acquired the property, absent the member’s written consent. Subsection (5) creates no private right of action for anything before May 9, 2019. The section reaches “types of use,” so do not read it as a freeze on all covenant amendments.

Iowa: covenants that expire 21 years after recording

Iowa Code 614.24(1) bars an action “after twenty-one years from the recording of such deed of conveyance or contract … unless the claimant shall … file a verified claim with the recorder of the county wherein said real estate is located within said twenty-one year period.”

The statute bars an action. It does not declare the covenant void, and this page will not say “extinguished” because the text does not. The effect on a board trying to enforce is much the same.

The twenty-one years runs from the recording of the instrument that created the restriction. Not from the date the association incorporated, and not from the last amendment. “Use restrictions” is defined at 614.24(5) and is wide: “limitations or prohibitions on commercial uses, rental use, parking and storage of recreational vehicles and their attachments, ownership of pets, outdoor domestic uses, construction and use of accessory structures, building dimensions and colors, building construction materials, and landscaping.” Excluded are affirmative easements, cost-sharing agreements, and agreements for joint use and maintenance of driveways, party walls, fences, wells, roads and common areas.

A filed claim is not permanent. Iowa Code 614.25: “The filing of such claim shall extend for a further period of twenty-one years the time within which such action may be brought … and successive claims for further like extensions may be filed.” The clock restarts every twenty-one years.

Iowa condominiums and cooperatives are protected and have nothing to file. Iowa Code 499B.21(2) and 499A.23(2) both provide that the association’s documents and the property interests they create “shall not be extinguished, limited, or impaired by application of section 558.68 or 614.24.” A conventional Iowa HOA with a recorded declaration of covenants gets none of that protection.

The section was last amended in 2014. If you have seen a 2020s date attached to it, that is wrong.

South Dakota: forty years, and only inside certain municipalities

SDCL 11-5-4: “The restrictions authorized by 11-5-1 and 11-5-2 continue in force for a period as may be prescribed in a declaration or contract but not exceeding forty years from the date of such declaration or contract.”

The forty years runs from the date of the declaration, not the date the register of deeds stamped it. SDCL 11-5-2 requires recording within thirty days of execution and acknowledgment, so the two dates can differ. Chapter 11-5 contains no renewal, revival or re-recording mechanism. Forty years is a ceiling on the original instrument. The cap was raised from twenty-five years to forty by SL 2021, ch 56. A South Dakota declaration written in the 1990s was drafted against the older ceiling.

SDCL 11-5-1 grants the covenant power to “the owner or owners of any real property situated in any first or second class municipality within this state.” SDCL 9-2-1 sets the classes by population. A first class municipality has five thousand and over. A second class has between five hundred and four thousand nine hundred ninety-nine. A third class has fewer than five hundred. Covenants on land in a third class municipality, or in unincorporated county territory, are not authorized by chapter 11-5 at all. For rural and lake-area associations that is the more important line.

SDCL 11-5-11, added in 2024, is a gap-filler: where the declaration has no modification provision, “a vote of two-thirds of the owners of real property governed by the declaration or contract is required to modify the declaration or contract.” If your declaration contains any amendment clause, that clause controls and 11-5-11 does not apply. The count is of owners, not of lots and not of votes cast.

South Dakota condominiums sit under SDCL chapter 43-15A and operate through a recorded master deed. We read chapter 43-15A and found no cross-reference to chapter 11-5 and no duration limit on a master deed. We are not going to assert that the forty-year cap applies to a South Dakota condominium, because the statutes do not say so either way.

Three ways boards get this wrong

1. Reading a planned-community exemption as if it covered condominiums. Vermont, West Virginia and Alaska all write theirs for planned communities. A small condominium in those states is fully covered by the act. Check which kind of community your declaration created before you rely on a unit count.
2. Getting the boundary backwards. “More than twenty-five” and “not more than twenty-five” are one word apart and opposite. Louisiana binds at 26 lots. Nebraska exempts at 25 units. Count your units, then read the preposition.
3. Treating an exemption as permanent. New Mexico’s ends when you amend your documents. Alaska’s and Vermont’s end if the declaration is amended to opt in. Alabama’s can be ended by a majority vote of the members. An exemption is a current position, not a property right.

What this page does not cover

• The other thirty-eight states. Their acts may still carry thresholds we have not read at primary text. Absence from this page is not evidence that a state has no threshold. The state law comparison table covers 49 states on five other topics.
• North Dakota. Our working notes listed NDCC 47-10-02.1 as a four-unit association exemption. It is not. It is a seller disclosure statute that applies when a licensed broker assists a party and the property is a residential dwelling of no more than four units, and it imposes nothing on an association. The companion section, NDCC 47-10-02.3, has no unit cap and does reach associations: it requires the association or condominium project to furnish the resale documents within ten days of a seller’s request. We removed the claim rather than publish it.
• Federal and lender rules. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac project standards apply regardless of any state exemption. See the 15% condo reserve requirement.
• Your governing documents. Nothing on this page reads your declaration. That is the document that decides most of what your board must do.

Do this next

1. Find out what kind of community you are. Your recorded declaration says condominium, planned community, cooperative or horizontal property regime. Half the exemptions above turn on that word.
2. Count units the way your statute counts them. Kansas counts units that may be used for residential purposes. Louisiana counts lots. Idaho counts residences and does not define the term.
3. Check the date your declaration was recorded. Alabama, Alaska, Nebraska, New Mexico and Idaho all key an applicability rule to a date.
4. If you are in Iowa and you are not a condominium or a cooperative, find the recording date of your declaration and work out whether twenty-one years have run. If they are close, a verified claim with the county recorder is the step that preserves your covenants, and that is a question for an Iowa attorney, not for a template.
5. Read your state’s entry in the 49-state comparison table for the rules that do apply to you, then use the annual operations calendar to put the surviving deadlines on a schedule.
6. Take one specific question to a lawyer in your state. “Does 27A V.S.A. 1-203 exempt us?” is a cheap question. “Are we compliant?” is not.

Text CC BY 4.0; cite as CommonKeel, When Your State’s HOA Law Does Not Apply to You, https://commonkeel.com/states/small-association-exemptions/, verified 2026-09-24.