What is the goal of abused by HOA homeowners?
This website is a very good start, however it will not change and or prevent any future abuses by HOA organizations. The problem should be solved to prevent even possibility of abuses. There is a need for the new law to control abusive and greedy HOAs
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Sam
I fully agree, which is why I spend so much time Drafting, getting sponsored and promoting legislation to do just that. Take a look at the legislation page and the legislative update page, and you’ll get a picture of what we do and the help we need from all homeowners to get bills passed.
Saying or thinking that we need better protections is a very long way from actually getting protections in the law.
Dennis
Here is the first suggestion, that will have right away significant improvement to the situation.
How about proposing an amendment to current law.
Cover Letter to Legislator
Dear Senator/Representative,
We respectfully submit for your consideration the enclosed proposal for a legislative amendment to Arizona Revised Statutes pertaining to homeowners’ associations (HOAs). This proposal is submitted on behalf of concerned HOA members across Arizona who have experienced systemic barriers to financial transparency. The proposed statute would require 24/7 secure digital access to HOA financial records while protecting individual homeowners from retaliation.
We ask for your leadership in restoring accountability and transparency in HOA governance. Thank you for your public service.
Respectfully,
Concerned Residents of Arizona HOAs
(Names withheld for privacy and protection)
Legislative Justification Memo
1. Purpose
To require all homeowners associations (HOAs) in Arizona to provide their members with 24/7 secure online access to key financial records, while protecting those members from tracking or retaliation related to their information access.
2. Background
Current Arizona law requires HOAs to make financial records available upon request, but the process is burdensome, time-limited, and prone to retaliation. HOAs often delay responses, charge unnecessary fees, or target members who inquire too deeply. A digital access law with anti-retaliation protections would restore balance between homeowners and HOA boards.
3. Proposed Statutory Amendment
Amend A.R.S. §33-1805 (Planned Communities Act – Open Meetings and Records):
Add Subsection I:
Each homeowners association shall maintain a secure digital platform accessible to all members of the association. This platform shall provide access to the following financial documents, updated no less than monthly:
– Monthly and annual budgets and actuals
– Current bank statements
– Year-to-date income and expense reports
– Reserve fund documentation
– Records of major expenditures and capital improvements
– Results of audits or financial reviews
These documents shall be downloadable at no cost to the member. Access must be secured through member authentication. No HOA board, management company, or third-party vendor may track or record a member’s viewing or download activity except as required by court order.
No homeowner shall be subject to retaliation—including but not limited to fines, harassment, exclusion from amenities, or selective enforcement—for accessing or requesting access to these records.
Nothing in this section shall prevent an HOA from voluntarily publishing these records to a public platform, provided personally identifiable or sensitive financial data is redacted.
4. Anticipated Impact
This proposal promotes transparency and accountability in HOA financial management, protects homeowner rights, and deters abusive governance. It also reduces administrative burdens and the potential for litigation by clarifying member access as a legal right.
Enforcement: Any board member who knowingly violates this section by denying, restricting, or obstructing access to required records, or who authorizes tracking in violation of this law, shall be personally liable for a civil penalty not to exceed $100 per occurrence. Each documented incident of obstruction or denial shall constitute a separate violation. Board members found in violation shall be individually liable regardless of any indemnification provision in the association’s governing documents.
Sam,
Thank you for your thoughts but as I mentioned earlier such a proposal will simply not fly at the legislature as totally impractical to expect all associations to be subject to such restrictions. Accountability provisions are necessary, and I’ve drafted specific proposals to that end. Your proposal provides no real change to the records request provision other than the very specific process for records access. Al the documents you identify have to be made available today under existing law. While i agree that many if not most association deny access to some of these records or delay the access beyond the 10 days required in law, this is not a solution that can be practically applied across the sate and pass muster of the legislature. You are free to write you specific legislators to see if they will support your request. I suspect that they will reach out to me for comment, that I will provide. There are solution that are practical and relevant to your concern that we can put forward if your legislators are interest in addressing this issue, just not this one.
Dennis
I am not sure what is your proposal. it would be nice if you provide the link or text. You just admitted that current situation is not working. In this case the new approach is needed. The HOA member should not beg for permission to look at the books. The books must become readily available on the HOA website for the members of HOA to review the books whenever HOA members want. The other major thing is that HOA boards are fully protected, and members of the boards are untouchables. The law should hold any board member accountable for their misdeeds. If Your proposal stops halfway, it will not be useful.
Sincerely
Sam
Sam,
As you stated I fully agree that significant and substantive changes are required to better protect the rights of homeowners and to hold the associations and their agents accountable to the law. But to simply come forward and state that this problem (records availability) needs to be solved one way simply does not reflect any understanding of the legislative process or of the forces confronted by legislators by the lobbyist for the trade organizations of CAI, AACM, the Builders Association or the Realtors that will all work to oppose any meaningful changes to HOA statute. This is why I created this coalition because we will get meaningful legislation only when enough homeowners demand meaningful legislation from their particular legislators. I can write reasonable legislation that most legislators will support but all it takes is one strategic legislator that has the ear of any of the trade organization to kill any bill. Just look at the current session’s legislation and see every bill that was held in committee. Each of those bills that we support initiated or supported had real value yet most of them died based on the committee chair refusing to hear that bill in their committee. Most of those bill dies without a single legislator getting the opportunity to vote on that legislation.
To get anything passed you need to start from a point that can be easily supported by a majority of the legislature than work the system hard to get the bill assigned to the right committee and heard by that committee chairman. Mandating a process for immediate access to all records will simply not pass muster and will be doomed from the onset. Months of work and careful thought goes into drafting meaningful legislation for any proposal to have a chance. While I’ve already drafted and developed my targeted proposals for next session starting in January of 2026, I’ll be working the entire summer and fall to communicate those proposals to the legislators and to get the legislative leadership to back the proposed legislation. I’ll provide you some examples of what I’ve developed is separate correspondence. I’ll be presenting all my proposals to the entire coalition mid-summer so that the coalition can be leveraged to contact each constituent’s legislators to either sponsor or support that legislation.
If you want to help, please express your concerns to your legislators directly and ask for their help in addressing those concerns. Ask that they have their staff contact me and I’ll work with them to develop appropriate and fair legislation. There are many things in law that can be changed but the fundamental nature of these communities will never be changed by any state, they are far too entrenched in law from over 75 years of history.
Dennis
Hi Dennis.
Please understand that I admire and respect your efforts. You are the only person who attempts to do something. Even if I disagree with you sometimes, I still have the outmost respect for you.
Sincerely
Sam