What is your HOA actually required to do — and by when?
Annual meetings, owner records, reserves, elections, mailed notices — every board carries a stack of obligations, and missing one can mean penalties or personal exposure. Here’s a plain-English, board-first overview of the common requirements and how your state shapes them.
Important: this page is directional and educational, not legal advice. Laws change and the details depend on your state and your governing documents. Verify current requirements with your association’s attorney before acting.
A missed deadline isn’t a typo. It’s exposure.
Self-managed boards don’t have a manager watching the calendar. Miss a required notice, an election step, or a records request, and you can face penalties, invalidated decisions, or personal liability for the volunteers involved. The good news: the obligations are knowable and trackable — once you know what they are.
What nearly every board has to handle.
The specifics vary by state and your documents, but most boards are responsible for these:
Your state shapes the details.
A high-level sense of where each state’s community-association law focuses. These are general directions as of this writing, not exact requirements — confirm current statute with your attorney.
BoardPath turns “what are we required to do?” into a calendar you can trust.
BoardPath reads your governing documents, tracks your obligations and deadlines, and answers compliance questions cited to your own documents and applicable law — flagging clearly when a question crosses into territory only your attorney should decide. Steward watches the calendar so a volunteer board doesn’t have to, and tells you how boards typically handle each obligation. It’s organizing and information, not legal advice — but it’s the difference between scrambling and knowing.
Tell BoardPath your meeting or election date and it works backward from your state’s rules and your own documents to the last safe day to mail — so you know the last day to act, not just that a deadline is coming. And because it ranks state statute above your governing documents, it flags the places where the law overrides your CC&Rs — so following your own documents to the letter never quietly puts you offside the statute.
And when an obligation ends in the mailbox — the violation, assessment, or lien notice that legally must go certified with proof of delivery — BoardPath is rolling out one-click dispatch. Drafted, then sent: one click prints, folds, stamps, and mails the notice first-class, or certified when the law requires proof of delivery, with tracking saved to the record. The print-fold-stuff-stamp run a board used to do by hand, gone. Coming for founding boards
Compliance, in plain English.
What is an HOA board generally required to do?
Requirements vary by state and by your own governing documents, but boards generally must hold an annual meeting with proper notice, give owners access to records, adopt a budget, fund reserves, run elections fairly, and send certain official notices by mail. Always verify the specifics for your state and documents with your association’s attorney.
Do HOA compliance requirements differ by state?
Yes, significantly. States like Florida, Texas, California, and Ohio each have their own community-association statutes that shape notice periods, records access, reserves, and elections. Requirements also change over time, so current statute should be verified with counsel before acting.
How does BoardPath help with compliance?
BoardPath reads your governing documents and tracks your obligations on a calendar, and answers “what are we required to do here?” cited to your documents and applicable law — flagging when a question needs your attorney. It is an organizing and information tool, not a substitute for legal advice.
Stop guessing what your board is required to do.
BoardPath tracks your obligations and answers them from your own documents — cited, with your attorney one flag away.