End of developer control

The developer just handed over your HOA. Here’s what you now own — and where to start.

Enough homes sold, and control of your association passed from the developer to the owners — to you. Now a brand-new volunteer board holds legal responsibility for a corporation, a common area, reserves, contracts, and a stack of governing documents nobody walked you through. There’s no manual and no one to ask. Take a breath. This page lays out exactly what you inherited, what to check first, and how to get your footing without hiring your way out of it.

See what your documents actually require →Get the turnover records checklist
What just happened

Turnover is the moment the owners take control of the association from the developer.

When a developer builds a community, it runs the HOA at first — setting the budget, signing the contracts, appointing the board. As homes sell, control transfers to the owners. That handoff is called turnover (or the end of declarant control). The exact trigger — how many homes must sell, on what timeline — is set by your state’s law and your own governing documents, so it varies; confirm yours with counsel. What’s the same everywhere: the day control transfers, the developer’s role ends, and a volunteer board of owners becomes solely, legally responsible for the association. The hard part isn’t the paperwork of the handoff. It’s that you inherited a running corporation with no institutional memory — no one who can tell you why a rule exists, what’s already been decided, or what’s about to come due.

That’s the real problem at turnover, and it’s worth naming plainly: the villain here isn’t the developer, and it isn’t a management company. It’s the vacuum — the missing playbook. A board leaving a management company at least knows what a manager used to do. A turned-over board is starting from nothing, and the clock on obligations, filings, and renewals is already running whether or not anyone knows about them.

This isn’t leaving a management company you hired
If your board is exiting a manager, start with Should your board self-manage? instead. Turnover means the developer handed the association to the owners — a different starting point with a different first move.
Take inventory first

Before anything else, find out what you actually have.

The single most useful thing a new board can do at turnover is take inventory — because you can’t govern what you can’t find, and gaps are easiest to fix while the developer’s team is still reachable. Here’s the short list of what should have been handed over, and what you’re now responsible for.

All governing documents — and every amendment
The declaration/CC&Rs, bylaws, articles, rules and policies, and each recorded amendment. Missing amendments are the most common and most dangerous gap.
The owner roster
Names, units, mailing addresses — the list you’ll need for every notice and vote.
Financial and reserve records
Budgets, the reserve study (if one exists), bank details, and prior financials. The financial audit itself is a CPA’s job — get one; this is about confirming the records exist and transfer to you.
Insurance policies and any open claims
The coverage in force and anything already filed — so nothing lapses in the handoff.
Vendor contracts
Landscaping, pool, insurance, management — some signed by the developer, some you may be able to review or renegotiate now that control has transferred.
Warranty and construction records
Plans, plats, warranties — the paper you’ll need if a defect surfaces later. Warranty windows can close; if you suspect a problem, talk to counsel now, not later.

And what you’re now responsible for.

Running the association as a fiduciary
Acting in good faith, with care, for the community as a whole.
Funding what your documents require
Reserves, insurance, obligations — on a budget the developer no longer subsidizes.
Meeting deadlines you didn’t set
Statutory notice windows, filings, renewals, the reserve-study cadence.
Running the first real election
The owners’ first true vote — quorum, notice, proxies, terms.
A calm first move

You have three options at turnover. One of them is a trap.

Every board coming out of developer control faces the same fork: hire a management company, manage it yourselves, or do nothing and hope it holds. Doing nothing is the trap — not because anyone’s careless, but because obligations, deadlines, and filings keep coming due whether or not a board is tracking them, and by the time something surfaces it’s usually late. The other two are both legitimate. This guide is for the boards that want to run the community themselves — and want to do it without missing the things that matter.

Days 1–30: take inventory
Collect every document and record, confirm what’s missing while the developer’s team is reachable, and read the governing documents top-down.
Days 31–60: understand what’s due
Map the obligations, filings, and renewals you now own. Review the vendor contracts you inherited and the reserve study, if there is one.
Days 61–90: stand on your own
Run your first real board meeting and set the first owner budget. Pick one thing to do well — a clean record, a tracked deadline — before taking on more.
Where BoardPath fits

The institutional memory you didn’t inherit — on day one.

BoardPath is the governance brain for a self-managing board. Upload the documents you inherited, and instead of reading 200 pages to find the one provision that matters, you ask a question in plain English and get a cited answer — ranked by which document actually controls. It’s built to give a brand-new board the working knowledge a seasoned one would have, without a management company’s fee.

State law
Overrides everything below
overrides ↓
Declaration / CC&Rs
Controls over all association documents
CONTROLS
overrides ↓
Bylaws
Controls over rules & policies
overrides ↓
Rules & policies
Lowest authority
Ask your own documents, get a cited answer
Ranked by authority — state law, then your declaration/CC&Rs, then bylaws, then rules — so you know which provision governs and where it came from. Every answer carries a plain-English confidence read, not just a number.
An orientation report for a board that inherited nothing
BoardPath generates a report of your governing structure, open issues, and what needs attention — so your first meeting starts oriented instead of guessing.
The deadlines you just inherited, surfaced before they ambush you
The obligations and renewal windows written into your documents surface on the dashboard, so a filing or a reserve-study cadence doesn’t slip past a board that didn’t know it existed.
A record of the “why,” starting now
The last board’s reasoning walked out the door at turnover. From here, decisions and answers are kept and cited — so the next board inherits the “why,” not a cold start.
The Boardroom

Can the board cap the number of rental units in the community?

Yes. The Declaration limits rentals to 25% of units, and that cap controls. A later Bylaws provision allows rentals more broadly, but the Declaration sits higher in authority, so the 25% cap governs.

Transparent Confidence88 · STRONG
Declaration § 8.2Bylaws § 4.1
Bylaws § 4.1 reads broader than Declaration § 8.2 — the Declaration controls.

BoardPath gives you information grounded in your own governing documents. It doesn’t replace your attorney — for a legal question, a warranty window, or a genuine document conflict, it tells you to call counsel, and hands you a clean packet to bring them.

See the full self-managed stack →
Who’s behind it

Built by someone who ran the handoff from the other side.

BoardPath is built by a Certified Manager of Community Associations who spent 14 years running HOAs and condos — including the turnover moment you’re in now, from the management side of the table. The governing-document hierarchy, the obligations that come due, the records that go missing at handoff: this is built around the problems a real manager solved by hand for years, now handled by software a board can run itself. BoardPath is opening its founding cohort to self-managing boards — the earliest communities to run their governance this way.

Turnover questions

What new boards ask right after turnover.

What is HOA developer turnover?

Turnover is when control of a homeowners association passes from the developer that built the community to the owners who live in it. Once enough homes have sold, a volunteer board of owners takes over legal responsibility for the association — its documents, finances, contracts, and common areas. The exact trigger is set by your state’s law and your governing documents, so it varies; confirm yours with counsel.

What should a new board do first after turnover?

Take inventory before anything else. Collect every governing document and amendment, the owner roster, financial and reserve records, insurance policies, vendor contracts, and warranty paperwork — and confirm what’s missing while the developer’s team is still reachable. Then read the documents in order of authority and map the obligations you now have to fund and file. The first 90 days are about learning what you inherited, not making big moves.

Do we have to hire a management company after turnover?

No. A board can run its community itself. At turnover you have three options — hire a manager, self-manage, or do nothing — and doing nothing is the risky one, because obligations and deadlines keep coming due whether or not anyone is tracking them. Many boards self-manage successfully; the requirement isn’t a manager, it’s a reliable way to know what your documents require and when things are due.

How long does a developer control an HOA?

It depends on your state’s law and your governing documents — control usually transfers as a set share of the homes are sold or after a set period, but the specific thresholds vary widely from state to state. Your declaration and your state statute are the two places that answer it for your community. When in doubt, confirm the exact trigger with your association’s attorney.

Keep reading
Should your board self-manage?
Hire a manager or run it yourselves — the honest guide to the fork you face at turnover.
How HOA reserves work
The reserve study is the number that matters most in your first budget. Here’s how to read it.
New to the board?
The plain-English starting guide: your duty, what to read first, and your first 90 days.
Your first 90 days on the board
What to read, what to ask, and what not to do before you’ve learned the community you now govern.
Responding to a records request
A self-managing board’s playbook: intake, verifying the requester, what’s inspectable, and meeting the deadline.
Tempted to paste your CC&Rs into ChatGPT?
Why a general chatbot sounds sure and still cites the wrong section — and what to use instead.
The self-managed tool stack
Every category of tool a board needs to run its community without a management company.
Start on solid ground

Run the community you inherited — without missing what matters.

Get the New Board Turnover Checklist: the records you should have received, what you’re now responsible for, and the first-90-days runbook. One resource your whole board can use.

BoardPath’s founding cohort is open to self-managing boards — $39/mo, locked for life, and $0 out of pocket until launch (it’s $59/mo at public launch, flat no matter your community’s size).

Become a founding board →