Community Association Act Education Homepage
First: Is Chapter 8a Your Chapter?
Most Utah homeowners' associations of separately owned lots fall here, but the test is not the kind of house you live in. Two things decide it, in this order:
- Your declaration. If it states that Chapter 8a applies, Chapter 8a applies.
- Your recorded plats. If the declaration does not specify whether Chapter 8a or Chapter 8 applies, your association is under Chapter 8a if its plats are not designated as condominium plats.
This rule applies no matter when your association was created.
What you own here is a lot: a division of land designated for separate ownership, shown on a recorded subdivision plat or described in a recorded governing document. Common areas are defined by what the association owns, maintains, repairs, or administers.
A condominium can also be in this section. A unit in a condominium association counts as a lot under Chapter 8a when the association is part of a development, so an owner within a master-planned community can be governed by both chapters at once. If you pay assessments to two associations, read both sections. To determine whether you fall within multiple associations and which section governs each of them, begin by identifying the associations to which you pay assessments. From there, you will need to get the governing documents for each of those associations and review them to determine which section is applicable to that specific association.
Start With the Overview
Read Rights and Responsibilities in a Community Association first. It summarizes what Chapter 8a provides and requires of you, and points to the detailed page for each subject.
If you have one specific question, the Frequently Asked Questions section answers the ten subjects this Office is asked about most. If you want the law itself, the list of statutes that affect owners and associations gives every statute that reaches you, what it does, and its effective date.
Topics in This Section
The buttons on this page go to the community association page for each subject. Each one states the governing section of Chapter 8a, the applicable deadlines and dollar figures, and the date the page was last checked against the code.
Your Association Has To Be Registered
An association must register with the Office of the Homeowners’ Association Ombudsman at the Department of Commerce no later than 90 days after the declaration establishing it is recorded, renew that registration every year, and file an update within 90 days of any change to the information it gave.
While an association is out of compliance, no lien arises under Section 57-8a-301, and the association may not enforce any existing lien. The period of noncompliance does not start until the 90 days run out, and the association ends it by registering. Once it does, a lien may then arise for events that happened during the gap. But if a residential lot is conveyed to an independent third party while the association remains out of compliance, the lien on that lot is extinguished, and the missed events cannot support a new lien.
If You Are in a Dispute With Your Association
Put it in writing to the association and use whatever dispute procedure your governing documents set out. You must exhaust that procedure before this Office can issue an advisory opinion.
Then read What This Office Can and Cannot Do before you file. It sets out the fee, the filing deadline, what an advisory opinion is worth, and the questions the statute does not permit this Office to answer, the largest of which is interpreting your governing documents.
If you are forming, dissolving, or combining one, start with Organizing and Dismantling an Association.
Reviewed against the Utah Code, current as of September 8, 2026.
