What You Own, and What the Association Owns

You own your lot. You do not own a statutory share of the common areas. Section 57-8a-102(5) defines common areas by what the association does with the property, meaning what it owns, maintains, repairs, or administers. The phrase "undivided interest" does not appear anywhere in this chapter.

This has a practical consequence worth knowing early. Chapter 8a conditions many of your rights on a percentage of "allocated voting interests," but never defines that term and never allocates votes. Your declaration is the only place your voting power is written down. Reading the Act will not tell you what your vote is worth.

Your Rights

• Records. Request association records and receive them within 10 business days.
• A say before a rule is adopted. Under Section 57-8a-217(2), the board must deliver notice at least 15 days before the meeting at which it will consider a change to a rule or design criterion, provide an open forum at that meeting, and deliver the adopted change within 15 days thereafter.
• Disapprove a rule. A board's rule action is disapproved if, within 60 days of the meeting, at least 51% of all allocated voting interests vote against it at a special meeting. The board need not call that meeting unless owners petition for it, and once the petition arrives, the board's action is stayed until the meeting is held. Filing the petition, not winning the vote, is what pauses the rule.
• Disapprove a budget. A budget is disapproved if, within 45 days of the meeting where it was presented, at least 51% of all allocated voting interests vote to disapprove at a special meeting called for that purpose.
• Contest a fine. Request an informal hearing within 30 days of receiving notice. No interest or late fee may accrue until the board holds the hearing and you receive a final decision.
• No late fee without a published schedule. Before charging a late fee, the association must adopt a fee schedule by rule and give every owner a copy. Because the schedule is a rule, it carries the 15-day notice and the owner veto above.
• Notice by mail if you ask for it. You may demand in writing that the association send notices by mail, even where the documents allow email or website posting.
• Open board meetings, with a defined list of subjects that may be closed.
• Limits on what rules and CC&Rs can do to you. Section 57-8a-218 limits rules and design criteria. Section 57-8a-212(4) limits declarations. Together, they reach political and religious displays, for-sale signs, security cameras, driveway parking, vegetable gardens, water-wise landscaping, contractor choice, internal accessory dwelling units, and restrictions on a dwelling's interior.

Your Responsibilities

• Pay your proportionate share of common expenses and any other assessment the association levies.
• Maintain your lot. Unless the declaration or the insurance part says otherwise, your lot is yours, and the common areas are the association's. Note that this allocation, and the association's notice and repair duties with it, do not apply during the period of administrative control, meaning while the developer still runs the association.
• Comply with the governing documents.

What the Association Must Do

• Adopt a budget and present it to the members.
• Conduct a reserve analysis and review it at least every three years.
• Record its bylaws, no later than the first lot sale, in every county where the community sits.
• Register annually with the Department of Commerce. This one has teeth: while the association is out of compliance, a lien may not arise, and an existing lien may not be enforced, and if a lot sells to an independent third party during the gap, the lien is extinguished.
• Follow the rule adoption procedure above before changing a rule or design criterion.

If You Fall Behind on Assessments

The association has a lien under Section 57-8a-301 and can foreclose. Under Section 57-8a-303(3), it may not use nonjudicial foreclosure if the lien includes a fine, and may not use it unless the lien includes an assessment more than 180 days delinquent.

Separately, if the association moves to cut off utility or recreational access for delinquency, you have 14 days from the date you receive the notice to request a hearing in writing, and a timely request stops the shutoff until the board holds the hearing and enters a decision.

One Deadline That Runs Against You

An action against the association or a board member for failing to follow the rule notice and open forum requirements must be commenced no later than 18 months after the board took the action. A procedural objection raised later than that is out of time, however good it is.

Where to Go With a Problem

Start with the association in writing, and use whatever dispute procedure your governing documents set out. You must exhaust that before this Office can act. An association may not require you to arbitrate before requesting an advisory opinion.

This Office can issue a written advisory opinion on compliance with the association acts or other Utah statutes. The request costs $150 and must be filed within 1 year of when you knew or should have known about the act in question.

Reviewed against the Utah Code, current as of August 12, 2026.