How Your Share Is Calculated

An association assesses common expenses against unit owners according to each owner's respective percentage or fractional undivided interest in the common areas and facilities, except as the declaration otherwise provides for unconstructed units. The same allocation governs the distribution of common profits and the availability of voting rights.

Your share follows your undivided interest, not your square footage or how much of the common area you use. An unconstructed unit is still a unit for purposes of that allocation once the declaration is recorded, regardless of when the initial declaration was recorded.

For the late fee ceiling, the interest cap, and the fee schedule, the association must adopt and deliver before charging anything, see Late Fees, Interest, and Fee Schedules. For how the annual number gets set and how owners can disapprove it, see Budgets.

The Lien Is Perfected by the Recorded Declaration

An association has a lien on a unit for an assessment, for the fees, charges, and costs of collecting an unpaid assessment, and for a fine in the circumstances described below.

The recording of the declaration is itself record notice and perfection of that lien. Nothing further has to be recorded for the lien to exist, which surprises owners who expect to see a filing first.

Collection costs are recoverable except as the declaration provides otherwise, and include court costs and reasonable attorney fees, late charges, interest, and any other amount recoverable under the declaration, this chapter, or an administrative or judicial decision.

One limit runs in your favor. Section 57-8-44 opens "Except as provided in Section 57-8-13.1," the registration section. While the association is out of compliance with its registration duty, no lien arises, and an existing lien may not be enforced. See Articles and Organization for the registration requirement.

A Fine Enters the Lien Only After the Appeal Window Closes

A fine is part of the lien only if the time to appeal under Section 57-8-37(5) has expired without an appeal, or the owner appealed on time, and a court issued a final order upholding the fine.

A timely-appealed fine is therefore not yet lienable. That matters below, because a lien that includes a fine cannot be enforced by the faster route. For the fine process itself, see Fines and Hearings.

Installments Accelerate

If an assessment is payable in installments, the lien is for the full amount of the assessment from the time the first installment is due, unless the association provides otherwise in a notice of assessment.

If you are on a payment plan, missing one installment can expose the entire annual amount rather than just the missed installment.

Interest on What Is Unpaid

An unpaid assessment or fine accrues interest at the rate in Section 15-1-1(2), or at a different rate if the governing documents provide one. Check your documents before assuming the statutory default applies.

Where the Lien Sits Against Other Claims

An assessment lien has priority over every other lien and encumbrance on the unit except for three things:

• A lien or encumbrance recorded before the declaration was recorded
• A first or second security interest secured by a mortgage or deed of trust recorded before a recorded notice of lien by the association
• A lien for real estate taxes or other governmental assessments or charges

The lien is not subject to the Utah Exemptions Act, Title 78B, Chapter 5, Part 5. And if two or more associations hold assessment liens on the same unit, those liens have equal priority regardless of when they were created, unless the declaration provides otherwise.

A separate rule governs liens generally: once the declaration is recorded and while the property remains subject to the act, a lien may not arise against the property as a whole. Liens attach only to individual units and their appurtenant undivided interests. Work you authorize on your own unit cannot become a lien against a neighbor's unit without that owner's express consent, except in the case of emergency repairs.

How the Association Can Collect

To enforce the lien, the association may sell the unit through nonjudicial foreclosure as though the lien were a deed of trust, or foreclose judicially as a mortgage would be. In either route, the association is treated as the beneficiary under a trust deed and the owner as the trustor.

A power of sale may not be exercised unless the association appoints a qualified trustee, and that trustee carries all the duties the trust deed statutes impose.

Foreclosure is neither required nor the only option. An association need not foreclose at all: it may file an action for a money judgment on the unpaid assessment without waiving the lien.

Two Limits on the Faster Route

Nonjudicial foreclosure is unavailable if the lien includes a fine, and it is unavailable unless the lien includes an assessment more than 180 days delinquent. Both are limits on the association, not on you.

You can also force the slower route. Mail the association a written demand for judicial foreclosure, certified with return receipt requested, within 30 days after the return receipt shows its notice was delivered.

If You Are Buying a Unit, Get the Statement

In a voluntary conveyance, the grantee is jointly and severally liable with the grantor for all unpaid assessments against the grantor's share of common expenses up to the time of the conveyance. In other words, you can inherit the seller's arrears.

The statement is the protection. A grantee is entitled to a statement from the manager or management committee setting out the unpaid assessments against the grantor, and is not liable, and the unit is not subject to a lien, for any amount in excess of the amount set forth in that statement. Get it in writing before closing.

Separately, an owner may request a written statement of any unpaid assessment on the owner's own unit on written request and a reasonable fee not to exceed $25, and that statement is conclusive in favor of a person who relies on it in good faith.

Deadlines and dollar figures from this page also appear in Deadlines and Thresholds. If the association is moving to collect, read Advisory Opinions and Where To Take a Problem.

Reviewed against the Utah Code, current as of September 9, 2026.