There Is No Audit Requirement

The words "audit," "audited," "generally accepted accounting principles," and "GAAP" do not appear anywhere in the Utah Condominium Ownership Act. 

If your association has an annual audit, that obligation comes from the declaration or the bylaws, not from the statute. Read those documents before assuming an audit is owed to you, and read them before assuming one is not.

Stating that plainly matters because owners who ask for "the audit" and are told there is no such thing often conclude the association is hiding something. Usually, the association is simply describing the law correctly. The productive request is the one below.

What You Can Actually Demand

Whether or not the association is incorporated, it must keep and make available to unit owners the records listed in Section 57-8-17(1)(a). Four of the items on that list are financial:

• the most recent annual budget and financial statement;
• the most recent reserve analysis;
• the profit and loss statement for the previous three fiscal years; and
• the balance sheet for the previous three fiscal years.

Three years of profit and loss statements and three years of balance sheets, side by side, will answer most of the questions an owner wants an audit to answer. Where did assessment income go, what changed year over year, and does the reserve balance match what the budget said it would be?

The association may redact only three things from what it produces: a Social Security number, a bank account number, and any communication subject to the attorney-client privilege. That is the complete list. "Confidential," "sensitive," and "board only" are not on it.

If a manager or a former board member is holding the records, they must hand them over to the association upon request and without charge, and the records are the association's property.

Some of It Should Already Be Posted

An association with an active website must make the governing documents, the most recent approved minutes, and the most recent annual budget and financial statement available to owners free of charge through the website. An association without a website must keep physical copies available at its registered address during regular business hours.

Where the governing documents conflict with Section 57-8-17, the statute governs.

The Deadline Is 10 Business Days

An association must comply with a written request within 10 business days after receiving it. Not two weeks, and not thirty days.

Make the request in writing and include what Subsection (3)(a) requires: the association's name, your name, your property address, your email address, a description of the documents, and whether you are electing to inspect or to copy. A request missing those items is not the request the statute is written about.

Copying costs are capped. For paper copies, the association may charge the actual cost it paid a recognized third-party duplicating service, or 10 cents per page and $20 per hour for staff time, whichever route it takes. It may not charge you anything for emailing documents to you. The same applies to your designated agent, including a real estate agent.

If the Association Does Not Comply

Two remedies run on different clocks, and it is worth knowing both before writing an angry letter.

The first is automatic. For the governing documents, the most recent approved minutes, and the most recent budget and financial statement, an association that fails to comply owes $25 per day to the owner who requested them, beginning on the eleventh business day, plus the reasonable costs of inspection and copying and reasonable attorney fees.

The second is a court action with a precondition. At least 10 days before filing, you must deliver a written notice that states your contact information, each requirement the association failed to meet, a demand that it comply, and a compliance date at least 10 days out. If you file without that notice, you have not satisfied the statute.

In the action, you may seek injunctive relief, $1,000 or actual damages, whichever is greater, and any other relief provided by law, and the court may award costs and attorney fees to the prevailing party. The court must hold a hearing within 30 days of a motion to compel compliance.

The Reserve Analysis Is the Closest Thing to a Required Financial Review

Unless the declaration provides otherwise, the management committee must have a reserve analysis conducted at least every six years and must review and, if necessary, update it at least every three years.

It requires the following: the components that will need reserve funds, the probable remaining useful life of each, the estimated cost to repair or replace each, the total annual contribution needed, and a funding plan. The association must provide owners with an annual summary and the complete analysis upon request.

Reserve money is fenced off. It may not be used for any purpose other than the one for which the fund was established without a majority vote of the members, may not be used for daily maintenance expenses absent a vote or a qualifying budget shortfall, and must be kept separate from other association funds.

The enforcement clock here is much slower than the records clock. A unit owner must give at least 90 days' written notice before filing, and the notice must identify the requirement missed and set a compliance date at least 90 days out. The remedy is injunctive relief, $500 or actual damages, whichever is greater, other remedies at law, and costs and fees.

These duties do not apply during the period of administrative control.

Where the Money Has To Sit

An association must keep all of its funds in an account in the association's own name and may not commingle them with anyone else's funds. This is short, but it is the provision that a management company holding association money in a pooled account runs into. The funds in that account are association property under Section 57-8-17(1)(c)(ii).

You Also Have a Disapproval Right on the Budget

The committee must prepare and adopt a budget at least annually and present it to the members at a meeting.

Owners can disapprove it. Owners have a disapproval right, not the right to vote to approve the budget. A budget is disapproved if, within 45 days after that meeting, at least 51% of all allocated voting interests vote to disapprove it at a special meeting called by owners under the declaration, articles, or bylaws. If a budget is disapproved, the last adopted budget remains in effect until the committee adopts a new one.

The reserve fund line item carries its own separate veto under the same 45-day clock and 51% threshold. These are two different votes, and an owner group organizing one should be clear about which one it is running.

A Practical Order of Operations

Ask in writing for the four financial items in Section 57-8-17(1)(a)(ii), naming them by subsection. Give the association its 10 business days. Read the three years of profit and loss statements against the three years of balance sheets and against the reserve analysis.

If something does not reconcile, that is the point at which asking the committee for an explanation in writing, at an open meeting, is worth more than asking for an audit that the statute does not require. For how meetings work and what may be discussed in closed session, read management committees. For the budget and reserves in detail, read budgets and reserves. For the full records procedure, read records and record requests.

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