The Default Rule: The Association Maintains Common Areas, You Maintain Your Unit

Except as otherwise provided in the declaration or Section 57-8-43, an association of unit owners is responsible for the maintenance, repair, and replacement of the common areas and facilities, and a unit owner is responsible for the maintenance, repair, and replacement of the unit owner's own unit.

Read the two exceptions before you rely on the default. The rule yields to the declaration, so a declaration may assign a repair differently than the statute would. It also yields to the insurance section, which matters when the damage is an insured loss rather than ordinary wear. Both exceptions are written into the same sentence that creates the rule.

Separately, the necessary work of maintenance, repair, and replacement of the common areas and facilities, and the making of any additions or improvements to them, shall be carried out only as provided in this chapter or in the declaration or bylaws. How the association does common area work is itself governed.

Where Your Unit Stops: The Boundary Rule

Most maintenance disputes are really boundary disputes. Section 57-8-7.2 settles many of them. It applies, unless the declaration provides otherwise, when the declaration designates a wall, floor, or ceiling as a boundary of the unit.

The finished surface is part of your unit. Lath, furring, wallboard, plasterboard, plaster, paneling, tiles, wallpaper, paint, finished flooring, and any other material constituting part of the finished surface of a wall, floor, or ceiling are part of the unit.

Everything behind that surface is common area. Any portion of a wall, floor, or ceiling not listed above is part of the common areas and facilities. That single sentence decides a large share of the calls this Office receives.

For a chute, flue, duct, pipe, wire, conduit, bearing wall, bearing column, or any other fixture lying partially within and partially outside the unit's designated boundaries, Section 57-8-7.2(3) splits it by what it serves. A portion serving only your unit is a limited common area and facility. A portion serving more than one unit, or any portion of the common areas, is common area.

Subject to that split, spaces, interior partitions, and other fixtures and improvements within your boundaries are part of the unit.

Items Outside Your Walls That Are Still Yours Alone

The following, if designated to serve a single unit but located outside the unit's boundaries, are limited common areas and facilities allocated exclusively to that unit: a shutter, an awning, a window box, a doorstep, a stoop, a porch, a balcony, a patio, an exterior door, an exterior window, and any other fixture.

The statute classifies these items; it does not say who repairs them. Section 57-8-7(7) assigns maintenance for "common areas and facilities" to the association and for "the unit" to the owner, and a limited common area is neither of those two labels exactly. That allocation comes from your declaration. If your balcony or patio is failing, the classification is statutory, and the repair obligation is in the document.

Entry Into Your Unit, and the 24-Hour Notice

After reasonable notice to the occupant of the unit being entered, the manager or management committee may access a unit from time to time during reasonable hours, as may be necessary for the maintenance, repair, or replacement of any of the common areas and facilities, or for making emergency repairs.

"Reasonable notice" is defined, not left to judgment. It means a written notice that is hand-delivered to the unit at least 24 hours before the proposed entry. For emergency repairs, it means notice that is reasonable under the circumstances.

Note what the definition requires: written, hand-delivered, and 24 hours ahead. An email or a phone call the same morning is not the notice the statute describes for a non-emergency entry.

"Emergency repairs" is also defined. It means any repairs that, if not made in a timely manner, will likely result in immediate and substantial damage to the common areas and facilities or to another unit or units. Work that is merely overdue or inconvenient to schedule is not an emergency, and the 24-hour written notice still applies.

If the Association Damages Your Unit Getting to the Common Areas

An association of unit owners is liable to repair damage it causes to the common areas and facilities, or to a unit the association uses to access the common areas and facilities. It shall repair that damage within a time that is reasonable under the circumstances.

This is a direct statutory duty, and it does not depend on your declaration. If the association opened your ceiling to reach a pipe, closing that ceiling is its obligation.

When Damage Is an Insured Loss Instead of Ordinary Repair

The maintenance rule expressly yields to Section 57-8-43, so a covered loss follows the insurance provisions rather than Section 57-8-7(7). The association must maintain, to the extent reasonably available, blanket property insurance or guaranteed replacement cost insurance on the physical structures in the project, including common areas and facilities, limited common areas and facilities, and units.

That coverage shall include any fixture, improvement, or betterment installed at any time to a unit or to a limited common area associated with a unit, whether installed in the original construction or in any later remodel, including floor covering, cabinets, light and electrical fixtures, heating or plumbing fixtures, paint, wall covering, and windows.

The association's policy is primary, but you carry its deductible for your own unit's damage. Where both policies cover a loss, the association's policy provides primary coverage, and the unit owner is responsible for the association's deductible. The share is calculated by applying the unit damage percentage to the deductible amount.

A notice failure shifts that deductible back to the association. The association must notify each owner of this deductible obligation and of any change in the amount. An association that fails to give that notice is responsible for the portion it could otherwise have assessed to you, to the extent you have no coverage that would apply. If you were never told, say so.

Detached units are treated differently. Unless the declaration provides otherwise, the association is not required to obtain property insurance for a loss to a unit that is not physically attached to another unit or to a structure that is part of a common area. 

Two Questions To Answer From Your Own Documents

The statute sets the default and the boundary; your declaration does the rest. Before you argue a maintenance dispute, answer these.

• Does the declaration designate a wall, floor, or ceiling as your unit boundary? If it does, Section 57-8-7.2 applies, and the finished surface is yours while what sits behind it is common area. If it designates boundaries some other way, that section may not apply at all
• Does the declaration reassign any maintenance away from the statutory default, and does it say who repairs limited common areas? Section 57-8-7(7) yields to the declaration, and limited common areas are where declarations most often speak

Every deadline on this page also appears in Deadlines and Thresholds. If the association will not repair damage it caused, or enters without the notice the statute requires, read Advisory Opinions and Where To Take a Problem. 

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