HOA Board Member General Information
Who May Serve, and What the Act Does Not Require
A board member must be a natural person at least 18 years old. Your bylaws may add qualifications, and the association may disqualify someone who has been convicted of a felony or is a sex offender.
Neither act requires a board member to own property in the association or to live in Utah unless the bylaws require it. If your association wants those requirements, they belong in the bylaws, not in an assumption.
The Standard You Are Held To
Most associations are nonprofit corporations, and for those, directors and officers with discretionary authority must discharge their duties in good faith, with the care an ordinarily prudent person in a like position would exercise under similar circumstances, and in a manner they reasonably believe to be in the best interests of the corporation.
That standard is about process as much as outcome. A decision made on information, in good faith, without a conflict, is defensible even when owners disagree with it.
Meetings: The Board Acts at a Meeting, and Owners May Watch
Except for action taken without a meeting under the nonprofit act, the board may act only at a board meeting. Three duties follow from that.
- Notice. At least 48 hours before the meeting, a written notice by email to each owner who has requested notice, unless the meeting is on a schedule already provided or is an emergency.
- Open meetings. The meeting is open to owners or to a representative designated in writing. The board may close a meeting only for specific reasons:
- Legal advice;
- Pending or potential litigation and similar proceedings;
- A personnel matter;
- Contract negotiations, including bids;
- A matter likely to cause an individual undue embarrassment or to violate a reasonable privacy expectation; and
- A delinquent assessment or fine.
- Owner comment. At each meeting, the board must give each owner a reasonable opportunity to comment. It may limit comments to a single period during the meeting.
A board member may not avoid or obstruct these requirements. On notice generally, a method allowed under the nonprofit act is fair and reasonable notice, whether or not your association is incorporated, and electronic notice works if your documents authorize it.
Money: Three Rules That Are Easy To Break by Accident
Keep the association's funds in an account in the association's name, and do not commingle them with anyone else's. This applies to a manager's handling of the money, too.
The budget is not final when you adopt it. You present the adopted budget at a meeting of the members, and owners may disapprove it within 45 days by a vote of at least 51% of all allocated voting interests. Owners may separately veto the reserve fund line item by a 51% vote at a special meeting. A reserve analysis must be conducted at least every six years and reviewed, and if necessary, updated at least every three years, unless your declaration provides otherwise.
A late fee is a ceiling, not an entitlement: the greater of 10% of the assessment or $50, plus interest of up to 1.5% per month. Under the Community Association Act, the board must also adopt a fee schedule by rule and give a copy to each lot owner before imposing the fee. Every figure here and the rest of the clocks are in Deadlines and Thresholds.
Records: The Deadline With a Daily Price
The association must comply with a proper records request within 10 business days. Miss it on the categories, the statute names, and the association owes the requesting owner $25 per day beginning the eleventh business day. You may charge 10 cents per page and $20 per hour of staff time for paper copies, but you may not charge any fee for electronic copies of documents.
Enforcement Is Discretionary, and That Protects You
The board uses its reasonable judgment to decide whether to impose sanctions or pursue legal action for a violation, including whether to compromise a claim or chase an unpaid assessment. The association is not required to take enforcement action where the board determines, after a fair review and acting in good faith and without a conflict of interest, that the circumstances do not justify such action; a decision not to enforce does not necessarily preclude the board from taking action later. This discretion is not absolute, however. A board cannot be arbitrary, capricious, or against public policy when deciding whether or not to enforce a provision.
When you do enforce, an owner may request an informal hearing to dispute a fine within 30 days of receiving notice, and a delinquent owner has 14 days to request a hearing before rights are terminated. Nonjudicial foreclosure is off the table if the lien includes a fine or does not include an assessment that is more than 180 days delinquent.
Registration and the Consequence Boards Underestimate
Register with the Department of Commerce within 90 days of the declaration being recorded, renew annually, and file an update within 90 days of any change to the registered information.
While the association is out of compliance, no assessment lien arises, and existing liens may not be enforced. Registering ends the period and revives liens for events during the gap, but a unit or lot conveyed to an independent third party during the gap comes out clean. A lapsed registration is therefore a collections problem, not a paperwork problem.
If You Are Taking Over From the Developer
The period of administrative control ends under different triggers in each chapter, and the Community Association Act requires the owners to elect a board of at least three members, a majority of whom are lot owners. The triggers are set out in Deadlines and Thresholds, and the process in Organizing and Dismantling an Association.
Where To Get Help
An association may request an advisory opinion from this Office on whether a state statute was followed, on the same terms as an owner may. Advisory Opinions and Where to Take a Problem sets out the process and the agencies that handle what this Office cannot.
Reviewed against the Utah Code, current as of September 8, 2026.