Sacramento County, CA HOA Rules: Dispute Resolution (2026)

There is no Sacramento County chapter addressing how a homeowners association must resolve disagreements with its own members: this falls entirely under Article 2 of the Davis-Stirling Act, Civil Code Sections 5900 through 5920, because county code enforcement handles complaints about violations of the county's own ordinances, not internal association governance. Section 5900 defines the scope: the article covers any dispute between an association and a member over rights, duties or liabilities under the Davis-Stirling Act, the Nonprofit Mutual Benefit Corporation Law, or the association's own governing documents, and it supplements rather than replaces the separate pre-litigation ADR requirement in Article 3 starting at Section 5925.

Section 5905 requires every association to provide a fair, reasonable and expeditious procedure for resolving these disputes, and to make maximum reasonable use of available local mediation programs, including low-cost programs listed by the Department of Consumer Affairs and HUD; if an association fails to adopt a compliant procedure, the statutory default procedure in Section 5915 applies automatically. Section 5910 lists the minimum requirements that procedure must meet: either party can invoke it in writing, the procedure must set a maximum time for the association to act, the association must participate if a member invokes it, and if the association invokes it the member may decline but keeps a right of appeal to the board if the outcome isn't reached by agreement.

Any written resolution or agreement signed by both sides becomes binding and judicially enforceable. Both sides may bring an attorney or another person to help explain their position, at their own cost, but a member can never be charged a fee just to participate in the process. Section 5920 requires the association's annual policy statement, prepared under Section 5310, to describe this internal dispute resolution process so members know how to invoke it.