Arkansas Caps No HOA Fine, but Suspension Needs 15 Days' Notice

The starting point is that there is no Arkansas HOA fine statute at all. Arkansas has no planned community act, no association fine cap, no statutory notice-and-hearing procedure aimed at fines, and no state agency that hears owner complaints about them. Whether your association may fine you, how much, and what warning you get are set by the recorded declaration of covenants and the bylaws you took title subject to. Read the declaration first; anything the statutes add sits on top of it.

What the statutes add depends on the association being incorporated. Most Arkansas property owners' associations are nonprofit corporations under the Arkansas Nonprofit Corporation Act of 1993, Ark. Code § 4-33-101 et seq. Under the classification rule in § 4-33-1706(5), a corporation that is not designated by statute, not religious, and not exempt under Internal Revenue Code section 501(c)(3) or organized for a public or charitable purpose is a mutual benefit corporation, which is what an ordinary neighborhood association is. That classification matters because § 4-33-621 applies to public benefit and mutual benefit corporations.

Section 4-33-613 is short and easy to misread. It says a member may become liable to the corporation for dues, assessments or fees, but that an article or bylaw provision or a resolution adopted by the board authorizing or imposing dues, assessments or fees does not, of itself, create liability. A board cannot manufacture a personal debt simply by voting one into existence; the obligation has to come from somewhere, ordinarily the covenant running with the land that the owner accepted at closing. Note the words the statute uses. It addresses dues, assessments and fees, not fines, so an Arkansas association that wants to collect a penalty has to point at declaration language authorizing that penalty.

Section 4-33-621 is the closest Arkansas comes to due process inside an association, and it governs the penalty owners most often face after a fine goes unpaid: suspension of membership rights such as voting, the pool, the clubhouse or an amenity gate card. No member of a mutual benefit corporation may be expelled or suspended, and no membership may be terminated or suspended, except under a procedure that is fair and reasonable and is carried out in good faith. A procedure is fair and reasonable if the articles or bylaws provide not less than fifteen days' prior written notice of the expulsion, suspension or termination and the reasons for it, plus an opportunity for the member to be heard, orally or in writing, not less than five days before the effective date, by a person or persons authorized to decide that it not take place. That last clause matters: the hearing must be before someone with power to call the penalty off, not a clerk taking a statement. A procedure that misses the safe harbor can still stand if it is fair and reasonable taking into consideration all the relevant facts and circumstances, so the fifteen and five day figures are a shelter for the association rather than a hard rule.

The mechanics carry real deadlines. Written notice given by mail must be sent by first-class or certified mail to the last address of the member shown on the corporation's records, which is a reason to keep your mailing address current with the association. Any proceeding challenging an expulsion, suspension or termination, including one alleging that notice was defective, must be commenced within one year after the effective date of the penalty. Miss that year and the defect is unfixable. Section 4-33-621(e) also disposes of a common hope: a member who has been expelled or suspended may still be liable to the corporation for dues, assessments or fees as a result of obligations incurred or commitments made before the expulsion or suspension, so giving up your membership rights does not clear the ledger.

Condominiums are the one Arkansas housing form with an assessment statute. Under Ark. Code § 18-13-116(a), as amended by Act 434 of 1993, co-owners are bound to contribute pro rata in the percentages computed according to § 18-13-112 toward administration, maintenance and repair of the common elements and any other expense lawfully agreed upon, and the board may levy an additional assessment on a co-owner who rents the unit out, capped at costs reasonably calculated for the extra burden. Act 516 of 2025 restyled that section and added a provision letting a past due assessment or installment bear interest at a lawful rate established by the association, but Section 9 of that act applies the changes only to a horizontal property regime organized on or after September 1, 2025, unless an older regime elects in by amending its master deed.

Enforcement is entirely private. Bring the challenge in the circuit court for the county where the property lies, and watch the one-year clock in § 4-33-621(d), which runs from the effective date of the expulsion, suspension or termination and covers a claim that the notice itself was defective. Before that, answer in writing. Ask the association to identify the declaration or bylaw provision that authorizes the specific penalty, point to § 4-33-613 if the only authority offered is a board resolution, and demand the § 4-33-621 procedure in terms: at least fifteen days' written notice stating the reasons, and a hearing at least five days before the effective date before someone empowered to cancel the action.

Keep the envelope, because notice by mail must be first-class or certified to the last address in the corporation's records. On the money side, unpaid fines and assessments are collected the way any contract debt is, by suit and then by whatever lien the recorded declaration creates, since Arkansas has no general statutory association lien outside the Horizontal Property Act. There is no state regulator, no administrative appeal and no fee-shifting provision for fine disputes, so the only cost recovery available is whatever the declaration provides.