Arkansas Gives a Homeowners Association No Statutory Lien and No Power of Sale

Start with what does not exist. Arkansas never enacted a comprehensive common interest community statute. There is no Arkansas counterpart to a Uniform Common Interest Ownership Act, no planned community act, and no section anywhere in the Code that creates a lien in favour of a property owners association for unpaid assessments. A whole-Code search returns zero documents for the phrase "lien for assessments". The phrase "assessment lien" returns three sections, and all three are in the Property Assessed Clean Energy programme at A.C.A. §§ 8-15-114, 8-15-115 and 8-15-116, which is a local government energy financing tool and has nothing to do with subdivisions. Searching "association" together with "foreclose" surfaces the mortgage foreclosure sections and the limited liability company charging order provisions, not a community association remedy.

Condominiums are the one form Arkansas did legislate, through the Horizontal Property Act at Title 18, Chapter 13, enacted as Acts 1961 (1st Ex. Sess.), No. 60. Its money section is A.C.A. § 18-13-116. Read it for what it actually confers. Subsection (a) binds co-owners to pay according to the percentages established by the master deed toward the expenses of administration and of maintenance and repair of the general and limited common elements, and toward any other expense lawfully agreed upon. Subsection (b)(1) closes the obvious escape, so a co-owner cannot avoid contributing by waiving the use of the common elements or by abandoning the unit. Subsection (b)(4) allows a past due assessment or installment to bear interest "at a lawful rate established by the association". Subsection (c) provides that on a sale or conveyance the unpaid assessments are paid first out of the sales price or by the acquirer, in preference over other assessments or charges. Subsection (d) makes the purchaser jointly and severally liable with the seller for the seller's arrears, with a right of recovery against the seller.

What is absent from that list matters more than what is in it. There is no recorded lien, no notice-of-lien procedure, no super-priority over a first mortgage, no six-month or nine-month priority window of the kind common in adopting states, no cap on fees or interest beyond the words "a lawful rate", no statutory attorney fee award, and no foreclosure mechanism at all. Subsection (c) even ranks the association behind two classes expressly: assessments, liens and charges for taxes past due and unpaid on the unit, and payments due under recorded mortgage instruments of encumbrance. An Arkansas condominium association is therefore junior to the first mortgagee by statute, not merely by recording date.

The practical collection lever Arkansas does hand an association is subsection (d). Because the purchaser is jointly and severally liable for the seller's unpaid assessments up to the time of conveyance, arrears are normally cleared at closing by a buyer who has no wish to inherit them, and the buyer's remedy is against the seller rather than against the association.

Nonjudicial foreclosure is not available. Arkansas's statutory power-of-sale procedure is in Title 18, Chapter 50, and it operates on a mortgage or a deed of trust. A.C.A. § 18-50-102(a) then limits who may use it to three groups: a trustee or attorney-in-fact who is an active licensed member of the Arkansas bar, or a law firm including such an attorney, maintaining an in-state office that is open to the public and able to accept payoff funds; certain state and nationally chartered banks, savings and loan associations, credit unions and licensed mortgage loan companies that have a physical Arkansas location and hold or service the note; and an agency or authority of the State of Arkansas. A homeowners association is in none of those categories and holds no note, so an association that wants to enforce a lien created by its own declaration must file suit in circuit court and obtain a judicial decree.

One timing point is easy to miss and changes the answer for most existing buildings. Section 18-13-116 was rewritten by Act 516 of 2025, but section 9 of that act is marked DO NOT CODIFY and limits its reach: the act applies to a horizontal property regime organized on and after September 1, 2025, and an older regime may come under it only by electing to do so, amending the master deed and filing reorganization documents. The version of § 18-13-116 printed in the current Code is therefore not automatically the governing text for a condominium organised in the 1970s or 1990s, which continues under the pre-2025 wording unless it opted in.

Collection in Arkansas is a contract and judgment exercise, not a lien exercise. An association enforces the assessment obligation in § 18-13-116(a) by suing the owner, adding interest under § 18-13-116(b)(4) at whatever lawful rate the association has established, and reducing the claim to a money judgment that can then be recorded and executed like any other. Where the declaration itself purports to create a lien, foreclosing it means a judicial action in the circuit court of the county where the property lies, because the nonjudicial route in Title 18, Chapter 50 is limited by § 18-50-102(a) to attorney trustees, qualifying financial institutions and state agencies foreclosing a mortgage or deed of trust.

On a sale the association's real leverage is § 18-13-116(c) and (d): the unpaid assessments come out of the sale price ahead of most other charges, though behind unpaid property taxes and recorded mortgage debt, and the purchaser is jointly and severally liable with the seller for whatever remains.