Mississippi HOA Fines: No Cap, No Hearing, But 15 Days' Notice Before Suspension

Mississippi never enacted a homeowners association act. Three bodies of law touch community associations here: the Mississippi Nonprofit Corporation Act at Miss. Code Ann. Sec. 79-11-101 through Sec. 79-11-407, the 1964 Mississippi Condominium Law at Sec. 89-9-1 through Sec. 89-9-37, and a short article added in 2021 and expanded in 2022 that regulates association managing agents and association money at Sec. 79-11-751 through Sec. 79-11-761. None of them contains a fine schedule, a dollar ceiling, a daily-accrual limit, or a required hearing before a monetary penalty. If your declaration or bylaws set a fine amount, that document is the whole of the law that binds you, and the association does not have to point to any statute to justify the figure.

What the Nonprofit Corporation Act does regulate is the harsher sanction: taking away membership itself. Section 79-11-189(1) says no member may be expelled or suspended, and no membership terminated or suspended, except under a procedure that is fair and reasonable and is carried out in good faith. Subsection (2) then gives the association two ways to satisfy that. The first is a written procedure in the articles or bylaws providing not less than 15 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 5 days before the effective date, before a person or persons authorized to decide that the sanction not take place. The second is open-ended: a procedure is also fair and reasonable if it is fair and reasonable taking into consideration all of the relevant facts and circumstances. Notice sent by mail must go by first-class or certified mail to the last address of the member shown on the corporation's records. This matters in Mississippi associations because boards commonly punish by suspending amenity access or voting rights, and a suspension of the membership itself is what Sec. 79-11-189 reaches.

The clock on challenging it is short. Section 79-11-189(4) requires any proceeding contesting an expulsion, suspension or termination, including one alleging defective notice, to be commenced within one year after the effective date. Section 79-11-189(5) adds that a member who has been expelled or suspended may still be liable to the corporation for dues, assessments or fees, so losing your membership does not clear the ledger. The section dates to Laws, 1987, ch. 485, Sec. 45, effective January 1, 1988, and has not been amended since.

On the money side, Miss. Code Ann. Sec. 79-11-183 is the only general statement: a member may become liable to the corporation for dues, assessments or fees, but 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. That is a real defense against a board that votes in a new charge and then treats the vote alone as the debt.

Condominium owners get the most detailed treatment, and it runs in the association's favor. Section 89-9-17(5)(i) lets the recorded declaration provide for reasonable assessments to meet authorized expenditures of the management body and a reasonable method for notice and levy, with each unit assessed separately in proportion to its owner's fractional interest in the common area unless the declaration says otherwise. Section 89-9-21 then converts unpaid amounts into a lien. A reasonable assessment is a debt of the owner at the time it is made, and the assessment plus any interest, costs, attorneys' fees and penalties provided for in the declaration becomes a lien on the unit when the management body records a notice of assessment with the chancery clerk of the county where the unit sits. The notice must state the amount, describe the condominium, and name the record owner, and it must be signed and verified by an authorized representative of the management body. It is indexed in a condominium lien book alphabetically by unit owner name.

Two features of that lien are worth knowing before you dispute a charge. It is prior to all other liens recorded after the notice of assessment, unless the declaration subordinates it. And it expires one year from the date the notice of assessment was recorded unless it is satisfied and released or enforcement has been started, with the management body able to extend it for one additional year by recording a written extension. Enforcement is by sale conducted in accordance with Miss. Code Ann. Sec. 89-1-55, the same power-of-sale machinery used for mortgages and deeds of trust, which means a Mississippi condominium association can foreclose without going to court first. The management body may bid the unit in at its own foreclosure sale and afterwards hold, lease, mortgage or convey it. A suit for a money judgment on unpaid assessments may be brought without waiving the lien.

Outside condominiums there is no Mississippi assessment-lien statute at all. A subdivision association's lien rights, its fine authority and any late fee come entirely from the recorded covenants, and a disputed charge is litigated in chancery court. Chancery is also where the Nonprofit Corporation Act sends association record disputes: Sec. 79-11-289 fixes venue in the chancery court of the county where the corporation's principal office is located, or the Chancery Court of the First Judicial District of Hinds County if the corporation has no principal office in Mississippi.

No state agency polices Mississippi HOA fines. The Secretary of State registers nonprofit corporations and takes their annual reports under Miss. Code Ann. Sec. 79-11-407, but it does not adjudicate assessment or fine disputes. Enforcement runs both ways through chancery court. An association seeking unpaid money from a condominium owner records a notice of assessment under Sec. 89-9-21 and may either sue for a money judgment or foreclose by power of sale under Sec. 89-1-55; the lien dies one year after recording unless enforcement has begun or a written extension is recorded.

A member suspended or expelled without the Sec. 79-11-189 procedure must file suit within one year of the effective date of the sanction, and the remedy is an order undoing the sanction, not a statutory penalty against the board. If the fight is really about seeing the books behind a charge, Sec. 79-11-289(3) is the sharper tool: a court that orders records produced must also order the association to pay the member's costs, including reasonable attorney's fees, unless the association proves it refused in good faith because it had a reasonable basis for doubt about the member's right to inspect.