Ohio HOA Enforcement Assessment Notice Rules

R.C. 5312.11 sits in Ohio's Planned Community Law, R.C. Chapter 5312, and governs how a homeowners association may charge a lot owner for a rule violation. The statute never uses the word "fine." Division (A) instead authorizes an "enforcement assessment," and it must already be "imposed or levied in accordance with the declaration": the association cannot invent a new fine that its declaration does not provide for. The same division lets the board also assess an owner for maintenance or repair costs its negligent or willful act caused, and for the association's own costs of enforcing the declaration, "including, but not limited to, attorney's fees, court costs, and other expenses."

Before billing, division (C) requires written notice covering five specific items: a description of the damage or violation, the proposed dollar amount, a statement of the right to a hearing, the procedure for requesting one, and a cure deadline where the violation can still be fixed. That notice may be sent by e-mail, but only to an address the owner has previously given the board in writing.

The owner then has a hard ten-day clock: division (D)(1) requires a written hearing request delivered to the board "not later than the tenth day after receiving the notice," or the right to a hearing is waived and the board may impose the charge immediately. If a hearing is requested, the board owes the owner at least seven days' written notice of its date, time, and location, and division (D)(3) bars the board from levying any charge before that hearing happens. Within thirty days after the hearing, the board must deliver written notice of the assessment it imposed. Every notice under the section must go out by personal delivery, certified mail return receipt requested, or regular mail.

Chapter 5312 sets no dollar ceiling on an enforcement assessment; the statute controls procedure and declaration authority, not amount. When an owner pays less than the full balance owed, division (B) fixes the order collected funds are applied: interest first, then administrative late fees or enforcement assessments, then collection costs and attorney or paralegal fees, and only then the oldest common-expense principal, unless the declaration, bylaws, or rules set a different order. This section applies only to planned communities; condominium unit owners are covered instead by R.C. 5311.081 and R.C. 5311.19.

Billing before a requested hearing is held violates division (D)(3), which bars the board from levying a charge until any requested hearing takes place. An owner who lets the ten-day hearing-request window lapse waives that hearing, and the board may impose the charge right away. Unpaid enforcement assessments can become a lien against the lot once the association records one under the separate lien statute, R.C. 5312.12. Partial payments credit to interest first, then late fees or assessments, then collection costs and fees, before principal.