Arkansas HOA law guide.
Every Arkansas statute that reaches homeowners' and condominium associations — each one hosted in full on HOPB, with the official text and a plain-language guide. Start with the fact that shapes everything else: Arkansas has no homeowners' association act. For most communities the governing instrument is your recorded bill of assurance or declaration, and these statutes work around it.
One act, and it is opt-in.
Arkansas has no planned community or property owners' association act — nothing that supplies default rules on assessments, elections, meetings, fines, records or architectural review for a covenanted subdivision. The single community-association statute is the Horizontal Property Act, and it governs only where a master deed was actually recorded: a horizontal property regime is created “only by recording a master deed” executed by all persons holding an interest in the property to be conveyed to unit owners (§ 18-13-103(a)). No master deed, no Act — whatever the property looks like.
Two codes, split by a single date.
Because Arkansas has no HOA act, the nonprofit corporate code carries far more weight here than its equivalent does elsewhere — it is where members, meetings, voting, directors and amendments actually come from. Which code applies turns on when your association was incorporated. Section 4-33-1701 applies the 1993 Act to corporations incorporated on or after January 1, 1994; anything incorporated before that “shall continue to be governed by preexisting law” — in practice the 1963 Act, which the statute does not name and which by its own terms does not reach corporations chartered before 7 March 1963 (§ 4-28-204(a)) — unless it amended its articles to elect in, an election the statute makes irrevocable. Associations that were never incorporated at all have their own regime in subchapter 6 of chapter 28.
Protections for residents.
Arkansas runs two overlapping fair housing regimes in a single chapter — a short act with its own private remedy, and a separate Commission scheme with its own prohibitions and enforcement. Which route you use changes the deadline and the fee rule. For a homeowner facing a covenant that limits who may live where, the standout is § 16-123-206: a condition or restriction that directly or indirectly limits use or occupancy on a protected ground is void, and it may not be honored in the chain of title.
The strongest remedy Arkansas gives you.
In a state with almost no HOA-specific remedies, this is the one with teeth — against the collector, not against your association. The Arkansas Fair Debt Collection Practices Act reaches anyone whose business is collecting debts, or who regularly collects debts owed to another (§ 17-24-502(5)(A)) — the agency or law firm your board retains, and a board that collects under an invented agency name (§ 17-24-502(5)(B)). An association billing its own assessments in its own name is generally outside it. Where it does apply there is a private right of action for actual damages, up to $1,000 more, costs and attorney's fees — but only one year from the violation to bring it. The same chapter sets a trap for boards: collect your own assessments under a made-up agency name and you may need a collection agency licence.
There is no state HOA forum in Arkansas.
Some states let an owner take a board dispute to an administrative law judge or a dedicated agency — a forum those states created inside their community-association act. Arkansas has no such act, so there is no statutory forum for a general dispute with your board and no agency assigned to that job. That makes it worth knowing which routes do exist, because each is tied to a specific kind of complaint rather than to associations generally.
Discrimination goes to the Arkansas Fair Housing Commission or to HUD, or straight to court under either fair housing subchapter. Third-party collection conduct has its own private right of action under the Arkansas FDCPA, with the State Board of Collection Agencies handling licensing complaints. Corporate failures — a refused records inspection, a meeting that cannot be called, an improper expulsion — run through whichever nonprofit corporation act governs your association. Title and lien problems go to circuit court, including the quiet title route covered on the related laws page. And everything else — assessments, fines, architectural decisions, enforcement — is a contract question decided against your recorded bill of assurance.
General information, not legal advice. Each statute is reproduced from the Arkansas Code of 1987 Annotated and may not reflect the most recent amendments. Always confirm the current text against the official source.