Idaho related & miscellaneous statutes

Idaho’s Collection Agency Act turns up in HOA guidance constantly, usually as though it regulated assessment collection. Read against the section that actually imposes the licence, it does not.

Section 26-2223 requires a licence for eight activities, and the five that make someone a “collection agency” are all about somebody else’s debt. The Act defines both “collection activities” and “collection agency” by pointing at subsections (2) through (6) of § 26-2223 (§ 26-2222(3), (4)). Those five are: engaging “directly or indirectly… in the business of collecting or receiving payment for others of any account, bill, claim or other indebtedness” (2); soliciting or advertising to collect for another (3); distributing a system of collection letters “where the name of any person other than the particular creditor to whom the debt is owed appears” (4); any activity indicating that a third party is or may be involved in effecting collections (5); and collecting for one’s own account where the debt was acquired from another person and was already delinquent or in default when acquired (6).

An association collecting assessments it levied itself is inside none of those five. The debt was never acquired from anyone, and the association is not collecting for another.

The section has three more subsections, and one of them deserves a second look. Subsection (1) licenses operating as a collection agency, debt counselor, credit counselor or credit repair organization — each a defined term keyed back to the subsections above. Subsection (8) is credit repair. Subsection (7) is the one an Idaho board should read for itself: it licenses the business of receiving money from debtors for application or prorating of debts owed to their creditors, providing debt-management counselling, “or contracting with the debtor to effect the adjustment, compromise, or discharge of any account, note or other indebtedness of the debtor”. Section 26-2222(9) ties that subsection to the defined term “debt counselor”. A board settling or restructuring one owner’s delinquent account is not obviously carrying on that business — but the final clause is written broadly, and this page does not tell you it plainly cannot reach you.

The exemptions in § 26-2239 are worth reading in full before relying on any of them. They cover attorneys acting incidentally to practice; a regulated lender and its subsidiaries, affiliates and agents, to the extent they collect for the regulated lender; banks, trust companies, credit unions, insurers and industrial loan companies; government agencies; licensed real estate brokers and salesmen; escrow businesses; mortgage lenders; court-appointed trustees, receivers and conservators; certain telephone corporations; and commonly-controlled affiliates. There is no exemption written for a community association collecting its own assessments — and on the analysis above, none is needed.

Two subsections could still catch an association, and both are about appearances. Subsection (5) reaches any activity indicating, directly or indirectly, that a third party is or may be involved in collections. Subsection (4) reaches a collection-letter system carrying a name other than the creditor’s. A board that sends letters styled to look like they come from a collection agency is doing something the Act describes.

Collection conduct by an actual third-party collector is governed federally, by the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act.

The reasoning that puts an association outside the Collection Agency Act points the other way for the company it hires. Section 26-2223(2) licenses engaging “directly or indirectly, in this state in the business of collecting or receiving payment for others of any account, bill, claim or other indebtedness”. A community manager collecting assessments on an association’s behalf is collecting for another.

Whether a particular manager needs a licence turns on what that manager actually does and on the exemptions in § 26-2239 — and an ordinary management company will struggle to fit any of them. Take the commonly-controlled-affiliate exemption in subsection (10), the one most often reached for: it needs three things at once. The collector and the person collected for must be related by common ownership or affiliated by corporate control; the collector must act only for persons to whom it is so related; and collection must not be its principal business. A management company that is unrelated to the associations it serves fails the first two before the third is reached. But it is a real question, and it is worth asking before a manager starts sending demand letters. Licence status can be checked through the Idaho Department of Finance licence search↗.

The manager is not outside the HOA Act either. Section 55-3203(7)(b) provides that “homeowner’s association” includes a community manager under contract with the association and any agent with explicit or apparent authority to act for it. The duties in chapter 32 reach the manager directly.

Chapter 31 of title 55 is headed Prohibition of transfer fee covenants, and its operative section — headed Real estate transfer fees unlawful — provides that a transfer fee covenant recorded after the section took effect, or any lien purporting to secure a transfer fee, is not binding on or enforceable against the property or any later owner, purchaser or mortgagee (§ 55-3103(1)). Read that far and an Idaho HOA could not charge a transfer fee at all.

The carve-out is in the definition, not in the prohibition. Section 55-3102(4)(f) provides that “transfer fee covenant” does not include a provision requiring payment of a fee to an association, or an entity operating for its benefit, “to be used exclusively for purposes authorized in the document, so long as no portion of the fee is required to be passed through to a third-party” designated or identifiable in the document. Two conditions, not one: the fee has to be used only for what the document authorises and no part of it may be passed through. A fee diverted to other uses falls back inside the prohibition on the face of the text.

One drafting oddity is worth flagging rather than glossing. Section 55-3102 opens “As used in this section” — not “as used in this chapter” — so whether its definitions, and with them the (4)(f) carve-out, control the § 55-3103 prohibition is not settled by the words on the page. Chapter 32 does not depend on the answer: § 55-3205(2) authorises an association transfer fee directly, on its own conditions.

Chapter 32 then imposes the same condition directly. An association may charge a transfer fee only if the authority is expressly stated in the CC&Rs; the fee may be charged only by the association; and no portion may be paid to or allocated to a third party, including any board member or the association’s agent or manager (§ 55-3205(2)). A fee routed to the management company is the exact thing both statutes are aimed at.

Exposure runs to three different acts, not just recording: a person who records a transfer fee covenant, files a lien purporting to secure a transfer fee, or enters into an agreement imposing a private transfer fee obligation is liable for all damages resulting from the imposition of the fee, including the amount of any transfer fee paid, plus the attorney’s fees, expenses and costs of recovering it or quieting title (§ 55-3103(3)). Nothing has to be recorded for the third one to bite.

Both Idaho association statutes reach the same result, on the same timetable, with the same consequence — but not in identical words. A homeowners’ association must provide a statement of the member’s assessment account within five business days of a written request, is bound by the amounts in it, and is told twice that it may charge nothing: “No fee shall be charged by a homeowner’s association or its agent for providing a statement”, and “Charging a fee for any statement of the member’s assessment account required by this section is a violation of the Idaho consumer protection act” (§ 55-3205(1)). A condominium management body owes the five-day duty, is bound by the amounts, and faces the same consumer-protection consequence — but § 55-1528(1) carries no separate no-fee sentence, and it prescribes a shorter statement: the annual charges against the unit, when they are due, and any unpaid assessments or other charges owing. The HOA statement must also show late fees, accrued interest and any transfer fee, plus the transfer fee chargeable on a sale.

What that consumer-protection label is worth is a separate question, and the answer is bigger than it first looks. The private remedy belongs to a person who “purchases or leases goods or services and thereby suffers any ascertainable loss of money or property” as a result of an unlawful practice. That person may treat the agreement as voidable, or bring an action for actual damages or one thousand dollars, whichever is greater — with a class capped at actual damages or $1,000, whichever is greater. Restitution, an injunction and, in the court’s discretion, punitive damages are also available (§ 48-608(1)).

Two provisions further down change the calculus. Fees shift to a winning plaintiff automatically: in any action brought by a person under the section, “the court shall award, in addition to the relief provided in this section, reasonable attorney’s fees to the plaintiff if he prevails” (§ 48-608(5)). And an elderly claimant — at least sixty-two — or a disabled one recovers, on top of everything else, an enhanced penalty of fifteen thousand dollars or treble the actual damages, whichever is greater, where the offender knew or should have known who he was dealing with and the conduct caused one of five listed harms (§ 48-608(2)). The court may also award fees to a prevailing defendant where it finds the claim spurious or brought only to harass.

So the violation is easy to identify, and the remedy is more than the headline $1,000 — though it is still framed around purchase or lease and ascertainable loss rather than a flat statutory penalty for the fee itself.

Section 55-3212 stops an association adding, amending or enforcing a covenant that limits or prohibits accessory dwelling units without the affected owner’s written agreement. What counts as one comes from the land use planning chapter: an “accessory dwelling unit” is a self-contained living unit that includes its own cooking, sleeping and sanitation facilities and that is located on the same lot as a single-family primary dwelling (§ 67-6541(1)).

The definition has a carve-out, and it is the one owners run into. An ADU “may be internal, attached, or detached but does not include a motorhome, camper, recreational vehicle, tiny home on wheels, or other such similar dwellings on wheels”. Anything on wheels is outside the defined term, and therefore outside § 55-3212’s protection entirely. A board may prohibit it by ordinary covenant.

Four things the section leaves with the association. It keeps reasonable rules governing the use of an ADU otherwise allowed by law — and that list is expressly open-ended, “including but not limited to” architectural design consistent with the primary dwelling, size limits, height limits, setbacks, open space, parking controls and bedroom requirements. It may adopt a less restrictive definition of an ADU than the statute’s. A covenant restricting transfer that already applied when the owner acquired the property stays enforceable. And the section does not apply to short-term or vacation rentals as defined in § 63-1803(4).

Since July 1, 2024 an Idaho association may not add, amend or enforce a covenant that prohibits, or has the effect of prohibiting, the operation of a family daycare home (§ 55-3213(1)). The term is defined in the daycare licensing chapter, and the number is the whole point: a “family daycare home” means a home, place, or facility providing daycare for six (6) or fewer children (§ 39-1102(8)). “Daycare” is itself defined as care provided for compensation (§ 39-1102(3)), so the compensation element reaches the term through that route rather than appearing in it.

There is a middle category, and it is outside the protection. The chapter defines three sizes, not two: six or fewer is a family daycare home; seven to twelve is a “group daycare facility” (§ 39-1102(9)); and thirteen or more is a “daycare center” (§ 39-1102(4)). Section 55-3213 protects only the first. A homeowner caring for eight children is running a group daycare facility, not a family daycare home, and the association’s covenants apply to it unchanged.

The protection is not retroactive, and it is not a general exemption. The section “shall not affect any covenant, condition, or restriction in effect prior to July 1, 2024”. It does not supersede the association’s regulations on architectural control, parking, landscaping, noise or other matters applicable to all members. And the association may adopt reasonable rules in compliance with applicable law, including a requirement that the home be licensed under chapter 11, title 39 (§ 55-3213(2), (3)).

Two different Idaho statutes protect a short-term rental, and they are aimed at two different opponents. Neither is the one usually cited.

Against city hall, the statute is § 67-6539, in the Local Land Use Planning chapter. “Neither a county nor a city shall enact or enforce any ordinance that has the express or practical effect of prohibiting any type of short-term rentals”, and a short-term rental is classified as a non-transient residential use for zoning and building-code purposes. The section then spells out seventeen things that count as imposing “different restrictions or obligations” on a short-term rental — among them requiring owner occupation, professional property management, additional insurance, extra parking, inspections, a conditional use permit in a residential zone, or a cap on the number of days a property may be rented. Against that it sets a closed list of five requirements a local ordinance may impose: smoke alarms in sleeping areas, a fire extinguisher and carbon monoxide detector on each floor, escape ladders above the ground floor, occupancy limits no tighter than the building code’s, and an accessible emergency information handout. And “No county or city shall require a license, fee, permit, certification, or registration to operate a short-term rental” (§ 67-6539(5)).

Title 63 chapter 18 is a tax statute, and it is easy to mistake for the protection. Its intent section says the act is “designed to promote access to short-term rentals and vacation rentals by limiting local governmental authority to prohibit these beneficial property uses, or to specifically target them for regulation, except in circumstances necessary to safeguard public health and welfare” (§ 63-1802) — note the qualifier, which is part of the sentence. But that is a statement of intent. The chapter’s only operative section, § 63-1804, is about tax: a local government may not tax the business of operating a short-term rental marketplace, and a marketplace must register with the state tax commission to collect and remit. The land-use protection lives in § 67-6539, which borrows chapter 18’s definitions rather than the other way round (§ 67-6539(2)(b)).

Against your board, the statute is § 55-3211. No association may add, amend or enforce a covenant limiting or prohibiting the rental of a property “for any amount of time” unless the owner of the affected property expressly agreed in writing when it was added or amended — subject to covenants restricting transfer that already applied when the owner acquired.

The threads meet in one place: § 55-3212(4) borrows chapter 18’s definition to take short-term and vacation rentals out of the accessory dwelling unit protection.

The Condominium Property Act does not define its own central term. Its definitions section says a “condominium” means an estate in property as defined in section 55-101B (§ 55-1503(a)), and that section, sitting in the general property chapter, supplies it: a condominium is an estate consisting of (i) an undivided interest in common in real property… together with (ii) a separate interest in real property.

Both halves are required, and that is what distinguishes a condominium from a subdivision lot with a covenant attached. It is also why the Condominium Property Act has a partition section, a removal-from-the-Act section and a rule-against-perpetuities disclaimer at all — the undivided common interest is what makes those questions arise. The full text of the Act is on the Condominium Property Act page.