Montana · Homeowners’ law guide
Every Montana HOA law, in one place.
Montana never enacted a homeowners’ association act. What it has is a condominium statute that only reaches communities which opted in, a covenants chapter that quietly holds the strongest owner protection on this tab, and a handful of single sections filed where nobody would look. Four chapters hosted in full, plus the scattered provisions summarized. This guide is the map.
The tab, page by page
Ordered by how much they are likely to matter to an owner, not by code number. If you read one page, read the first.
01
Servitudes, Easements, and Covenants Running With the LandTitle 70, ch. 17, 36 live sections, §§ 70-17-101 to 70-17-901. Start here. With no HOA act in Montana, this is where the legislature actually limited what a covenant can do to you. § 70-17-901 (2019) bars an association from imposing more onerous restrictions on the types of use of your property than existed when you bought — and defines “types of use” to include the ability to rent for any amount of time. § 70-17-210 gives an abandonment defence and bars enforcement by an association that has not met for 15 years. § 70-17-212 voids transfer-fee covenants — but § 70-17-212(2)(b)(v)(A) excludes fees, dues and assessments payable to your own association from the definition entirely, so what it kills is a developer’s or third party’s cut on each resale, not the association’s. § 70-17-216 makes family and group day care a residential use notwithstanding a covenant. Read the limits in § 70-17-901(2) to (5) as carefully as the rule, and note that claiming its benefit takes a recording step of your own (§ 70-17-901(1)(b)).
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02
Montana Unit Ownership Act (Condominiums)Title 70, ch. 23, 50 live sections, §§ 70-23-101 to 70-23-1105. Montana's only condominium statute, and it governs a property only once its owners have recorded a declaration submitting it to the chapter (§ 70-23-103) — townhomes included. Carries the association's lien for common expenses, which arises on recording a verified claim and ranks behind tax and assessment liens and a first mortgage (§ 70-23-607); the 72-hour cooling-off period that runs from delivery of the Act, bylaws and regulations on request (§ 70-23-613(2)–(3)); and § 70-23-507, one sentence binding unit-owner associations to § 70-17-901.
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03
Montana Nonprofit Corporation ActTitle 35, ch. 2, 163 live sections, §§ 35-2-113 onwards. The corporate rulebook for an incorporated association: members, meetings, notice, quorum, directors, records and dissolution. The parts an owner reaches for are § 35-2-527 (a special meeting is compulsory on the written demand of 5% of the voting power), § 35-2-520 (no expulsion or suspension except by a fair and reasonable procedure — a 15-day/5-day bylaw safe harbour, or alternatively a procedure that simply weighs all the circumstances; a 1-year limit on challenges), § 35-2-517 (a member may become liable for dues and assessments, but a bylaw or board resolution imposing them does not, of itself, create liability), and the records sections at §§ 35-2-906 to 908. Also the two 2021 remote-meeting sections that name homeowners' associations outright.
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04
Montana Human Rights Act (Illegal Discrimination)Title 49, ch. 2, 35 live sections, §§ 49-2-101 to 49-2-602. Montana's fair-housing law protects a longer list than most homeowners expect — marital status and age among them. § 49-2-305 carries the housing prohibitions, the reasonable-modification and reasonable-accommodation duties, and three exemptions including housing for older persons, which lets a qualifying 55+ or 62+ community lawfully restrict families with children. A complaint is filed with the Department of Labor and Industry, whose Human Rights Bureau administers it, within 180 days — and § 49-2-510(5) separately allows a district-court action within 2 years (§§ 49-2-501, 49-2-510).
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05
Related & miscellaneous Montana lawsThe single sections that never got a chapter of their own: § 70-1-522, under which no association may prohibit a political sign — on your lot or on common areas you hold an undivided interest in; § 70-16-110, under which an association needs your permission before its agent enters your property; the 2021 remote-meeting rules; and § 76-3-306, which makes subdivision covenants run with the land, and § 76-3-308, which lets an association petition to take title to the subdivision’s open spaces. Plus the myth-busters: no HOA act, no solar-access override, no HOA assessment lien outside the condominium act, and no state analogue to the federal debt-collection rules.
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General information, not legal advice. Statutory text throughout this tab is reproduced from the Montana Code Annotated, 2025 edition, and may not reflect the most recent amendments. The “no such law” statements on the related-laws page were tested by full-text search against the nineteen MCA chapters behind this tab — nineteen of Montana’s roughly 460 — not against the whole code.