Section 3 — The procedural sequence

A. Lien establishment and priority

Both chapters attach the lien automatically the day an assessment comes due, and both perfect it through the recorded declaration — the condominium lien under § 33-1256(A) and (F), the planned-community lien under § 33-1807(A) and (F).^{1, 2} Neither requires a separate notice of lien to perfect, though associations often record a notice of claim of lien anyway, both for practical notice and because the governing documents may call for it.^{1, 2}

Each lien secures assessments plus authorized late charges, reasonable collection fees, and court-awarded attorney fees. Fines and penalties stay out of both chapters and cannot be foreclosed.^{1, 2, 8} And in both, § 33-1256(C) and § 33-1807(C) keep the lien junior to a recorded first mortgage or first deed of trust and to tax liens — which means an association foreclosure does not wipe out the first mortgage.^{1, 2}

B. Notice requirements, cure period, and minimum debt threshold

The threshold works as a timing gate, and since September 12, 2026 it sits at one height for both chapters. An association cannot file until the owner runs 18 months delinquent or owes $10,000 in assessments under § 33-1256(A), as SB 1246 amended it, or § 33-1807(A), as SB1494 amended it.^{1, 2, 3,4} Only the qualifying balance of regular assessments counts, because both statutes leave late charges, collection fees, attorney fees, and other extras out of the threshold math, and both require that any payment land on assessments first, under § 33-1256(K) and § 33-1807(K).^{1, 2}

There is a notice the association cannot skip. Before it hands an account to an attorney or an outside collector, both chapters require a written warning sent by certified mail at least 30 days ahead, set in boldface or all capital letters, telling the owner that collection could include foreclosure, under § 33-1256(L) and § 33-1807(L).^{1, 2} Both boards also have to make a reasonable effort to reach the owner and offer a reasonable payment plan before filing.^{1, 2} And once a third-party collector or law firm steps in, the FDCPA’s validation-notice rules apply on top.⁹

C. Foreclosure sale procedure

The sale itself follows one path for both condominiums and planned communities. The association files a judicial foreclosure complaint in Superior Court under § 33-1256, § 33-1807, and § 33-721, serves the owner and the junior lienholders, and, once it has a judgment and decree, sells the property at a sheriff’s sale. There is no trustee’s-sale option for an association lien.^{1, 2, 5} The decree can award costs and reasonable attorney fees to the prevailing party in either chapter,^{1, 2} and the association may credit bid its judgment amount at the sale. In a published 2025 decision, the Court of Appeals held that § 33-1807 implicitly abrogates the common-law power to set aside an association's assessment-lien foreclosure sale for a grossly inadequate price, and reinstated a sale at $20,100 on a $7,463.86 debt.¹³ A petition for review of that decision was pending before the Arizona Supreme Court as of September 3, 2026.¹⁴

When a servicemember owns the unit, the judicial route absorbs the extra protections without trouble: SCRA § 3953 requires a court order before sale, and § 3931 governs default judgments.¹¹ What an association cannot do is borrow the lender’s machinery. The deed-of-trust trustee’s-sale framework of Ariz. Rev. Stat. § 33-807 et seq. — including the recorded notice of trustee’s sale and the rule that the sale date “shall be no sooner than the ninety-first day after the date that the notice of sale was recorded” under § 33-808(C) — belongs to a lender’s deed-of-trust foreclosure, not to the association’s lien foreclosure.^{7, 15}

D. Post-sale rights

After a judicial foreclosure, both condominium and planned-community owners hold a statutory right of redemption under Ariz. Rev. Stat. § 12-1282. The judgment debtor “may redeem at any time within six months after the date of the sale” under § 12-1282(B) — though that window collapses to “thirty days after the date of the sale” when the court has found, as part of the judgment, that the property was “both abandoned and not used primarily for agricultural or grazing purposes” under § 12-1282(A).⁶ The no-redemption rule of § 33-811(E) does not enter the picture, because it governs non-judicial trustee’s sales, not judicial ones.⁷

Money left over follows priority. Surplus or excess proceeds from a junior association foreclosure go, under Ariz. Rev. Stat. § 33-727(B), first to junior lienholders in order of priority and then to the owner; senior lienholders take none of the surplus, because their liens survive the sale.^{16, 17}

Arizona’s anti-deficiency statutes — § 33-729 for judicial foreclosure and § 33-814(G) for trustee’s sales — are written for purchase-money mortgages and deeds of trust on qualifying one- or two-family dwellings of 2.5 acres or less. By their terms they do not shield an owner from an association collecting an assessment deficiency, since an association common expense lien is neither a purchase-money mortgage nor enforced by trustee’s sale, though direct Arizona authority applying these statutes to association liens is thin.^{18, 19} An owner who loses the property and does not redeem is removed through a forcible entry and detainer action.⁶

Section 4 — Recent legislative and judicial activity

A. Recent bills

Arizona’s recent activity in this area points in one direction: lawmakers have been narrowing when an association can foreclose, not widening it. Two bills tell the story.

B. Recent appellate rulings

Arizona’s appellate courts have been working out who collects what after an association sale — and who gets to redeem.

The controlling published authority on surplus still belongs to Tortosa Homeowners Association v. Garcia (Division Two, August 1, 2022). There the court held that senior lienholders take nothing from the excess proceeds of a junior association foreclosure, because their liens survive the sale — the surplus moves to junior lienholders by priority and then to the owner.¹⁶ On redemption, Bank of New York Mellon Trust Co. v. Arizona HOA Acceptance LLC (Division One, March 17, 2016) confirmed that the holder of an association assessment lien may itself redeem residential property after a judicial foreclosure sale under Ariz. Rev. Stat. § 12-1283(B).²¹

C. Active legislative debates

Step back and the through-line is clear. Across the 2024 and 2025 sessions, the Legislature kept narrowing association foreclosure power — HB2648 restructured the lien, SB1494 raised the planned-community threshold — and association counsel expect more proposals aimed at restricting foreclosure of assessment liens.^{3, 8}

Section 5 — National positioning and related coverage

Put Arizona next to other states and it lands firmly on the creditor-restrained end. On priority, it grants no super-priority at all — both association liens stay junior to a first mortgage. The contrast runs to the District of Columbia, where D.C. Code § 42-1903.13 makes the condominium lien prior “to the extent of the common expense assessments…which would have become due in the absence of acceleration during the 6 months immediately preceding institution of an action to enforce the lien,” as the court recognized in Chase Plaza Condominium Ass’n v. JPMorgan Chase Bank; to Nevada, whose nine-month super-priority under Nev. Rev. Stat. § 116.3116 covers assessments “which would have become due in the absence of acceleration during the 9 months immediately preceding” the notice of default; and to Colorado, with its UCIOA-based six-month super-priority.^{1, 2, 22, 23, 24}

On how much an owner must owe, Arizona now sets one floor for both chapters: $10,000 or 18 months under § 33-1256 and § 33-1807. That figure runs well above California’s rule under Cal. Civ. Code § 5720, which blocks foreclosure of “delinquent regular or special assessments of an amount less than one thousand eight hundred dollars ($1,800)” unless the owner is more than 12 months behind — while states such as Alabama and Arkansas set no statutory threshold at all.^{1, 2, 25}

On method, Arizona requires judicial foreclosure of association liens, unlike states that allow a non-judicial association foreclosure, such as Nevada and Texas.⁵ On redemption, Arizona’s six-month post-sale window after a judicial sale stands against the no-redemption finality of a deed-of-trust trustee’s sale.⁶ For a multi-state operator, Arizona files in the column of slow, court-supervised, high-threshold, mortgage-subordinate states — the places where foreclosure is a last resort, not a routine collection lever.

In Arizona, assessment foreclosure sits at the end of a long collection runway: the judicial process, the 18-month or $10,000 threshold, and the mortgage’s senior position together make foreclosure slow and costly next to payment plans and money judgments.