The asymmetry worth noticing

Arizona runs two parallel association statutes: the Condominium Act in title 33, chapter 9, and the Planned Communities Act in chapter 16. The 2026 session did not treat them equally.

Planned communities only: SB 1290's closed-meeting rule (§ 33-1804) and HB 2342's shade structure protection (new § 33-1816.01). Neither has a condominium counterpart. Section 33-1248, the condominium open-meeting statute, still permits “consideration of” the listed subjects without the new words, and no condominium shade-structure provision exists.

Both: HB 4011, SB 1246, HB 2397, and the two flag acts.

Condominiums catching up: SB 1246's threshold change, which brings § 33-1256 to where § 33-1807 has been since September 2025.

The practical consequence is that a manager running a mixed portfolio cannot apply one 2026 update list across it. Two of the seven acts do not reach condominiums at all.

A short compliance list

Four things are worth doing before Saturday, and none of them requires counsel.

1. Decide on collection matters in the gap. Condominium accounts between $1,200 and $10,000, or between twelve and eighteen months delinquent, stop being foreclosable on September 12. The threshold is measured as of the filing date. A board with a matter at the instruction stage is making a decision either way, and it should be a minuted one.

2. Separate closed-meeting notices from agendas. For planned communities this is now required from two directions: SB 1290, and the Court of Appeals decision in Sunland Springs, which the Supreme Court declined to review on September 8. A notice needs date, time and place. An agenda has to reasonably advise members what will be addressed.

3. Rebuild the resale package and the violation log. Three sets of board-approved minutes, the reserve study or a summary, the audit or a summary, insurance information, and a per-unit list of outstanding unresolved violations, all deliverable in ten days from offer acceptance. Associations whose minutes are approved a quarter late cannot satisfy this.

4. Update the flag and shade-structure rules by reference, not by list. A policy that reproduces the statutory flag list is out of date twice over on Saturday. One that incorporates § 33-1261(A) or § 33-1808 by reference never goes stale.

What did not happen

The absences are as useful as the enactments, and they are verified negatives rather than gaps in our reading.

No HOA bill was vetoed. The Governor vetoed 151 bills this session. None of them was an association bill; all seven that reached the desk were signed.

Nothing was enacted on the ADRE dispute process, records access, elections or virtual meetings, assessment caps, pets, or fines and due process. No 2026 chapter touches § 32-2199 or § 32-2199.01 — which is why the department's own fee increase this year happened without legislation.

Nor on short-term rentals, water and turf, EV charging, rental caps, reserve funding, structural safety inspections, insurance, or title 10 nonprofit governance as it applies to associations.

Around thirty-five association bills were introduced. Seven became law, and more than thirty died — almost none of them by losing a vote.

What to watch next

The codified text. The published A.R.S. sections will update after the effective date, and the two flag acts need Legislative Council to blend them. Until then, cite the session laws.

The condominium gap. Two rules now apply to planned communities and not condominiums, which is the kind of asymmetry that draws a clean-up bill.

Whether anything is enforced early. Nothing in these seven acts is retroactive. Conduct before September 12 is governed by the law as it stands today, and the Sunland Springs decision — which construes the statute as it already was — is the one exception that reaches backwards.