Arizona HOA Records Inspection
Section 1: Overview — How records inspection works in Arizona
Arizona puts the same records-inspection duty on condominiums and planned communities, and it writes that duty into two parallel statutes. Each one orders an association to keep "all financial and other records" reasonably available for any member to examine, ties the obligation to a fixed deadline, and lists the records an association may hold back.1 Condominiums answer to A.R.S. § 33-1258, which sits in Title 33, Chapter 9 — the Condominium Act.1 Planned communities answer to A.R.S. § 33-1805, in Title 33, Chapter 16, the Planned Communities chapter.2 The two sections read almost the same, but they stand on their own: a duty under one does not automatically carry into the other.
Arizona does not settle for a vague "be reasonable" standard. Both statutes attach a concrete clock to that language: an association gets ten business days to fulfill a request to examine records, and another ten business days to hand over copies once a member asks for them.1,2 Both sections also spell out what an association may withhold — privileged attorney-client communications, records tied to pending litigation, certain individual-member records, and specific employee records.1,2
Measured against the rest of the country, Arizona lands among the more demanding states. It asks more than the jurisdictions that apply only a reasonableness test or send owners to general corporate-law inspection rights, and it looks a lot like hard-clock states such as California and Florida, which pair a statutory deadline with a defined list of exemptions. The Quick-Reference table and the sections that follow walk through how this works for each kind of community.
Section 2: Quick-Reference — Arizona HOA Records Inspection
| Field | Requirement |
|---|---|
| Governing provision(s) | Condominiums: A.R.S. § 33-1258 (Title 33, Ch. 9).1 Planned communities: A.R.S. § 33-1805 (Title 33, Ch. 16).2 |
| Community types covered | Both, under separate parallel statutes. Section 33-1258 governs condominiums and does not reach a timeshare plan subject to Ch. 20.1 Section 33-1805 governs planned communities.2 The current text draws no pre/post effective-date split. |
| Who may inspect | Any member or unit owner, or anyone the member designates in writing as a representative (both sections).1,2 The statutes do not address mortgagees. |
| Proper-purpose requirement | No. Neither § 33-1258 nor § 33-1805 conditions inspection on a stated proper purpose in the current text.1,2 |
| Form of request | A member must designate a representative in writing (both sections). Otherwise the statute prescribes no request form, required content, or delivery method for the member's own request.1,2 |
| Response or production deadline | Both: ten business days to fulfill a request for examination, and ten business days to provide copies once a member asks for them (§ 33-1258; § 33-1805).1,2 |
| Inspection method and location | The association must make records "reasonably available for examination" (both).1,2 The statute names no location, business hours, or electronic-delivery option; copies follow on request within ten business days. |
| Copying and labor fees | Examination is free — the association may not charge for making material available for review. For copies, it may charge "not more than fifteen cents per page" (both sections). The statute does not address labor or staff-time charges.1,2 |
| Records expressly subject to inspection | "All financial and other records of the association" (both sections). The current text enumerates no specific categories.1,2 |
| Records exempt or withholdable | Both sections, subsection B: (1) privileged attorney-client communication; (2) pending litigation; (3) minutes or records of a closed board session (condos per § 33-1248; planned communities per § 33-1804); (4) personal, health, or financial records of an individual member, employee, or contractor's employee; (5) records on the job performance, compensation, health, or specific complaints against an employee or contractor's employee. Subsection C: an association need not disclose where doing so would violate state or federal law.1,2 |
| Membership or owner list | Section 33-1258 and § 33-1805 do not address it.1,2 |
| Records-retention requirement | Section 33-1258 and § 33-1805 do not specify one.1,2 |
| Electronic records | Section 33-1258 and § 33-1805 do not address them.1,2 |
| Remedies for noncompliance | No damages, per-day penalty, or fee-shifting sits inside § 33-1258 or § 33-1805. Enforcement runs through A.R.S. § 32-2199.01–.02: an administrative law judge may order compliance, levy a civil penalty per violation, and order a prevailing petitioner's filing fee reimbursed.3,4 A direct Superior Court action is also available. |
| Enforcement forum and process | An administrative petition to the Arizona Department of Real Estate (A.R.S. § 32-2199.01) costs $500 per issue (up to four issues, maximum $2,000) and goes to the Office of Administrative Hearings for a hearing before an administrative law judge; Superior Court enforces the order through contempt proceedings, with judicial review available.3,5 A direct Superior Court action is an alternative. |
Section 3: The records-inspection framework in detail
3A. Records subject to inspection
Arizona's two records statutes open with the same broad command. Under A.R.S. § 33-1258 for condominiums and A.R.S. § 33-1805 for planned communities, "all financial and other records of the association shall be made reasonably available for examination by any member or any person designated by the member in writing as the member's representative."1,2 "Financial and other records" is a wide phrase, and the legislature wrote it that way on purpose. The current text never breaks the right into a checklist of document types — governing documents, budgets, minutes, contracts, insurance policies, reserve information — so the practical reach is whatever the association keeps in those broad categories, not a fixed statutory list.
That broad framing is the single most important structural feature for both kinds of community. Because the statute reaches "all" financial and other records, a manager or board should not ask "is this document on a list." The better question is "does an exemption apply." Access is the default; the exceptions are narrow and spelled out, and we take them up in subsection 3C.
The right is statutory, not a matter of contract. It exists by force of § 33-1258 and § 33-1805 no matter what the declaration or bylaws say, and a community's governing documents cannot bargain their way below the floor the statutes set. Associations organized as nonprofit corporations may also fall under the inspection provisions of the Arizona Nonprofit Corporation Act (Title 10, Chapter 36), which has historically applied to common-interest communities — but the Title 33 records statutes are the specific provisions that govern association records access and carry the ten-business-day clock.1,2
Keep the two provisions apart. They run in parallel, but a condominium owner's rights flow from § 33-1258 and a planned-community owner's rights flow from § 33-1805. The only real textual differences are housekeeping cross-references: the closed-session exemption points to § 33-1248 (open meetings) for condominiums and to § 33-1804 (open meetings) for planned communities, and § 33-1258 adds one subsection providing that it does not apply to a timeshare plan subject to Chapter 20.1,2 A manager running a mixed portfolio should cite the right section for each community type rather than treat the two as interchangeable.
3B. The request-and-response sequence
Standing is broad and the bar is low. Any member or unit owner may inspect, and a member may name another person in writing to act as a representative — which is what lets an owner send a CPA or an attorney to review the records.1,2 Just as important, the current statutes impose no proper-purpose or good-faith requirement. An owner does not have to justify the request or explain why the records are wanted. Lawmakers have floated a proper-purpose condition more than once, but none has passed, as Section 4 explains.
On the form of the request, the statute travels light. The only express writing requirement applies to designating a representative — "designated by the member in writing." The statutes do not mandate a particular request form, specific content, or a set delivery method for an owner's own request.1,2 In practice, owners and associations put requests in writing so the ten-business-day clock can be proven, and a manager should calendar the deadline from the day the request arrives.
The response clock is the highest-value mechanic on this page, and it reads the same under both chapters. The association "shall have ten business days to fulfill a request for examination," and once a member asks to buy copies, "the association shall have ten business days to provide copies of the requested records."1,2 This is a defined window, not an open-ended reasonableness test. When a request runs large, the Mulcahy Law Firm advises that if a "board needs more than ten business days to fulfil the records request, it is important to immediately notify the member in writing that additional time may be needed and the estimated time of arrival for the requested documents" — but the statute itself fixes ten business days as the baseline.6
Charges stay tightly capped. The association "shall not charge a member or any person designated by the member in writing for making material available for review," so examining records in person costs nothing. For copies, an "association may charge a fee for making copies of not more than fifteen cents per page."1,2 That fifteen-cent cap is identical in § 33-1258 and § 33-1805. The statutes do not authorize a separate labor or staff-time charge, and they say nothing about fees for electronic delivery, so anything beyond the per-page cap for paper copies stands on shaky ground. They also do not fix where examination must happen or set business hours, leaving the logistics to reasonable practice.
3C. Withholding, confidentiality, and the membership or owner list
Read the exemptions as the complete list of what an association may hold back. Subsection B of both § 33-1258 and § 33-1805 lets an association withhold records "to the extent that the portion withheld relates to" any of five categories: (1) privileged communication between the association and its attorney; (2) pending litigation; (3) minutes or other records of a board session that need not be open to members (the closed-session cross-reference is § 33-1248 for condominiums and § 33-1804 for planned communities); (4) the personal, health, or financial records of an individual member, an individual employee, or an individual employee of a contractor, including association records directly tied to that information; and (5) records on the job performance, compensation, health, or specific complaints against an individual employee or a contractor's employee working under the association's direction.1,2 Subsection C adds that an association need not disclose records if doing so would violate any state or federal law.1,2
Two points of discipline matter here. First, the withholding right is partial and surgical: it applies "to the extent that the portion withheld relates to" an exempt category, which supports redacting the exempt portion rather than refusing an entire document. Second, the attorney-client and pending-litigation exemptions cover genuinely privileged or litigation-related material — not ordinary operational records an association would simply rather keep private. The categories are specific, and they should not be stretched.
On the membership or owner list, the records statutes say nothing. Neither § 33-1258 nor § 33-1805 carves out a special protection for the owner roster, a commercial-use restriction, or an opt-out for member contact information.1,2 So how an association handles the owner list turns on other law or the governing documents, not on the records-inspection statutes themselves.
3D. Remedies and enforcement for noncompliance
Neither § 33-1258 nor § 33-1805 carries its own remedy. The records statutes set the duty and the deadline, but they name no statutory damages, no per-day penalty, and no fee-shifting for a records violation.1,2 Enforcement runs instead through Arizona's separate dispute-resolution framework.
The main pathway is an administrative petition to the Arizona Department of Real Estate under A.R.S. § 32-2199.01. An owner — or an association — files a petition alleging a violation of the condominium or planned-community statutes or the governing documents, pays the filing fee, and, if the matter does not resolve, the Department sends it to the Office of Administrative Hearings for a hearing before an administrative law judge.3 Under A.R.S. § 32-2199.02, that judge "may order any party to abide by the statute, condominium documents, community documents or contract provision at issue and may levy a civil penalty on the basis of each violation," and if the petitioner prevails the judge must order the respondent to reimburse the filing fee.4 The order binds the parties, Superior Court enforces it through contempt proceedings, and judicial review is available.5
The Department of Real Estate runs this process but does not police day-to-day HOA operations. As the Department puts it, "Hearings are conducted by an Administrative Law Judge. The Department does not investigate HOAs or Homeowners. The Department does not regulate HOAs."7 A direct civil action in Superior Court remains an alternative forum. Arizona does not license community association managers, and the Department's separate role in new-subdivision public reports under A.R.S. § 32-2181 et seq. has nothing to do with records enforcement.
Section 4: Recent legislative and judicial activity
A. Recent bills
HB 2278 · 57th Leg., 1st Regular Session (2025)
HB 2278, sponsored by Representative Walt Blackman, would have amended both § 33-1258 and § 33-1805. It would have conditioned a records request on good faith, a stated proper purpose, and a direct link between the records sought and that purpose; enumerated the specific categories of "financial and other records" an association must provide; treated records posted online as reasonably available; and let associations turn away duplicative requests for unmodified records they had already provided.[8] The House read the bill a second time on January 22, 2025, referred it to the Government and Rules Committees, and it went no further.[9]
| Property managers | Nothing changes in your day-to-day work — the ten-business-day clock and the fifteen-cent copy cap still apply, with no new proper-purpose screen to administer. |
| HOA board members | A board still cannot make an owner justify a records request, because the proposed good-faith and proper-purpose conditions never became law. |
| Community association attorneys | Anchor your advice in the existing text of § 33-1258 and § 33-1805, not in the enumerated-records list or online-availability rule the bill floated. |
| Homeowners | You keep a broad, no-justification right to inspect records within ten business days. |
HB 2612 · 57th Leg., 2nd Regular Session (2026)
HB 2612 would again have amended § 33-1258 and § 33-1805. It restyled the copy-fee figure and, more significantly, would have let an association withhold records a member had requested within the previous two years if those records had not changed — a shield aimed at repetitive requests.[10] The bill was introduced on January 20, 2026, read a second time the next day, and then sat in the House Government Committee without advancing.[11]
| Property managers | You gain no new ground to refuse a repeat request; every qualifying request still has to be filled within ten business days. |
| HOA board members | The proposed shield against duplicative two-year requests is not law, so a board cannot lean on it to decline a renewed request. |
| Community association attorneys | The withholding list still holds at the five categories in subsection B; no "previously provided" exemption exists. |
| Homeowners | You may resubmit a request for the same records without a statutory duplicative-request bar. |
B. Recent rulings
No published decision of the Arizona Court of Appeals (Division One or Division Two) or the Arizona Supreme Court squarely interprets the records-inspection provisions of A.R.S. § 33-1258 or § 33-1805 — not the ten-business-day window, not the copy-fee cap, not the enumerated withholding categories. That silence reflects how Arizona built its enforcement framework. Records disputes run almost entirely through the administrative channel at the Office of Administrative Hearings under A.R.S. § 32-2199.01–.02, where administrative law judges resolve most records-access cases and rarely produce appellate opinions construing the statutory text.3,4 Editors and practitioners tracking these provisions should watch Office of Administrative Hearings decisions and any later Superior Court review rather than wait on appellate precedent that does not yet exist.
C. Active legislative debates
The recurring reform proposals of 2025 and 2026 — HB 2278 and HB 2612 — would add a good-faith and proper-purpose condition, enumerate the specific records open to inspection, treat online-posted records as reasonably available, and let associations decline duplicative requests for unmodified records. None has been enacted.8,10 So the framework holds where it stands: a broad, no-proper-purpose right paired with a ten-business-day window.
Section 5: National positioning and related coverage
Arizona is a comprehensive, non-UCIOA state, and its records mechanics run more prescriptive than the bare reasonableness standard of UCIOA-1982 jurisdictions. It sits alongside California (the Davis-Stirling Act) and Florida (Chapters 718 and 720) among states that pair a statutory fulfillment window with an enumerated list of withholdable records — but it differs from them in two ways. Arizona splits the rules across two parallel statutes, § 33-1258 for condominiums and § 33-1805 for planned communities, and it channels enforcement through a restructured administrative process at the Office of Administrative Hearings before, or instead of, Superior Court. For a multi-state operator, the practical message is plain: Arizona sets a defined ten-business-day clock and a closed set of exemptions, so a manager has to track the same deadline and the same five withholding categories separately for condominiums and planned communities. Recent legislative activity has not moved the fulfillment window, the fifteen-cent copy cap, or the enforcement pathway — the 2025 and 2026 records bills did not advance.
Federal frameworks reach Arizona associations too, whatever the state rules say. The Fair Housing Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act, and the OTARD rule all apply to these associations regardless of the state framework.
- A.R.S. § 33-1258, Association financial and other records; applicability (Arizona Revised Statutes, azleg.gov) ↩
- A.R.S. § 33-1805, Association financial and other records (Arizona Revised Statutes, azleg.gov) ↩
- A.R.S. § 32-2199.01, Hearing; rights and procedures (Arizona Revised Statutes, azleg.gov) ↩
- A.R.S. § 32-2199.02, Orders; penalties; disposition (Arizona Revised Statutes, azleg.gov) ↩
- Arizona Department of Real Estate, Homeowners Association Dispute Information (azre.gov) ↩
- Mulcahy Law Firm, "Help! We Received a Records Request" (mulcahylawfirm.com) ↩
- Arizona Department of Real Estate, Homeowners Association Dispute Information (azre.gov) ↩
- HB 2278 (2025), homeowners' associations; records requests, bill text (Arizona Legislature, azleg.gov) ↩
- HB 2278 (2025), Bill Overview and Actions (Arizona Legislature, apps.azleg.gov) ↩
- HB 2612 (2026), records requests; homeowners' associations, bill text (Arizona Legislature, azleg.gov) ↩
- HB 2612 (2026), Fifty-seventh Legislature, Second Regular Session, status and actions (LegiScan, cross-verify on azleg.gov) ↩