Arkansas HOA Board Elections

Section 1: Overview

Arkansas runs condominium board elections through one thin statute, the Horizontal Property Act, and it hands everything else to private documents and corporate law. For non-condominium planned communities, the recorded CC&Rs, the association bylaws, and the Arkansas Nonprofit Corporation Act of 1993 do the work. The state has no general HOA election statute. The Horizontal Property Act, Ark. Code Ann. § 18-13-101 et seq., is a traditional 1960s-era condominium law, and it applies only to a property that a recorded master deed submits to a horizontal property regime.¹ In planned communities — the non-condominium subdivisions — board elections run on the recorded CC&Rs and bylaws, and the Nonprofit Corporation Act of 1993 fills the gaps on director elections, terms, removal, and vacancies when the documents stay silent.² Arkansas has not adopted the Uniform Common Interest Ownership Act, so none of UCIOA's board-governance or declarant-control rules apply here. The state also lacks any Davis-Stirling-style election machinery — no mandatory secret ballots, no independent inspectors of election, no fixed nomination and ballot timelines — so the bylaws and corporate law carry the procedural detail. That places Arkansas among the CC&R-primary states, where board elections for most communities are contractual and corporate rather than statutory. The sections below lay out the condominium framework, the planned-community framework, the order of precedence among the governing sources, a quick-reference mechanics table, and recent legislative and judicial activity.

Section 2: The election framework

2A. The Arkansas Horizontal Property Act and condominium board elections

The Horizontal Property Act is the only Arkansas statute that reaches condominium governance, and it is short. It takes effect when a sole owner or co-owners record a master deed that submits the property to a horizontal property regime.¹ Bylaws then govern the regime, and the Act requires that those bylaws be "inserted in, or appended to, and recorded with the master deed."³ The Act says those bylaws "must necessarily provide for at least" the "Form of administration, indicating whether this shall be in charge of an administrator or of a board of administration, or otherwise, and specifying the powers, manner of removal, and, where proper, the compensation thereof," along with the "Method of calling or summoning the co-owners to assemble, that a majority of at least fifty-one percent (51%) is required to adopt decisions."³ The Act establishes the council of co-owners and provides that, unless stated otherwise, a majority of co-owners — defined as 51% of the basic value of the property — makes a quorum for adopting decisions.⁴ What the Act does not do is set board size, director terms, election timing, nomination procedure, ballot format, or the method of electing directors. It delegates all of that to the bylaws. That delegation is the defining trait of a traditional horizontal property statute, and it marks the practical difference from the UCIOA framework and from California's prescriptive election rules — both of which impose statutory election requirements that Arkansas simply does not have. Where a condominium association incorporates as a nonprofit, as most do, the Nonprofit Corporation Act supplies the corporate director defaults discussed below.

2B. Planned communities: no statute, CC&Rs and corporate law

Arkansas has no planned-community statute and no statutory board-election machinery for non-condominium subdivisions. A planned community's board elections answer first to the recorded declaration of covenants, conditions, and restrictions and to the association bylaws. Where those documents stay silent and the association is incorporated, the Arkansas Nonprofit Corporation Act of 1993, Ark. Code Ann. § 4-33-101 et seq., supplies the corporate gap-fillers: a board that "must consist of three (3) or more individuals";² election of directors by the members at the annual meeting unless the articles or bylaws set another method;⁵ a default director term of one year, with a six-year maximum, where no term is specified;⁶ member removal of directors at a meeting called for that purpose;⁷ and vacancy-filling by the members, the board, or the remaining directors.⁸ These are corporate director defaults, not HOA-specific election rules. To decide which framework applies, confirm two things: whether a recorded master deed created the community as a horizontal property regime (if so, the Horizontal Property Act applies; if not, it does not), and whether the association is incorporated (if so, the Nonprofit Corporation Act of 1993 supplies director defaults for associations formed on or after January 1, 1994, while older associations may fall under the prior nonprofit act).² The 1993 Act is corporate scaffolding. It is not an HOA election law.

2C. Bylaws and corporate law as the operational rulebook

For both condominiums and planned communities, the bylaws and — at the corporate level — the Nonprofit Corporation Act set the operational election mechanics: board size, terms, staggering, nominations, quorum, and balloting. The working order of precedence runs like this: any applicable Horizontal Property Act provision (for condominiums only), then the recorded CC&Rs or master deed, then the bylaws, then the Nonprofit Corporation Act gap-fillers for incorporated associations, then board-adopted rules. Where the bylaws and the statutes both stay silent, common-law contract and property doctrine governs, because Arkansas courts treat recorded covenants and bylaws as an enforceable contract among owners.⁹ The takeaway is direct: a property manager cannot quote a generic Arkansas board-election rule. Each question — who may run, how candidates are nominated, what notice the association must give, what quorum must be present, how votes are counted, how a director is removed — depends on the specific community's CC&Rs and bylaws and on whether the Horizontal Property Act applies at all. The state statute is a backstop, not the rulebook.

Section 3: Election mechanics

The table below states the rule for each mechanic by community type. "Condominiums" means associations operating under a recorded master deed and the Horizontal Property Act; "planned communities" means non-condominium associations operating under recorded CC&Rs. Both, when they incorporate as nonprofits, draw their director defaults from the Nonprofit Corporation Act of 1993.

A. Eligibility and nominations

No Arkansas HOA statute sets director eligibility or the nomination process. For condominiums, the Horizontal Property Act leaves both to the bylaws; for planned communities, they are contractual, fixed by the CC&Rs and bylaws. For incorporated associations of either type, the Nonprofit Corporation Act supplies only a baseline: directors need not be members or residents unless the articles or bylaws impose that requirement.¹¹ Any "good standing" or owner-occupancy qualification is therefore a bylaw-set rule, not a statutory one.

B. Notice, annual meeting, and quorum

For incorporated associations of both types, the Nonprofit Corporation Act requires an annual meeting and sets a member-meeting notice window of 10 to 60 days (30 days minimum if the association sends notice by other than first-class or registered mail).¹⁴ The Act's default member-meeting quorum is "ten percent (10%) of the votes entitled to be cast on a matter," and the documents may alter it.¹⁶ For condominiums specifically, the Horizontal Property Act sets a council quorum of a majority of co-owners (51% of basic value) for adopting decisions — a statutory figure rather than a bylaw default.⁴ Election timing itself (which meeting, what date) is contractual for planned communities and bylaw-set for condominiums.

C. Voting methods, proxies, and ballots

Voting methods are bylaw-driven and, for incorporated associations, supplemented by the Nonprofit Corporation Act. Under that Act, members may vote by proxy unless the articles or bylaws prohibit or limit it (a proxy is valid for 11 months unless stated otherwise, and never more than three years), and an association may run an election by written ballot without a meeting unless the documents prohibit it, with proxies and ballots deliverable by electronic means.¹⁵ Cumulative voting applies only if the articles or bylaws authorize it. None of this is condominium-specific or planned-community-specific; it is corporate law that applies to whichever associations incorporate. The Horizontal Property Act itself says nothing about proxies, ballots, or voting method.

D. Terms, vacancies, removal, and recall

Director terms, vacancy-filling, and removal are bylaw-set for both community types, and the Nonprofit Corporation Act supplies defaults for incorporated associations: a one-year default term (six-year maximum) absent a stated term,⁶ optional staggering,¹⁰ member or board filling of vacancies,⁸ and member removal with or without cause at a meeting called for that purpose, valid only if the removal vote would have been enough to elect the director.⁷ Courts may remove a director by judicial proceeding for fraudulent or dishonest conduct or gross abuse of authority.⁷ The Horizontal Property Act requires only that condominium bylaws specify the "manner of removal" of the administration; it sets no recall threshold of its own.³

Section 4: Recent legislative and judicial activity

A. Recent bills

One 2025 law reached the Horizontal Property Act, and a second measure died in committee. The signed law is below.

A second 2025 measure, House Bill 1660, would have amended the Horizontal Property Act, regulated property owners' associations, and required audits for certain associations, but it died in committee at sine die adjournment and never became law.¹⁸

B. Recent appellate rulings

No Arkansas appellate decision in the past 36 months squarely addresses HOA or condominium board elections, contested elections, declarant-control transitions, director removal, or voting and proxy disputes. The closest recent appellate authority on association governance appears below.

C. Active legislative debates

The 2025 session's House Bill 1660, which would have regulated property owners' associations and required audits, died in committee. No enacted measure creates a general Arkansas planned-community statute or statutory HOA election procedures. The only recent modernization is Act 516's update of the Horizontal Property Act.

Section 5: National positioning and related coverage

Arkansas sits among the CC&R-primary states, alongside Alabama and Mississippi, where the recorded CC&Rs, the bylaws, and corporate law — not a general HOA election statute — govern board elections for most communities. That is a different model from the UCIOA states (which, per the Community Associations Institute, adopted one of two versions: the 1982 version in Alaska, Colorado, Minnesota, Nevada, and West Virginia, and the 2008 version in Connecticut, Delaware, Vermont, and Washington), all of which set a statutory board-election framework. It also differs from prescriptive-procedure states such as California, whose Davis-Stirling Act requires director elections to "be held by secret ballot" (Cal. Civ. Code § 5100(a)) and obligates associations to "select an independent third party or parties as an inspector of elections" (Cal. Civ. Code § 5110(a)). For a multi-state operator expanding into Arkansas, the practical consequence is clear: the rulebook for any given board election is the community's own CC&Rs and bylaws, backed by the Nonprofit Corporation Act's corporate gap-fillers and, for condominiums, the thin Horizontal Property Act — not a state HOA statute. Election disputes move through the Arkansas Circuit Courts, with appeals to the Arkansas Court of Appeals and discretionary review by the Arkansas Supreme Court.

Federal frameworks — the Fair Housing Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act, and the FCC's OTARD rule — also reach Arkansas associations regardless of the state framework.

1. Ark. Code Ann. §§ 18-13-101, 18-13-103, 18-13-104 (Title; Establishment of horizontal property regimes; Master deed), Horizontal Property Act, official Arkansas Code public access ↩
2. Ark. Code Ann. § 4-33-803 (Number of directors) and § 4-33-1701 (applicability to corporations formed on or after January 1, 1994), Arkansas Nonprofit Corporation Act of 1993, official Arkansas Code public access ↩
3. Ark. Code Ann. § 18-13-108 (Bylaws), Horizontal Property Act, official Arkansas Code public access ↩
4. Ark. Code Ann. § 18-13-102 (Definitions; "majority of co-owners" and quorum), official Arkansas Code public access ↩
5. Ark. Code Ann. § 4-33-804 (Election, designation and appointment of directors), official Arkansas Code public access ↩
6. Ark. Code Ann. § 4-33-805 (Terms of directors generally; one-year default term, six-year maximum), official Arkansas Code public access ↩
7. Ark. Code Ann. §§ 4-33-808 (Removal of directors elected by members or directors) and 4-33-810 (Removal of directors by judicial proceeding), official Arkansas Code public access ↩
8. Ark. Code Ann. § 4-33-811 (Vacancy on board), official Arkansas Code public access ↩
9. John McKisick v. Discovery Bay Colony Property Owners Association, 2026 Ark. App. 223 (Ark. Ct. App. Apr. 8, 2026) ↩
10. Ark. Code Ann. § 4-33-806 (Staggered terms for directors), official Arkansas Code public access ↩
11. Ark. Code Ann. § 4-33-802 (Qualification of directors), official Arkansas Code public access ↩
12. Act 516 of 2025 (SB 323), amending the Horizontal Property Act (see amended § 18-13-116(b)(2) and applicability section), Arkansas General Assembly ↩
13. Ark. Code Ann. §§ 4-33-701 (Annual and regular meetings) and 4-33-804 (Election of directors), official Arkansas Code public access ↩
14. Ark. Code Ann. § 4-33-705 (Notice of meeting; 10-to-60-day window, 30 days if mailed by other than first-class or registered mail), official Arkansas Code public access ↩
15. Ark. Code Ann. §§ 4-33-724 (Proxies) and 4-33-708 (Action by written ballot), official Arkansas Code public access ↩
16. Ark. Code Ann. § 4-33-722 (Quorum requirements; default 10% of votes entitled to be cast), official Arkansas Code public access ↩
17. Ark. Code Ann. § 4-33-723 (Voting requirements; majority of votes cast with quorum present), official Arkansas Code public access ↩
18. HB1660 (2025 Regular Session), status: died in House committee at sine die adjournment, Arkansas General Assembly ↩