Arkansas HOA Collections & Liens

Key Findings

• No super-priority. Under § 18-13-116(c), unpaid assessments rank behind recorded mortgages and past-due taxes. Arkansas never adopted the priority slice that modern uniform acts introduced.
• Judicial foreclosure, only. Associations cannot use Arkansas's non-judicial Statutory Foreclosure Act; § 18-50-116(c) reserves that process for mortgage companies, banks, and savings and loans. Circuit court is the only route.
• Two separate regimes. The Horizontal Property Act covers condominiums; planned communities have no dedicated statute and collect through recorded CC&Rs, backed only by common law and corporate formalities from the Nonprofit Corporation Act.
• No statutory notice requirements. Pre-lien and pre-foreclosure procedures come from the governing documents, not the Act — neither day-counts, nor thresholds, nor payment-plan mandates appear in state law.
• Five-year window. The written-obligation limitations period under Ark. Code § 16-56-111 runs five years from each delinquency.
• Foreclosure buyers face personal liability. Under § 18-13-116(d), a purchaser at a mortgage-foreclosure sale becomes jointly and severally liable for the prior owner's unpaid assessments — even though the association's lien itself remains junior to the mortgage.

Section 1: Overview

Arkansas runs its community-association collections through one of the oldest condominium statutes in the South — the Horizontal Property Act, codified at Ark. Code § 18-13-101 et seq. The Act dates to the 1960s and predates the modern concept of super-priority liens. Planned communities, by contrast, have no dedicated collections statute. They rely entirely on their recorded covenants, conditions, and restrictions, backed by common law.

For condominiums, the Act does not create a self-executing lien that arises automatically on the day an assessment falls due. Instead, § 18-13-116(a) creates a personal obligation on the co-owner, and § 18-13-116(c) gives unpaid assessments a payment preference out of the sale price — but that preference runs behind recorded first mortgages and past-due taxes. The actual security that an association enforces in practice comes from its recorded master deed or declaration.

Arkansas grants no super-priority lien ahead of a first mortgage. When a senior mortgage forecloses, it extinguishes the junior association lien, reducing any remaining balance to an unsecured personal debt. Foreclosure of an association lien proceeds through circuit court, because § 18-50 restricts the non-judicial power-of-sale process to mortgage companies, banks, and savings and loan institutions. No statute sets a minimum dollar amount or minimum delinquency period before an association may sue.

That places Arkansas at the creditor-unfriendly end of the national spectrum — unlike super-priority states such as Nevada and Connecticut, and unlike threshold-restricted states such as California and Arizona. Functionally, Arkansas behaves like a CC&R-primary state, where the governing documents do most of the collection work. The sections below trace the lien, its priority, and the collection and foreclosure sequence in detail.

Arkansas HOA Collections & Liens at a glance

Source: Ark. Code §§ 18-13-116, 18-13-101 et seq., 18-50-116, 18-49-106, 4-33-101 et seq.; Act 516 of 2025. Last verified: June 9, 2026.

Section 2: The lien and its priority

2A. Lien creation, authority, and what it secures

For condominiums, the source of the assessment obligation is § 18-13-116(a), which binds co-owners to contribute pro rata — in the percentages set by the master deed — toward expenses for administration, maintenance, and repair of the common elements, and toward any other expense lawfully agreed upon.¹ The Act does not say a lien arises automatically on the date an assessment falls due, and it does not direct the recording of a claim of lien as a perfecting step. Instead, the statute works two ways: it makes the obligation a personal liability of the co-owner, and under § 18-13-116(c) it gives unpaid assessments a preference in the proceeds when the unit sells. The in rem security that an association actually enforces comes from the recorded master deed or declaration of CC&Rs, filed with the county circuit clerk and ex officio recorder under § 18-13-104.⁶ For planned communities, there is no statute at all; the assessment obligation and any lien are purely contractual covenants running with the land under the recorded CC&Rs, enforced through common-law principles.

What the statute secures is narrow. Section 18-13-116(a) reaches unpaid assessments for common expenses. Act 516 of 2025 added § 18-13-116(a)(4), confirming that a past-due assessment or installment may bear interest at a lawful rate set by the association.⁷ Late fees, fines, collection costs, and attorney fees fall outside the statutory assessment obligation; an association recovers those amounts only if the recorded CC&Rs say so. The obligation attaches to the individual unit and its allocated interest in the common elements, not to other property of the owner.

2B. Lien priority and any super-priority component

The priority rule is clear and quotable. Section 18-13-116(c) provides that upon sale or conveyance, unpaid assessments "shall first be paid out of the sales price or by the acquirer in preference over any other assessments or charges of whatever nature except" assessments, liens, and charges for past-due taxes, and "[p]ayments due under mortgage instruments of encumbrance duly recorded."¹ The association's claim ranks above ordinary unit charges, but behind recorded first mortgages and past-due property taxes.

Arkansas recognizes no super-priority portion ahead of a first mortgage. The Horizontal Property Act is a first-generation statute modeled on the 1958 Puerto Rican Horizontal Property Act, sharing its structure with the older Nebraska and New Jersey condominium acts; none of these grants the limited six-month (or longer) priority that the Uniform Condominium Act and the Uniform Common Interest Ownership Act introduced. Nevada's NRS 116.3116(2)(b), for example, makes the association lien prior to the first security interest to the extent of nine months' preceding assessments. Arkansas has no equivalent. Because there is no super-priority, there is no "rolling" or successive-period priority to reassert. When a senior first mortgage forecloses, it extinguishes the junior association lien under ordinary lien-priority law, leaving any unpaid balance as an unsecured personal debt of the former owner.

One Arkansas wrinkle deserves emphasis. In First State Bank v. Metro District Condominiums Property Owners Association, Inc., the Arkansas Supreme Court, in an opinion by Associate Justice Donald L. Corbin, read § 18-13-116(d) literally: a purchaser at a mortgage-foreclosure sale is jointly and severally liable with the prior owner for that owner's unpaid condominium assessments up to conveyance, because the subsection contains no exception for foreclosure sales. The court held: "There is nothing in the plain language of this provision that supports First State's assertion that subsection (d) does not apply to a mortgage foreclosure sale.... we cannot say that the circuit court erred in refusing to extinguish Metro POA's interest." Justice Courtney Hudson Goodson dissented on finality grounds.⁸ The case arose from Unit 270 in the Metro District Condominiums regime in Fayetteville, where assessments ran at $233.33 per month, First State bought the unit at its own foreclosure sale for $148,000 against a $247,289.13 judgment, and the court affirmed a $1,500 attorney's-fee award to the association. This decision does not elevate the assessment lien above the mortgage in the payment waterfall — subsection (c) still subordinates assessments to the recorded mortgage. Rather, it imposes a separate personal liability on the foreclosure purchaser. A lender or third party taking title through foreclosure in an Arkansas condominium can be pursued personally for the prior owner's arrearages.

2C. CC&R interaction, corporate-law overlay, and federal overlay

Recorded CC&Rs carry most of the operational load in Arkansas. They supply lien mechanics, late-fee and interest schedules, fine authority, attorney-fee recovery, and any pre-lien or pre-foreclosure notice steps that the Horizontal Property Act leaves unaddressed. For planned communities, CC&Rs are the only source of collection authority. The Arkansas Nonprofit Corporation Act of 1993 (Ark. Code § 4-33-101 et seq.) governs corporate formalities — board action, meetings, and records — and is not a collections statute.²

The statute of limitations on the underlying assessment debt runs five years, because assessments arising under a recorded written declaration are written obligations governed by Ark. Code § 16-56-111(a); partial payment or written acknowledgment of default tolls that period.⁹ The three-year period for oral contracts under Ark. Code § 16-56-105 does not apply where the obligation appears in recorded written governing documents.¹⁰ Federal frameworks overlay every Arkansas collection: the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act can reach associations' attorneys and third-party collection agents, the automatic stay in bankruptcy halts collection on filing, and the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act protects covered owners.

Section 3: The collection and foreclosure process

3A. Pre-lien collection sequence

The Horizontal Property Act prescribes no pre-lien notice, no advance day-count, no mandated delivery method, and no statutory right to a payment plan, to dispute the debt, or to demand an itemized statement before an association acts. Where these steps exist, they come from the recorded CC&Rs and are contractual, not statutory, for both condominiums and planned communities.¹ When an association uses a third-party collection agency, the federal Fair Debt Collection Practices Act triggers a thirty-day dispute right for the consumer — that requirement is federal, not a product of Arkansas association law. Section 18-13-116(b) bars a co-owner from escaping assessments by waiving use of the common elements or abandoning the unit, which forecloses a common defense but adds no procedural prerequisites.¹

3B. Recording and the pre-foreclosure sequence

For condominiums, the governing documents are on file with the county circuit clerk and ex officio recorder under § 18-13-104.⁶ The Horizontal Property Act does not specify the contents of a claim of lien, a deadline to record one, or a notice of intent to foreclose, so an association follows whatever its CC&Rs require and then proceeds as an ordinary civil claimant. Prerequisites such as a board vote, a payment-plan offer, or mediation do not exist in the statute; they appear only in the governing documents, making each step contractual rather than statutory. For planned communities, every recording and pre-suit step is contractual under the CC&Rs.

3C. Foreclosure mechanics and thresholds

Foreclosure of an Arkansas association lien proceeds through the courts. The Statutory Foreclosure Act's non-judicial power-of-sale process is restricted by § 18-50-116(c) to cases where the foreclosing party "is a mortgage company as defined in § 18-50-101 or is a bank or savings and loan," and the chapter is built throughout around mortgages and deeds of trust rather than association assessment liens.^3,11 A community association is neither a mortgage company nor a bank, so it cannot use § 18-50 and must instead bring an equitable foreclosure action in circuit court. Arkansas's broader non-judicial process has a contested constitutional history; the Arkansas Supreme Court upheld it against a due-process challenge in Parker v. BancorpSouth Bank, reasoning that a non-judicial sale involves no state action.¹² That holding addresses lender foreclosures and does not extend the non-judicial route to associations. No Arkansas statute sets a minimum dollar threshold or minimum delinquency period before an association may foreclose, and whether fines and fees — as distinct from assessments — can support a foreclosure depends on the CC&Rs, since the Act ties the obligation to common-expense assessments. In a judicial action, the circuit court enters a decree and orders a sale; the timeline is driven by the court's docket rather than a fixed statutory clock.

3D. Post-sale: redemption, deficiency, surplus, reinstatement

For judicial foreclosures of mortgages and deeds of trust, Ark. Code § 18-49-106 grants the mortgagor a one-year right of redemption from the date of sale, which may be waived in the instrument; the statute is framed around mortgages and deeds of trust and does not specifically address association-lien foreclosures, so its application to an association foreclosure is not settled by statute.⁴ No post-sale redemption follows a § 18-50 non-judicial sale, because § 18-50-116(d)(1) states the chapter creates no implied right of redemption — but associations cannot use that route in any event.¹³ A deficiency claim is available: the underlying assessment debt remains a personal obligation of the former owner, and § 18-13-116(d) additionally exposes a foreclosure-sale purchaser to joint and several liability for the prior owner's arrearages.^1,8 Surplus sale proceeds flow down the priority hierarchy to junior interests and then to the former owner under ordinary foreclosure law. The equitable right to pay the full amount due and stop a sale before it occurs always exists; any further right to reinstate on different terms is a matter of the governing documents.

Section 4: Recent legislative and judicial activity

4A. Recent bills

Arkansas lawmakers passed one significant piece of legislation affecting condominium collections in 2025.

4B. Recent appellate rulings

No Arkansas appellate court has addressed assessment-lien creation, priority, or foreclosure under the Horizontal Property Act in the past 36 months. The controlling authority is still the 2014 Arkansas Supreme Court decision, presented here because it governs current practice.

4C. Active legislative debates

A separate 2025 proposal, House Bill 1660, sought to amend the Horizontal Property Act to regulate property owners' associations and require audits for certain associations, signaling continued legislative interest in association financial oversight. The bill did not advance to enactment in the form Act 516 took.

Section 5: National positioning and related coverage

Arkansas lands at the creditor-unfriendly end of the national collections spectrum. It grants no super-priority lien — unlike Nevada, which gives associations priority over nine months' worth of assessments ahead of the first mortgage; Connecticut, which recognizes a limited priority under its Common Interest Ownership Act; and states that have adopted the six-month Uniform Common Interest Ownership Act priority. Nor is it a threshold-restricted state like California, Arizona, or Colorado, which tie foreclosure to minimum debt amounts or delinquency durations. Arkansas sets no statutory thresholds at all.

In practice, Arkansas operates as a CC&R-primary state: condominiums run on a concise, first-generation statute with a junior lien, and planned communities have no assessment-collection statute and depend entirely on recorded covenants. For multi-state operators, Arkansas association liens are weak relative to mortgages, foreclosure is judicial and slower, and recovery most often turns on the governing documents and on the § 18-13-116(d) purchaser-liability rule — not on statutory leverage. The direction of change is modest modernization of administration and finances through Act 516 of 2025, without building a super-priority or a heavy regulatory structure. The framework is best understood as static on creditor leverage.

Recommendations

• Default to judicial foreclosure and a money claim, not a lien sale. Associations cannot use § 18-50, so the practical path is a circuit-court collection suit on the personal assessment obligation. Weigh judicial foreclosure only where the unit has equity above the first mortgage. If the legislature ever opens the non-judicial process to associations or creates a super-priority, revisit that analysis immediately.
• Lean on § 18-13-116(d) purchaser liability. When a unit passes through foreclosure, name the foreclosure-sale purchaser and pursue the prior owner's arrearages as a personal claim. The lien itself is junior and likely extinguished — this is the single strongest tool Arkansas gives a condominium association.
• Audit governing documents now. Notice steps, late fees, fines, attorney-fee recovery, payment plans, and any board-vote requirement are all contractual. Confirm the recorded CC&Rs actually authorize each charge and procedure before relying on them; without CC&R authority, those amounts are not recoverable.
• Calendar the five-year limitations clock under § 16-56-111 from each delinquency, and capture partial payments or written acknowledgments that toll it.
• For post-September 1, 2025 condominium regimes — or opt-in regimes — adopt a board resolution setting a lawful interest rate on delinquencies under the new § 18-13-116(a)(4) and document declarant operating-shortfall funding during the control period.
• Build FDCPA, bankruptcy-stay, and SCRA checks into the workflow for every file, since these federal limits apply regardless of the weak state framework.

Caveats

• The Horizontal Property Act does not expressly create a self-executing recorded assessment lien or set notice day-counts; this analysis distinguishes the statutory payment preference under § 18-13-116(c) and personal liability under § 18-13-116(d) from the in rem security that recorded CC&Rs supply. Associations should not assume a statutory lien arises automatically on the due date.
• The one-year judicial redemption right in § 18-49-106 is written for mortgages and deeds of trust; its application to an association's judicial foreclosure is not squarely settled by statute or by a located appellate decision, and should be confirmed with counsel for a specific matter.
• The 432 S.W.3d 1 parallel citation for First State Bank v. Metro District Condominiums POA is corroborated by secondary sources; the neutral citation 2014 Ark. 48 and the February 6, 2014 date are confirmed from the opinion. Verify the reporter pinpoint against an official reporter before formal citation.
• Statutory text was read against the current Arkansas Code and the enacted text of Act 516 of 2025; because Act 516 applies prospectively and by opt-in, practitioners must determine which version of § 18-13-116 governs a given regime.

1. Ark. Code § 18-13-116, Liability for expenses and assessments (Horizontal Property Act) ↩
2. Ark. Code § 4-33-101 et seq., Arkansas Nonprofit Corporation Act of 1993 ↩
3. Ark. Code § 18-50-116(c), Statutory Foreclosure Act (process limited to mortgage company, bank, or savings and loan) ↩
4. Ark. Code § 18-49-106, Redemption of real property (one year; waivable) ↩
5. Ark. Code § 18-13-101 et seq., Horizontal Property Act ↩
6. Ark. Code § 18-13-104, Master deed (recording) ↩
7. Act 516 of 2025 (SB 323), To Amend the Horizontal Property Act ↩
8. First State Bank v. Metro District Condominiums Property Owners Association, Inc., 2014 Ark. 48, 432 S.W.3d 1 (Feb. 6, 2014) ↩
9. Ark. Code § 16-56-111, five-year limitation on written obligations ↩
10. Ark. Code § 16-56-105, three-year limitation on oral contracts ↩
11. Ark. Code § 18-50-101, Statutory Foreclosure Act definitions ↩
12. Parker v. BancorpSouth Bank, 369 Ark. 300, 253 S.W.3d 918 (2007) ↩
13. Ark. Code § 18-50-116(d)(1), no implied right of redemption after non-judicial sale ↩