Arkansas's only recent attempt to open POA books to state audit died twice without a vote
Arkansas's only recent attempt to open POA books to state audit died twice without a vote
2026-09-09 · Arkansas · Legislation · Did not pass
Arkansas came closer than it has in years to writing property owners associations into statute and opening the biggest ones to state audit. Both attempts failed in 2025, neither got a recorded vote, and the legislator behind them leaves office on the day the next session convenes.
This is a dead-bill story, and it is filed as one. Nothing described below is Arkansas law, and no bill on this subject can currently exist — pre-filing for the 2027 regular session does not open until November 16, 2026.
HB1453: the broad version, gone in nine days
Representative Stephen Meeks of Greenbrier filed House Bill 1453 on February 11, 2025 — “To Amend the Horizontal Property Act; and to Regulate Property Owners' Associations.” It was read, referred to the House Committee on City, County & Local Affairs, and then, on February 20, withdrawn by its author. Nine days, no hearing.1
What it would have done was substantial. It pulled property owners associations into the condominium statute by redefining “co-owner” and “person” under the Horizontal Property Act. It defined a property owners association with no membership-size floor. It required bylaws to specify the establishment of any fee structure, expenses and assessments and the manner of changing them; set a 51 percent decision threshold; required an annual financial report to co-owners; and opened all financial records to examination. Its sharpest provision made an association subject to audit by Arkansas Legislative Audit where it received state funding or performed local-government services — and provided that a single member of the General Assembly could request such an audit, subject to Joint Auditing Committee approval.
HB1660: the narrowed version, dead at sine die
Three weeks after withdrawing the first bill, Meeks filed House Bill 1660 on March 4, 2025. Same committee. It was heard at that committee's March 19 meeting. It never received a recorded vote, and on May 5, 2025 the legislature's own record entered the disposition: “Died in House Committee at Sine Die adjournment.”2
The retreat between the two bills is visible in the text. Where HB1453 had no size threshold, HB1660 defined a “property owners association” as an incorporated nonprofit operating under recorded land agreements in which each lot owner is automatically a member, each lot is automatically subject to a proportionate charge, and the organisation “has at least one thousand (1,000) members.” Where HB1453 said an association is subject to audit, HB1660 said one “may be subject to review by Arkansas Legislative Audit” — and only “after approval by the Legislative Joint Auditing Committee.”3
Two attempts, one retreat, zero votes.
The records provision, and what it would have changed
The least-discussed part of HB1660 may have been its most consequential. Section 2 rewrote Ark. Code Ann. § 18-13-110 — the Horizontal Property Act's inspection right — by striking eleven words and inserting three.
The existing statute makes “the book and the vouchers accrediting the entries made thereupon” available for examination by co-owners. HB1660 would have replaced that with: “All financial records shall be available for examination by all the co-owners at convenient hours on working days.”
That is the difference between a right to see the ledger and a right to see the underlying financial records — contracts, bank statements, invoices, reserve analyses. Arkansas's current records-inspection position for condominium regimes is the narrower of those two, and it remains so.
The bill also added definitions to § 18-13-102 for “local government” and for “services traditionally performed by a local government,” the latter expressly including “without limitation” road maintenance, sewer services, trash services and water services. That definition is the hinge: it aimed the audit provision squarely at Arkansas's large amenity communities — the gated developments that maintain their own roads and run their own utilities, funded entirely by member assessments, with no state or municipal oversight of how the money is spent.
The sponsor problem
Stephen Meeks cannot refile. Under the sixteen-year lifetime cap in Amendment 73, he is term-limited; he did not run for re-election in 2026, and his term ends on January 11, 2027 — the same day the 96th General Assembly convenes. Two Republicans contested the District 42 primary in March 2026.
We searched specifically for a successor and found none. No Arkansas legislator, candidate or organisation has publicly said they will carry a POA accountability bill in 2027. That is a negative finding, not a prediction: it means nobody has announced, not that nobody will.
The absence is structural as well as personal. Community Associations Institute, the national trade body whose state legislative action committees usually shape this kind of bill, has no Arkansas committee at all. In its own words, describing its response to Arkansas legislation: “With no active CAI LAC in Arkansas, CAI staff attended an in-person hearing in Little Rock and advocates reached out virtually.”4 Arkansas is not among the 36 states with one. There is no organised in-state industry position — and no organised homeowner-advocacy campaign either.
The contrast worth noticing
2025 was not a session in which the Horizontal Property Act went untouched. Act 516 of 2025 amended it — definitions, declarant rights, development rights — and it passed. The member-accountability rewrite of the same statute never got a vote in committee.
The same pattern shows up in housing policy. Act 313 of 2025 required Arkansas cities to permit accessory dwelling units, but expressly provided that it “does not prohibit restrictive covenants concerning accessory dwelling units entered into between private parties.” Arkansas's recent legislative appetite has been for changing what municipalities may forbid, and for modernising the developer-facing parts of condominium law. It has not extended to what associations may do to their own members.
What to watch next
Three dates. November 16, 2026 is when pre-filing opens for the 2027 regular session — the first day a 2027 Arkansas HOA bill can exist. January 11, 2027 is when the session convenes at noon. And between them, whether any member of the House Committee on City, County & Local Affairs — chaired by Representative Justin Gonzales, with Representative Bart Schulz as vice-chair — picks up a subject that has now been raised and dropped twice.
Also worth noting for anyone tracking this: a search of the General Assembly's interim study proposal database across every biennium turns up nothing on condominiums, and nothing on associations beyond an unrelated decentralised-nonprofit measure. There is no interim study running on this subject, and no task force. If a 2027 bill appears, it will appear without that groundwork.
Related Arkansas HOA Topics
- HB1453 of 2025, bill record and status history (Arkansas General Assembly) — status: withdrawn by author ↩
- HB1660 of 2025, bill record and status history (Arkansas General Assembly) — status: died in House Committee at sine die adjournment ↩
- HB1660 of 2025, full bill text as filed ↩
- Community Associations Institute, state legislative roundup — noting no active CAI legislative action committee in Arkansas ↩
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