Arkansas HOA Mediation & Dispute Resolution

Key Findings

Arkansas handles community-association disputes through a contract-and-court model, and it places no statutory pre-suit mediation or alternative dispute resolution (ADR) mandate on homeowners associations.¹ The Arkansas Horizontal Property Act governs condominiums — the statute calls them "horizontal property regimes" — and it covers formation, bylaws, common elements, and assessments. What it does not do is set up any internal dispute-resolution, mediation, or arbitration procedure, and it builds no comprehensive notice-and-hearing regime around enforcement. It reaches condominiums only, not planned-community HOAs, which run on recorded covenants, conditions, and restrictions (CC&Rs), the Arkansas Nonprofit Corporation Act of 1993 (Ark. Code § 4-33-101 et seq.), and common law.² Once a dispute reaches a formal forum, the general civil ADR mechanisms take over: court-annexed mediation, administered through the Arkansas Alternative Dispute Resolution Commission (Ark. Code § 16-7-101 et seq.), and arbitration under the Arkansas Uniform Arbitration Act (Ark. Code § 16-108-201 et seq.).^3,4 For planned communities in particular, the recorded declaration's own dispute-resolution clause frequently controls, because no dedicated statute supplies a default procedure. Arkansas follows the American rule on fees, but Ark. Code § 16-22-308 lets a prevailing party in a contract action recover reasonable attorney's fees at the court's discretion — a factor that shapes settlement leverage in assessment-collection and covenant-enforcement disputes.⁵ Nationally, this puts Arkansas among the contract-and-court states, in contrast to mandatory-ADR states such as California and Florida.⁶ The sections that follow lay out the statutory framework, the general civil ADR tools, the role of the declaration, and the operational pathways a live dispute travels.

Details

Section 2: The dispute resolution framework

2A. Statutory dispute resolution under the Horizontal Property Act

The Arkansas Horizontal Property Act is a traditional 1960s-era condominium statute, not an adoption of the Uniform Common Interest Ownership Act (UCIOA). Its twenty sections (Ark. Code § 18-13-101 through § 18-13-120) address the mechanics of creating and operating a condominium regime: the master deed, bylaws, common elements, allocation of expenses, insurance, and taxation.² The Act sets up no internal dispute-resolution procedure, requires no mediation or arbitration, and imposes no general notice-and-opportunity-to-be-heard mandate on enforcement actions against owners. Section 18-13-116 addresses liability for expenses and assessments and provides that unpaid assessments are recoverable on the sale of a unit, but it prescribes no ADR step before collection.⁷ So Arkansas imposes no HOA-specific statutory pre-suit mediation or ADR requirement of the kind found in California's Davis-Stirling Act or Florida's condominium statute.⁶ Act 516 of 2025 amended the Act, effective for regimes organized on or after September 1, 2025, but the amendments modernized definitions, declarant rights, master-deed contents, and assessment mechanics; they added no dispute-resolution, mediation, or arbitration provision.⁷ Planned-community HOAs fall outside the Act entirely. They are creatures of their recorded CC&Rs and, where incorporated, the Arkansas Nonprofit Corporation Act of 1993, which supplies corporate formalities — meetings, voting, records, director duties — but no dispute-resolution framework for owner-association conflicts.² The practical consequence: neither the condominium statute nor the nonprofit statute tells a manager how a dispute must be resolved. That content lives in the governing documents and in general civil procedure.

2B. General civil ADR: arbitration and court-annexed mediation

The Arkansas Uniform Arbitration Act, Ark. Code § 16-108-201 et seq., governs Arkansas arbitration. The General Assembly adopted it in 2011 (Act 695 of 2011) as an enactment of the Revised Uniform Arbitration Act. It applies to arbitration agreements made on or after July 27, 2011, and to earlier agreements if all parties agree.⁴ A written agreement to arbitrate is valid and enforceable "save upon such grounds as exist for the revocation of any contract," which routes enforceability through ordinary state contract law.⁴ Historically, Arkansas courts applied a demanding mutuality-of-obligation doctrine to arbitration clauses, striking down one-sided clauses that bound only the weaker party. That posture shifted with Jorja Trading, Inc. v. Willis, 2020 Ark. 133, in which the Arkansas Supreme Court held that courts measure mutuality against the entire agreement rather than the arbitration clause in isolation, and that dispute-resolution terms cannot be held to a more stringent standard than other contract terms.⁸ The Court reaffirmed that trend in Funding Metrics, LLC v. Letha's Pies, LLC, 2022 Ark. 73, enforcing a class-action waiver under Arkansas contract law.⁹ Arkansas still requires the five essential contract elements, including mutual obligation, so a facially illusory clause remains vulnerable, but the modern doctrine favors enforcement far more than the pre-2020 case law did. Where a declaration affects interstate commerce, the Federal Arbitration Act (9 U.S.C. § 1 et seq.) preempts any state rule that singles out arbitration for disfavored treatment, while generally applicable contract defenses — fraud, duress, unconscionability, failure of formation — survive.⁸ Court-annexed mediation becomes available once a party files a case: under Ark. Code § 16-7-202, circuit and appellate courts hold discretionary authority to refer any civil case to mediation, using a mediator from the Arkansas ADR Commission's roster or another mediator the court approves.³ The bottom line for declaration arbitration clauses: a properly drafted, mutually binding clause in an Arkansas association declaration is enforceable, and the FAA reinforces enforcement for declarations that touch interstate commerce.

2C. CC&R-based dispute resolution and order of precedence

Because Arkansas supplies no default dispute procedure for planned communities and only a skeletal one for condominiums, the recorded declaration's dispute-resolution clause frequently becomes the operative rule. Declarations commonly include one or more of the following: mediation as a condition precedent to filing suit; binding or non-binding arbitration of enumerated disputes; venue-selection provisions fixing the county for litigation; and prevailing-party attorney-fee clauses that operate against the backdrop of Ark. Code § 16-22-308.⁵ The declaration or bylaws may also establish internal grievance procedures, architectural-review appeal steps, or hearing rights before a fine or other sanction takes effect. When these documents conflict, Arkansas applies a conventional order of precedence: the applicable statute controls over the CC&Rs, the CC&Rs control over the bylaws, and the bylaws control over board-adopted rules and regulations. Operationally, this means a manager cannot pin down the governing dispute pathway from any single source. You must read the declaration against the statute — the Horizontal Property Act for condominiums, the Nonprofit Corporation Act for incorporated planned communities — and, where an arbitration clause is present, against the Federal Arbitration Act. A clause that appears to compel arbitration may still be tested for formation and mutuality under Arkansas contract law, and a clause that omits a procedure leaves the parties in circuit court by default.

Section 3: Dispute resolution pathways and obligations

The following map traces how an Arkansas community-association dispute moves, step by step.

A. Internal / association-level resolution

Notice-and-hearing rights before a fine or other adverse action come from the declaration and bylaws, not from any general Arkansas statute. The Horizontal Property Act imposes no such requirement, and the Nonprofit Corporation Act supplies only corporate procedure.² These rights apply to both condominiums and planned communities, and they are contractual — they live in the declaration and bylaws. Internal grievance and architectural-appeal procedures rest on the documents in the same way, and Arkansas maintains no administrative agency where an owner can appeal an internal decision.

B. Mediation

Arkansas statute does not make mediation mandatory; no pre-suit mediation mandate exists. Mediation is available to both condominiums and planned communities, but the statute offers it rather than compels it. Once a party files a civil case, a circuit court may refer it to mediation under Ark. Code § 16-7-202, drawing mediators from the Arkansas ADR Commission's roster.³ The parties typically split the cost equally unless the court or the parties agree otherwise, and a party may ask to be excused for good cause, including an inability to pay.³ Mediation communications stay confidential, and Ark. Code § 16-7-206 generally keeps them out of later proceedings.³ A declaration may separately make mediation a condition precedent to suit, and in that case the obligation is contractual.

C. Arbitration

A declaration's arbitration clause holds up if it meets Arkansas contract-formation requirements, including mutual obligation measured across the whole agreement under Jorja Trading, Inc. v. Willis, 2020 Ark. 133.⁸ The clause binds both condominiums and planned communities, it is contractual, and courts enforce it through the Arkansas Uniform Arbitration Act (Ark. Code § 16-108-201 et seq.) and, for declarations that affect interstate commerce, the Federal Arbitration Act.⁴ A clause may call for binding or non-binding arbitration; a binding award carries the force of a court judgment, with only narrow grounds for vacatur. Where no arbitration clause exists, no one can force a party to arbitrate.

D. Litigation and appeals

Trial-level community-association disputes move through the Arkansas Circuit Courts, the state's general-jurisdiction trial courts.¹⁰ A party may bring small assessment claims of $5,000 or less in the small claims division of the Arkansas District Courts, where attorneys may not appear; the district court civil division hears claims up to $25,000.¹¹ Appeals run to the Arkansas Court of Appeals, and the Arkansas Supreme Court may grant discretionary further review.¹⁰ A prevailing party in a contract-based action — and that covers most assessment-collection and CC&R-enforcement suits — may recover reasonable attorney's fees at the court's discretion under Ark. Code § 16-22-308, and the declaration may add its own fee-shifting clause.⁵ The limitations period runs five years for actions on written obligations under Ark. Code § 16-56-111 — recorded covenants and written assessment obligations usually count as written contracts — and three years for unwritten obligations under Ark. Code § 16-56-105.¹² Arkansas keeps no administrative or agency forum for HOA disputes; management-company licensing sits under general real estate regulation through the Arkansas Real Estate Commission, which does not adjudicate owner-association disputes.¹³

Section 4: Recent legislative and judicial activity

A. Recent bills

B. Recent appellate rulings

A targeted search of the Arkansas Judiciary's published opinions and Appellate Update summaries turned up no Arkansas Court of Appeals or Arkansas Supreme Court decision in the July 2023 through July 2026 window that squarely resolves a community-association dispute — covenant enforcement, assessment collection, architectural control, or notice-and-hearing adequacy.¹⁵ So the governing appellate authority on whether declaration arbitration clauses hold up remains the recent line of Arkansas Supreme Court arbitration decisions, chiefly Jorja Trading, Inc. v. Willis, 2020 Ark. 133, and Funding Metrics, LLC v. Letha's Pies, LLC, 2022 Ark. 73. Both predate the 36-month window, but they still control how Arkansas courts test dispute-resolution clauses for mutuality.^8,9 We provide no metadata block or audience table here because no in-window community-association ruling exists to report, and inventing one would violate the accuracy standard for this page.

C. Active legislative debates

The 2025 attempt (HB1660) to enact broader property owners' association regulation with audit requirements failed in committee, and as of July 2026 no enacted comprehensive planned-community statute carries an ADR component. Managers and boards should watch future sessions for a reintroduction.¹⁴

Recommendations

Here are staged, concrete next steps for property managers, boards, and counsel handling a live Arkansas dispute:

1. Read the declaration first, then the statute. Before you choose a pathway, pull the recorded declaration and bylaws and identify any mediation-condition-precedent, arbitration, venue, and fee-shifting clauses. In Arkansas the document, not the statute, usually dictates the process. If the association is a condominium, cross-check the master deed against the Horizontal Property Act; if it is a planned community, expect no statutory dispute procedure at all.
2. Exhaust internal procedures before escalating. Where the declaration or bylaws establish a hearing or grievance step — common for fines and architectural denials — follow it precisely and document notice. Because no statute supplies these rights, a court judges a procedural misstep against the governing documents, and skipping a document-required step is the most common avoidable error.
3. Assess any arbitration clause for mutuality and interstate-commerce reach. If the declaration contains an arbitration clause, evaluate whether it binds both the association and owners across the whole agreement (the Jorja Trading standard). A clause that reserves court access only to the association is the classic mutuality failure. If the community's operations touch interstate commerce, the FAA strengthens enforcement and preempts state rules that disfavor arbitration.
4. Right-size the forum to the dollar amount. For assessment delinquencies of $5,000 or less, the District Court small claims division is faster and cheaper, though counsel cannot appear there; for larger CC&R-enforcement or declaratory matters, file in Circuit Court. Plead breach of the recorded covenant or written assessment obligation as a contract claim to preserve the Ark. Code § 16-22-308 fee remedy and any contractual fee clause.
5. Mind the clock and preserve the fee claim. Written obligations carry a five-year limitations period, so move promptly on delinquent written assessments. Request attorney's fees by post-judgment motion under the Arkansas Rules of Civil Procedure, and cite both § 16-22-308 and any declaration fee clause.

Benchmarks that would change this guidance: enactment of a comprehensive Arkansas planned-community statute (a revived HB1660-type bill) with a mandatory ADR or notice-and-hearing component; an amendment adding a dispute-resolution provision to the Horizontal Property Act; or an in-window Arkansas appellate decision on declaration arbitration enforceability, covenant-enforcement fees, or notice-and-hearing adequacy. Any of these would move Arkansas off the pure contract-and-court model and warrant re-reading declarations against new statutory or judicial requirements.

Section 5: National positioning and related coverage

Arkansas is a contract-and-court state for community-association disputes. It imposes no statutory pre-suit ADR mandate, in contrast to mandatory-ADR jurisdictions such as California, whose Davis-Stirling Act requires associations to provide an internal dispute resolution procedure (Cal. Civ. Code § 5900 et seq.) and to offer alternative dispute resolution before filing an enforcement action (Cal. Civ. Code § 5930), and Florida, which requires pre-suit mediation for many HOA covenant-enforcement and use disputes (Fla. Stat. § 720.311) and nonbinding arbitration or mediation for enumerated condominium disputes (Fla. Stat. § 718.1255).⁶ On arbitration, Arkansas historically scrutinized clauses for mutuality of obligation under state contract law, but since Jorja Trading (2020) it measures mutuality across the whole agreement, and the Federal Arbitration Act controls for declarations affecting interstate commerce; the Ark. Code § 16-22-308 discretionary prevailing-party fee provision operates in the background of most assessment and covenant suits.^8,5 For multi-state operators, the practical implication is that in Arkansas the declaration's dispute-resolution and fee clauses do most of the work that statutes perform in mandatory-ADR states, so the quality of the recorded documents largely determines the available pathways and cost exposure.

Federal frameworks also bear on Arkansas association disputes regardless of the state framework, notably the Federal Arbitration Act, along with 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.

Caveats

This page states the law as of July 14, 2026. Several points warrant editorial attention. First, Arkansas shows low-to-moderate HOA-specific legislative and judicial activity on dispute resolution, and Section 4B intentionally reports the absence of an in-window (July 2023 to July 2026) community-association appellate ruling rather than substituting a non-association case; a manual sweep of the Arkansas Judiciary monthly Appellate Update PDFs is the recommended verification method before adding any association-specific case. Second, the controlling arbitration precedents (Jorja Trading, 2020; Funding Metrics, 2022) predate the 36-month ruling window but remain good law and are the correct authorities for declaration arbitration analysis. Third, the mutuality analysis is fact-specific: the modern standard favors enforcement, but a facially one-sided clause can still fail, and FAA preemption turns on whether the particular declaration affects interstate commerce. Fourth, § 16-22-308 fee awards are discretionary, not automatic, and a declaration's own fee clause may alter or displace the statutory default. Finally, verify statutory citations against the current official Arkansas Code through the Arkansas General Assembly, because codified section numbering can shift after amendments such as Act 516 of 2025.

1. Overview of Arkansas's "light-touch" community-association framework, noting no condo/HOA ombudsman or state arbitration track (cross-verification; primary statutes cited in following notes) ↩
2. Act 516 of 2025 (amending Ark. Code § 18-13-101 et seq., the Horizontal Property Act), Arkansas General Assembly; Arkansas Nonprofit Corporation Act of 1993, Ark. Code § 4-33-101 et seq. ↩
3. Arkansas Alternative Dispute Resolution Commission, Arkansas Judiciary (Ark. Code § 16-7-101 et seq.; court referral authority under § 16-7-202; confidentiality under § 16-7-206) ↩
4. Arkansas Uniform Arbitration Act, Ark. Code § 16-108-201 et seq. (Acts 2011, No. 695), Arkansas Judiciary ↩
5. Act 800 of 1989, enacting/amending Ark. Code § 16-22-308 (prevailing party in a contract action "may be allowed a reasonable attorney fee"), Arkansas General Assembly ↩
6. Comparative note: Arkansas has "no condo/HOA ombudsman or state arbitration track"; contrast California Davis-Stirling (Cal. Civ. Code § 5900 et seq. internal dispute resolution; § 5930 pre-litigation ADR offer) and Florida (Fla. Stat. § 720.311 HOA presuit mediation; § 718.1255 condominium arbitration/mediation) ↩
7. Act 516 of 2025, amending Ark. Code §§ 18-13-102, -103, -104, -112, and -116 (definitions, establishment, master deed, valuation, and liability for expenses and assessments); applicability September 1, 2025, Arkansas General Assembly ↩
8. Jorja Trading, Inc. v. Willis, 2020 Ark. 133, 598 S.W.3d 1 (mutuality measured across the entire agreement; dispute-resolution terms not subject to more stringent analysis than other contracts), discussed in Arkansas Judiciary Appellate Update ↩
9. Funding Metrics, LLC v. Letha's Pies, LLC, 2022 Ark. 73 (class-action waiver enforceable under Arkansas contract law), Arkansas Judiciary Spring 2022 Appellate Update ↩
10. Arkansas Court Structure (Circuit Courts as general-jurisdiction trial courts; Court of Appeals; Supreme Court), Arkansas Judiciary ↩
11. District Courts (civil jurisdiction to $25,000; small claims division to $5,000), Arkansas Judiciary (Ark. Code § 16-17-704) ↩
12. Ark. Code § 16-56-111 (five-year limitations period for written obligations) and Ark. Code § 16-56-105 (three-year limitations period for unwritten/oral obligations), Arkansas General Assembly official code ↩
13. Arkansas Real Estate Commission, Licensing (property management licensure under the Real Estate License Law; no HOA-specific dispute adjudication) ↩
14. HB1660 (2025), bill status "Died in House Committee at Sine Die adjournment," Arkansas General Assembly ↩
15. Arkansas Judiciary Appellate Updates (2024 and later), reviewed for community-association dispute rulings in the July 2023–July 2026 window; none squarely on point identified ↩