The categories that are really financial

Defunct boards. Communities where nobody is willing to stand for election, and boards shrinking toward receivership. That is not an abstraction: a Kent County case on the Court of Chancery docket alleges an association remained under declarant control for two decades with one director while legally void.

False resale certificates. Certificates with materially false information where a knowing misrepresentation looks likely — referred to the DOJ Consumer Protection Unit as potential consumer fraud. Delaware's resale-disclosure statute for older condominiums has two genuinely unresolved questions in it, which the Superior Court flagged in a 2025 decision.

Declarants failing to establish condominium reserves, and failure to properly propose and approve budgets.

The unfunded-reserve warning. Owners of communities with pools, clubhouses, roads and streetlights told the office their reserves are unfunded and they “expect large, unaffordable, special assessments.” That is the exact gap in Delaware law: DUCIOA's reserve mandate reaches condominiums and cooperatives, not planned communities. Our Delaware reserve studies page sets it out, and the bill to close it died in committee in June 2026.

Sussex County water runoff. “Many complaints involved Sussex County water-runoff issues” — including owners disregarding recorded plat plans or altering approved grading so as to flood neighbours. The office routes these to County Engineering, the Conservation District's Watershed Stewardship Division, and DNREC.

What boards complain about

The office hears from both sides, and the board-side list is short: collecting delinquent assessments (the office rewrote its guide, “Collecting Delinquent Assessments, without a Lawyer,” to a second edition in April 2025); how to terminate a community under 25 Del. C. § 81-218; enforcing deed restrictions on boats, RVs and commercial vehicles; and owners who refuse to pay or cure until sued.

On that third one, Delaware courts gave boards a mixed answer in 2025: the Supreme Court affirmed that “commercial vehicle” is enforceable as a term, in a case where the association recovered nothing and was ordered to strike its accrued fines and fees from its books.

What the office recommends — and its status

These go by statute to the Governor, the Attorney General, the General Assembly and the Chief Justice. All are recommendations. None is law. Several have been restated unchanged since the 2022 report.

• Eliminate the small-community exemption at § 81-117, which exempts condominiums and cooperatives of 20 units or fewer from most of DUCIOA
• Require a declarant-controlled board to give owners a budget summary — § 81-324(a) carves declarants out, a departure from the model uniform act
• Extend reserve studies and funded reserves to planned communities, and modernize § 81-315 to require credentialed reserve specialists, national standards, and recording with the Recorder of Deeds
• Require notice to a homeowner before an association records an assessment lien. The report says owners and their attorneys report receiving no notice, with some homes “rescued from foreclosure when notice was given shortly before Sheriff's sale”
• Extend audit requirements to planned communities — condominiums and cooperatives already need triennial CPA audits under § 81-306(6); one community's CPA declared the books “un-auditable”
• Register community association managers — background checks, education, experience, bonding and Division of Professional Regulation oversight. The driver is blunt: complaints of managers “borrowing” association funds, and the report notes two ombudsperson states acted only after roughly $2 million was embezzled
• Earlier governing-document disclosure to buyers, moving §§ 81-408(a) and 81-409(a) delivery ahead of contract signing
• Transition and turnover requirements plus mandatory board training — DUCIOA “says little” about preparing the first owner-elected board
• The Council is also reviewing a 2021 proposed amendment to the uniform act that “would have a broader effect”

Delaware does not license community association managers. Nothing in the 2025 or 2026 Register of Regulations proposes it.

One structural note

The office runs on statute alone. A search of the Delaware Administrative Code for “Ombudsperson” returns zero results; a Register of Regulations search for “common interest community” returns zero across all volumes. There is no agency rulemaking here — every change goes through the General Assembly, which is why a bill dying in committee matters more in this corner of Delaware law than elsewhere.

What to watch next

The 2025 report is due December 1, 2026. The series runs late — the 2024 edition appeared in December 2025 — so expect it around then. It is the highest-value forthcoming document on this beat, and it will show whether the lien-notice and small-community recommendations have moved at all.