What Delaware HOA owners actually complain about, from the state's own file
What Delaware HOA owners actually complain about, from the state's own file
2026-08-05 · Delaware · Regulation
Delaware publishes something most states do not: an annual account, by a state officer, of what homeowners and boards in common interest communities are actually fighting about. The 2024 report is out, and the single most common complaint is the same one it has been — boards refusing to hand over the books and records.
The report is signed by Christopher J. Curtin, Deputy Attorney General and Common Interest Community Ombudsperson, and is dated December 18, 2025. It is a statutory filing under 29 Del. C. § 2544(16).1
The volume
For calendar year 2024:
- 84 formal complaints received — 36 statutorily complete, 48 incomplete but tracked anyway
- 82 resolved; 8 statutorily complete complaints carried into 2025
- 456 formal email inquiries requiring research; 56 informal inquiries; 26,775 general emails
- 12 referrals to the Court of Common Pleas community mediation programme — one bundling seven complaints from a single community
- Election services for exactly two communities all year (Reserves of Nassau; Brookside HOA)
- One mentoring referral; 21 workshops or meetings attended
The Advisory Council met five times, all by Zoom, with public attendance of 38 to 70 per meeting against 0 to 6 before the pandemic. Its email list stands at 1,354. Two Council seats remain unfilled.
The top complaint categories, in the office's own ranking
1. Records. Board refusal to provide access to the books and records on written request with five days' notice “remains the top category of complaint” — including outgoing boards refusing to hand records to a newly elected board.
2. Bylaws. Not available to owners; not followed; never created by developers during declarant control; improperly amended; selectively enforced. And a structural one: many Delaware communities have no recorded bylaws at all, though DUCIOA requires them even for unincorporated associations.
3. Elections. Electronic voting, proxies, secret ballots, refusal or failure to hold annual elections, quorum, “signature verification” with no authority for signature comparison, refusing candidates for unauthorized reasons, “appointing” directors without elections, post-election ballot validation, electing more directors than the documents allow, and requiring proxies be sent to a candidate.
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Related Delaware HOA Topics
- Delaware DOJ, Common Interest Community Ombudsperson, 2024 Annual Report, dated Dec. 18, 2025 (statutory report under 29 Del. C. § 2544(16)) ↩
- Delaware DOJ — CIC Ombudsperson annual reports index (confirming the 2024 report is the most recent) ↩
- CIC Ombudsperson, “Collecting Delinquent Assessments Without a Lawyer,” Second Edition, April 2025 ↩
- 25 Del. C. ch. 81, subch. III — §§ 81-306(6), 81-315, 81-318, 81-324 (the provisions the recommendations address) ↩
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