District of Columbia HOA Collections & Liens

Section 1: Overview

The District of Columbia's Condominium Act (D.C. Code § 42-1901.01 et seq.) puts condominium associations in a strong collection position. From the moment an assessment goes unpaid, an automatic statutory lien arises — and a six-month "super-priority" slice of that lien ranks ahead of a first mortgage. Foreclose on just that slice, and you can extinguish the lender's deed of trust entirely. The D.C. Court of Appeals confirmed that outcome in Chase Plaza Condominium Ass'n v. JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A., 98 A.3d 166 (D.C. 2014). Then, in 2017, the legislature added mortgagee-notice and owner-protection requirements to the framework without retreating from the super-priority itself.

The lien arises automatically from the date an assessment becomes due and payable — no separate recording is required. The recorded condominium instruments themselves put the world on notice under § 42-1903.13(b). The super-priority covers six months of budget-based common expense assessments immediately before the association's enforcement action. Enforcement is non-judicial: the association holds a statutory power of sale, exercised by its chief executive officer as trustee on the direction of the executive board.

The statute sets no minimum dollar threshold and no minimum delinquency duration. The power of sale attaches the moment an assessment goes past due. That puts the District at the assertive end of the spectrum — alongside Nevada, whose nine-month super-priority under NRS 116.3116(2) the Nevada Supreme Court upheld in SFR Investments Pool 1, LLC v. U.S. Bank, N.A., 334 P.3d 408 (Nev. 2014), covering the last nine months of unpaid HOA dues, maintenance charges, and nuisance-abatement charges — and apart from threshold-restricted states like California, Arizona, and Colorado, which cap or delay association foreclosure. The mechanics below describe how the lien is created, where it ranks, and how a sale proceeds.

District of Columbia HOA Collections & Liens at a glance

Source: D.C. Code § 42-1903.13; § 42-1903.12a; § 42-1901.01 et seq. Last verified: June 9, 2026.

Section 2: The lien and its priority

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

D.C. Code § 42-1903.13(a) creates the assessment lien. Any assessment levied against a condominium unit — together with applicable interest, late fees, reasonable expenses and legal fees actually incurred, costs of collection, and any other reasonable amounts the condominium instruments require — becomes a lien in favor of the association from the moment the assessment becomes due and payable.¹¹ When assessments are payable in installments, the full amount becomes a lien as soon as the first installment is due.¹⁴ The lien attaches to the condominium unit itself, not to other property of the owner.

The District does not require the association to record a claim of lien to perfect its interest. Under § 42-1903.13(b), the recorded condominium instruments are themselves record notice of the lien, and no further filing is necessary.² The association may still record a memorandum of lien, and doing so is one of two events — the other being institution of an enforcement action — that fix the six-month super-priority window. That lien is not permanent: under § 42-1903.13(e), it lapses if the association does not discharge it or file foreclosure within three years from the date the assessment became due and payable.¹⁵

2B. Lien priority and any super-priority component

Section 42-1903.13(a)(1) sets the general priority rule: the association lien takes priority over all other liens and encumbrances, with three exceptions — a lien or encumbrance recorded before the declaration; a first mortgage or first deed of trust for an institutional lender recorded before the assessment became delinquent; and a lien for real estate taxes or municipal assessments or charges.⁴

Section 42-1903.13(a)(2) carves out the super-priority. The association lien ranks ahead of a first mortgage or first deed of trust recorded after March 7, 1991, "to the extent of the common expense assessments based on the periodic budget adopted by the unit owners' association which would have become due in the absence of acceleration during the 6 months immediately preceding institution of an action to enforce the lien or recordation of a memorandum of lien."³ The same subsection preserves the priority of mechanics' and materialmen's liens. In Chase Plaza, the D.C. Court of Appeals called this a "split-priority" lien: the six-month slice is senior to the first deed of trust, and the remainder junior. Because foreclosing a senior lien extinguishes junior liens when sale proceeds fall short, foreclosing on the six-month slice can wipe out the first deed of trust entirely.¹⁶

On the rolling-lien question: the statute measures the six months against those "immediately preceding institution of an action to enforce the lien or recordation of a memorandum of lien." Courts have read that as a recurring priority for the trailing six-month period at enforcement — not a one-time cap that is used up once exhausted.³ The priority rule, stated plainly: the association's lien for six months of budget-based assessments immediately before enforcement outranks an institutional first mortgage. Everything beyond those six months ranks behind it.

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

Recorded condominium instruments supplement the statutory lien. Section 42-1903.13(a) expressly folds in "any other reasonable amounts payable by a unit owner under the condominium instruments," so late-fee schedules, interest rates, and collection-cost provisions in the declaration and bylaws feed into what the lien secures — subject to the statute's reasonableness limits. The instruments cannot override the statutory power of sale, though: § 42-1903.13(c)(1) provides that condominium-instrument language authorizing specific recovery procedures does not bar power-of-sale foreclosure unless the instruments specifically and expressly prohibit it.⁶

The underlying assessment debt also faces the District's general statute of limitations. D.C. Code § 12-301(7) sets a three-year period for actions on a simple contract, express or implied — and the catch-all category runs the same three years.¹⁷ That contract limitation runs alongside the three-year lien-lapse rule in § 42-1903.13(e).

Federal frameworks sit on top of the District scheme. The Fair Debt Collection Practices Act governs third-party collectors and attorneys pursuing assessment debt. The automatic bankruptcy stay halts collection and sale on filing. The Servicemembers Civil Relief Act constrains enforcement against active-duty servicemembers. All three apply regardless of the District's rules.

Section 3: The collection and foreclosure process

3A. Pre-lien collection sequence

Before taking legal action, the association must deliver the statutory delinquency notice required by D.C. Code § 42-1903.12a. When the association advises a unit owner of its intent to take legal action to collect a past-due amount, that notice must include: a statement of account showing the total past due with a breakdown by category and the dates the amounts accrued; contact information for the person or office the owner must reach to settle; and an enclosure — in at least 18-point font — advising that failure to pay may result in legal action including foreclosure and directing the owner to housing-counseling resources at the D.C. Department of Housing and Community Development and HUD.⁷ The statute prescribes the notice's contents but sets no fixed advance day-count and does not require the association to offer a payment plan before recording or enforcing the lien. A unit owner can request a recordable statement of unpaid assessments under § 42-1903.13(h); if the association fails to furnish it within 10 days, the lien is extinguished as to that unit.¹⁸

3B. Recording and the pre-foreclosure sequence

The association need not record a claim of lien to perfect its interest, but it must record a Notice of Foreclosure Sale of Condominium Unit for Assessments Due (NFSCUAD) in the land records to initiate a sale. Under § 42-1903.13(c)(4), the association cannot hold the sale until at least 31 days after the NFSCUAD is recorded and sent — by a delivery service providing tracking confirmation and by first-class mail — to the unit owner at the unit address, any last known address, and any address the owner designated.⁸ The notice must state the past-due amount the association is foreclosing and must expressly declare whether the sale is for the six-month priority lien and not subject to the first deed of trust, or for more than six months and subject to the first deed of trust. It must also tell the owner that if the past-due amount is not paid within 31 days after mailing, the unit will be sold.¹⁹ An enclosure must itemize the amount, note that it may not reflect the total owed (with instructions to request a full statement), and carry the 18-point housing-resource language.²⁰

The mortgagee-notice requirement is central to the post-2017 regime. At least 31 days before the sale, the association must send a copy of the NFSCUAD — by tracked delivery and first-class mail — to the Mayor or the Mayor's designated agent, to any and all junior lienholders of record, and to any holder of a first deed of trust or first mortgage of record, including assignees, trustees, substitute trustees, and MERS.²¹ As to the board prerequisite: the power of sale runs through the chief executive officer as trustee "upon the direction of the executive board," so executive-board direction is required. The statute does not mandate a recorded board vote, a payment-plan offer, or pre-suit mediation as a condition of a condominium-assessment foreclosure.⁹

3C. Foreclosure mechanics and thresholds

Condominium-assessment foreclosure in the District is non-judicial. By accepting a deed to a unit, the owner appoints the association's chief executive officer as trustee for the power of sale. The trustee may deed the unit to the purchaser, with recitals in the deed serving as prima facie evidence of their truth and conclusive evidence in favor of bona fide purchasers for value.⁶ No statutory minimum dollar threshold and no minimum delinquency duration apply — the power of sale attaches once an assessment is past due.⁵ The six-month super-priority covers only budget-based common expense assessments, so rule-violation fines fall outside that slice. Whether a fine can fold into the foreclosable lien at all turns on the condominium instruments and the statute's "other reasonable amounts" language, which the Act does not resolve expressly.¹²

On timing: after the NFSCUAD is recorded and mailed, the sale cannot occur sooner than 31 days from mailing, and the association must publish notice in at least one newspaper of general circulation on at least three separate days during the 15-day period before the sale.²² The subject-to versus free-of-first-mortgage election is the defining post-Chase Plaza mechanic. The association must declare in the NFSCUAD which path it takes. In Wonder Twins Holdings, LLC v. 450101 DC Housing Trust, No. 23-CV-0719, 2024 WL 4846685 (D.C. Nov. 21, 2024), the D.C. Court of Appeals held that "a condominium association foreclosing on only that six-month portion extinguishes any deed of trust, regardless of the asserted terms of the sale," while an association foreclosing on more than six months retains priority for those six months but leaves the first deed of trust in place.²³ That ruling builds on Liu v. U.S. Bank National Ass'n, 179 A.3d 871 (D.C. 2018), and 4700 Conn 305 Trust v. Capital One, N.A., 193 A.3d 762 (D.C. 2018), which applied the Act's anti-waiver provision to bar an association from foreclosing the super-priority slice while purporting to preserve the senior lender.²⁴

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

The District provides no post-sale redemption period for condominium-assessment foreclosures — once the sale concludes, the owner cannot redeem.¹⁰ Before the sale, the owner holds a robust cure right: § 42-1903.13(c)(2) allows a unit owner to cure any default at any time before the sale by tendering payment in full of past-due assessments plus any late charges, interest, and reasonable attorney's fees and costs incurred in enforcement.²⁵ Sale proceeds distribute under § 42-1903.13(c)(6): first to unpaid assessments with interest and late charges, then to the costs of foreclosure including reasonable attorney's fees, and the balance to any person legally entitled to it — that is how surplus reaches junior lienholders and, ultimately, the former owner.²⁶ The executive board may purchase the unit at the sale and hold, lease, encumber, or convey it on the association's behalf.²⁷ The Condominium Act does not create a deficiency-judgment remedy on the assessment debt, but it preserves the association's right to sue at law to recover the sums the lien secures. A money judgment then enforces against the former owner like any other.²⁸

Section 4: Recent legislative and judicial activity

4A. Recent bills

The District's recent legislative activity has focused on owner protection and administrative flexibility — not on rewriting the core super-priority framework.

4B. Recent appellate rulings

The D.C. Court of Appeals has been active in this area, and the November 2024 ruling in Wonder Twins now sets the controlling precedent for how the six-month election works.

4C. Active legislative debates

The District has continued to extend foreclosure-moratorium and Homeowner Assistance Fund coordination measures through successive emergency and temporary acts touching § 42-1903.13(c). Proposals in this area remain live as the Council periodically renews the framework.³⁰

Section 5: National positioning and related coverage

The District sits at the assertive end of the collections spectrum. Like Nevada — whose nine-month super-priority under NRS 116.3116 the state Supreme Court upheld in SFR Investments Pool 1, LLC v. U.S. Bank, 334 P.3d 408 (Nev. 2014), as granting "true lien priority" (meaning an HOA can extinguish a first deed of trust by foreclosing on its superpriority lien) — and like Connecticut and other Uniform Common Interest Ownership Act jurisdictions that grant a priority slice, the District lets a relatively small association lien prime an institutional mortgage. That contrasts with threshold-restricted states like California, Arizona, and Colorado, which cap the debt or impose waiting periods before association foreclosure, and with judicial-only or covenant-primary states where associations hold no statutory super-priority at all.

For a multi-state operator, the practical implication is clear: District condominium files demand the same lender-notice discipline as Nevada files. The six-month election drives whether a sale clears or preserves the mortgage, and the mortgagee-notice steps are mandatory. The District's direction of travel has been toward tightening owner and lender protections in the wake of Chase Plaza — through the 2017 mortgagee-notice and disclosure amendments and continuing assistance-fund coordination — without retreating from the super-priority itself.

Caveats

The Wonder Twins opinion was decided November 21, 2024 (No. 23-CV-0719); the Westlaw citation is 2024 WL 4846685. A parallel Atlantic Reporter (A.3d) citation could not be confirmed from public primary sources as of June 9, 2026 and should be verified against the Atlantic Reporter or Westlaw before publication. The verbatim holding language is drawn from the published opinion as reproduced in secondary analysis; confirm against the slip opinion PDF on dccourts.gov.

The District of Columbia Court of Appeals is the highest local court, equivalent to a state supreme court. The Superior Court of the District of Columbia is the trial court. There is no "D.C. supreme court."

Whether fines or non-assessment charges can support a condominium-assessment foreclosure is not resolved expressly by § 42-1903.13. The six-month super-priority is limited to budget-based common expense assessments; treatment of fines turns on the condominium instruments and litigation risk, so this remains flagged as unsettled rather than stated as a rule.

The foreclosure-moratorium and Homeowner Assistance Fund coordination provisions have moved through repeated emergency and temporary acts rather than a single permanent amendment. Their precise status changes on a rolling basis; verify the current operative act before relying on a pause mechanism.

Cooperatives: the Condominium Act does not govern D.C. housing cooperatives, which organize under D.C. Code Title 29 (general and limited cooperative associations) and collect through proprietary leases, bylaws, and share interests rather than a statutory real-property super-priority lien. A co-op has no six-month super-lien analogue. Traditional planned-community HOAs are uncommon in the District and generally rest on recorded covenants and corporate law rather than the Condominium Act.

Footnotes

1. D.C. Code § 42-1903.13, Condominium Act, D.C. Code § 42-1901.01 et seq. ↩
2. D.C. Code § 42-1903.13(a), (b) ↩
3. D.C. Code § 42-1903.13(a)(2) ↩
4. D.C. Code § 42-1903.13(a)(1) ↩
5. D.C. Code § 42-1903.13(c)(1) ↩
6. D.C. Code § 42-1903.13(c)(1), (c)(3) ↩
7. D.C. Code § 42-1903.12a ↩
8. D.C. Code § 42-1903.13(c)(4)(A) ↩
9. D.C. Code § 42-1903.13(c)(3) ↩
10. D.C. Code § 42-1903.13 (no redemption provision) ↩
11. D.C. Code § 42-1903.13(a) ↩
12. D.C. Code § 42-1903.13(a), (a)(2) ↩
13. D.C. Code Title 29, Chapters 9–10 (cooperative associations); § 42-1901.01 ↩
14. D.C. Code § 42-1903.13(a) ↩
15. D.C. Code § 42-1903.13(e) ↩
16. Chase Plaza Condominium Ass'n v. JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A., 98 A.3d 166 (D.C. 2014); D.C. Code § 42-1903.13(a)(2) ↩
17. D.C. Code § 12-301(7), (8) ↩
18. D.C. Code § 42-1903.13(h) ↩
19. D.C. Code § 42-1903.13(c)(4)(B) ↩
20. D.C. Code § 42-1903.13(c)(4)(D) ↩
21. D.C. Code § 42-1903.13(c)(4)(E) ↩
22. D.C. Code § 42-1903.13(c)(5) ↩
23. Wonder Twins Holdings, LLC v. 450101 DC Housing Trust, No. 23-CV-0719, 2024 WL 4846685 (D.C. Nov. 21, 2024) ↩
24. Liu v. U.S. Bank Nat'l Ass'n, 179 A.3d 871 (D.C. 2018); 4700 Conn 305 Trust v. Capital One, N.A., 193 A.3d 762 (D.C. 2018) ↩
25. D.C. Code § 42-1903.13(c)(2) ↩
26. D.C. Code § 42-1903.13(c)(6) ↩
27. D.C. Code § 42-1903.13(d) ↩
28. D.C. Code § 42-1903.13(g) ↩
29. D.C. Law 25-324, Fairness and Stability in Housing Amendment Act of 2024 ↩
30. D.C. Law 25-212, Foreclosure Moratorium and Homeowner Assistance Fund Coordination Temporary Amendment Act of 2024 ↩