Nebraska HOA Mediation & Dispute Resolution

Section 1: Overview — How HOA disputes are resolved in Nebraska

Nebraska settles community-association disputes the old-fashioned way — through contracts and the courts. The state runs no comprehensive statutory system for alternative dispute resolution, and for condominiums the governing rules depend on which of two statutes applies. A condominium created after January 1, 1984 falls under the Nebraska Condominium Act (Neb. Rev. Stat. § 76-825 et seq.), a statute built on the 1980 Uniform Condominium Act. A condominium created before that date stays under the older Condominium Property Act (Neb. Rev. Stat. § 76-801 et seq.), though a defined set of newer-act sections reaches back to those older condominiums for events that occur after January 1, 1984.^1,2 Non-condominium planned communities get no dedicated statute at all; they run on their recorded covenants, conditions, and restrictions (CC&Rs), the Nebraska Nonprofit Corporation Act (Neb. Rev. Stat. § 21-1901 et seq.), and common law.³ The most distinctive feature of Nebraska practice is its restrictive attorney-fee rule. Fees are recoverable only when a statute or a recognized uniform course of procedure authorizes them, and a declaration's contractual fee clause often will not stand on its own.⁴ Arbitration sits at an unusual intersection — a state-constitutional open-courts backdrop on one side, Federal Arbitration Act (FAA) preemption on the other — and court-connected mediation runs through the Office of Dispute Resolution and its approved centers.^5,6 Nationally, Nebraska is a Uniform-Condominium-Act state for condominiums only, not a Uniform Common Interest Ownership Act (UCIOA) state, and it has no planned-community statute. The sections that follow map the statutory framework, the ADR and fee rules, the pathways a dispute actually travels, and recent legislative and judicial activity.

Section 2: The dispute resolution framework

2A. Statutory dispute resolution under the condominium framework

The Nebraska Condominium Act (Neb. Rev. Stat. § 76-825 et seq.) is the state's fullest statement of association enforcement powers, but it does not build a general pre-suit dispute-resolution system. It authorizes the unit owners association, after notice and an opportunity to be heard, to levy reasonable fines for violations of the declaration, bylaws, and rules, and to charge for late payment of assessments (§ 76-860(a)(11)).⁷ Assessment enforcement runs through the lien procedure in § 76-874: the association holds a lien on a unit from the moment an assessment becomes due once it records a notice stating the dollar amount, it may foreclose that lien the same way a lender forecloses a mortgage, and the lien dies unless enforcement proceedings begin within three years after the full amount becomes due.⁸ Section 76-874 also authorizes an award of costs and reasonable attorney fees to the prevailing party in a lien-enforcement action, and the statute's annotation records that the award is mandatory ("An award of costs and reasonable attorney fees for the prevailing party under this section is mandatory. Twin Towers Condo. Assn. v. Bel Fury Invest. Group, 290 Neb. 329, 860 N.W.2d 147 (2015)").⁹ That statutory fee authorization matters precisely because, as Section 2B explains, Nebraska generally will not enforce a fee clause that rests on the declaration alone.

Section 76-826 sets the applicability rules. The Act governs every condominium created after January 1, 1984, and an enumerated list of sections — including § 76-874 on liens — reaches condominiums created before that date, but only for events and circumstances occurring after January 1, 1984.² In Twin Towers Condo. Assn. v. Bel Fury Invest. Group, where the master deed was recorded December 30, 1983, the Nebraska Supreme Court applied the newer act because the lien events fell after the cutoff: "Although the Twin Towers condominium regime was created before January 1, 1984, the events relevant to the Association's lien occurred after that date. Therefore, § 76-826(a) requires that we apply § 76-874 instead of § 76-817."⁹ So to decide which statute governs, an operator should start by pinning down the recording date of the master deed or declaration.

The predecessor Condominium Property Act (Neb. Rev. Stat. § 76-801 to 76-823, enacted in 1963) governs condominiums created before January 1, 1984.¹⁰ It creates a common-expense lien in § 76-817 — unpaid common expenses become a lien on the co-owner's interest once recorded — but it carries no attorney-fee authorization and no mediation, arbitration, or notice-and-hearing mechanism; enforcement runs by ordinary judicial action.¹¹ Neither condominium statute imposes a mandatory pre-suit ADR requirement, so Nebraska has no statutory HOA mediation mandate on the order of California or Florida. Non-condominium planned communities fall outside both statutes and depend on their CC&Rs and the Nonprofit Corporation Act.³

2B. General civil ADR, arbitration, and the attorney-fee restriction

Nebraska has adopted the Uniform Arbitration Act (Neb. Rev. Stat. § 25-2601 to 25-2622). Under § 25-2602.01, an agreement to submit an existing controversy to arbitration is valid, and a pre-dispute clause covering future controversies is valid and enforceable if the parties entered into it voluntarily and willingly — subject to exclusions that include tort claims for personal injury, claims under the Nebraska Fair Employment Practice Act, agreements under the Motor Vehicle Industry Regulation Act, workers' compensation claims, and certain insurance agreements.¹² That statutory posture sits on top of a constitutional backdrop. In State v. Nebraska Assn. of Pub. Employees (1991), the Nebraska Supreme Court held that the provisions of the arbitration act purporting to validate binding arbitration of future disputes violated the open-courts guarantee of Neb. Const. art. I, § 13.¹³ Nebraska voters then approved Amendment 1 to article I, § 13 on May 14, 1996 by 172,882 votes (71.41 percent) to 69,218 (28.59 percent), authorizing the Legislature to enforce "mediation, binding arbitration agreements, and other forms of dispute resolution which are entered into voluntarily" — a change that took effect in 1997.¹⁴ Layered over all of it, the Federal Arbitration Act (9 U.S.C. § 1 et seq.) preempts state rules that single out or disfavor arbitration in contracts involving interstate commerce, so a declaration arbitration clause in a contract that touches interstate commerce is generally enforced despite any state-law hostility. The correct reading is not that arbitration clauses are unenforceable in Nebraska; it is that enforceability turns on the interaction of the state act, the constitutional standard of voluntariness, and FAA preemption.¹²

Court-connected mediation runs through the Office of Dispute Resolution (ODR), established within the Administrative Office of the Courts and Probation under the Dispute Resolution Act (Neb. Rev. Stat. § 25-2901 et seq.). ODR approves a statewide network of nonprofit mediation centers, and a court may refer a civil case to mediation or another form of ADR under § 25-2943, with any resolution entered into voluntarily by the parties.¹⁵ Mediation communications carry a statutory privilege against disclosure under the Nebraska Uniform Mediation Act (§ 25-2930 et seq.), subject to exceptions.¹⁶

Nebraska's attorney-fee rule is the point operators most often get wrong. Fees are recoverable only where a statute or a recognized uniform course of procedure authorizes them, and the Nebraska Supreme Court has held again and again that, absent such authorization, contractual agreements for attorney fees run against public policy and will not be judicially enforced.^4,17 For assessment enforcement in a post-1984 condominium, the statute itself solves the problem: § 76-874 authorizes prevailing-party fees.⁸ For a covenant-enforcement dispute in a planned community that leans on a declaration's prevailing-party clause with no statutory anchor, fee recovery is far less certain, and a board should not assume the clause alone will support a fee award.

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

For planned communities, which have no governing statute, the recorded declaration does most of the work, and its dispute-resolution clause is the starting point for any conflict. Common clause types include mediation as a condition precedent to suit, binding or non-binding arbitration, venue and choice-of-law provisions, and prevailing-party attorney-fee provisions. The fee clauses carry the caveat above: they may not be enforceable without independent statutory authorization.⁴ Declarations and bylaws also frequently set up internal grievance steps or architectural-review appeal procedures that an owner must exhaust before escalating. The order of precedence runs from the applicable condominium statute (for condominiums) down through the CC&Rs, then the bylaws, then the rules and regulations, with a higher instrument controlling a conflicting lower one. In practice, for a planned community the declaration is the principal rulebook, and an arbitration clause in it will generally be enforced under the FAA — but fee recovery still turns on statutory authorization rather than on the declaration by itself.

Section 3: Dispute resolution pathways and obligations

A. Internal / association-level resolution

• Notice and hearing before fines (newer condominiums; statutory). Under § 76-860(a)(11), a Nebraska Condominium Act association must give notice and an opportunity to be heard before it levies a fine for a violation.⁷
• Internal grievance and architectural-appeal procedures (all community types; contractual/rule-based). These arise from the declaration, bylaws, or rules rather than statute, and they apply to planned communities and both condominium vintages depending on the governing documents.

B. Mediation

• Court-referred mediation through ODR centers (all community types; statutory but voluntary). A court may refer a civil case to an approved center under § 25-2943; participation in a resolution is voluntary, and referral is not a mandatory pre-suit step for HOA cases.¹⁵
• Cost allocation and confidentiality (all community types; statutory). Approved centers use a sliding fee scale and cannot deny service solely for inability to pay, and mediation communications are privileged under the Uniform Mediation Act.^15,16 Nebraska has no administrative HOA forum, so ODR is a mediation network, not an adjudicative agency.

C. Arbitration

• Declaration arbitration clauses (all community types; statutory and federal). Enforceability under § 25-2601 et seq. depends on the statutory exclusions in § 25-2602.01 and the voluntariness standard tied to Neb. Const. art. I, § 13, but the FAA preempts state-law hostility for contracts involving interstate commerce, so such clauses are generally enforced.^12,13
• Binding versus non-binding (all community types; contractual). Whether an award binds depends on the clause; binding pre-dispute arbitration is enforced where the parties entered it voluntarily and where the FAA applies.

D. Litigation and appeals

• Trial venue (all community types; statutory). District Courts hold general civil jurisdiction; County Courts share concurrent jurisdiction in civil actions where the amount in controversy is $70,000 or less (July 1, 2025 through June 30, 2030), and the Small Claims Court handles matters up to $7,500 as of July 1, 2025.¹⁸
• Attorney fees (all community types; statutory limit). A court will award fees only on statutory authorization such as § 76-874 for condominium assessment liens; a declaration fee clause alone is generally not enough.^4,8
• Limitations periods (all community types; statutory). A written-contract or covenant action generally must be brought within five years (§ 25-205), and a condominium assessment lien is extinguished unless enforcement begins within three years (§ 76-874).^19,8
• Appeals (all community types; statutory). Appeals go to the Nebraska Court of Appeals, with discretionary review by the Nebraska Supreme Court, which may retain or route cases on its own motion.

Nebraska maintains no administrative or agency forum for HOA disputes and does not require community-association-manager licensing; the Nebraska Real Estate Commission administers real estate licensing generally.²⁰

Section 4: Recent legislative and judicial activity

Nebraska has a unicameral, nonpartisan Legislature that uses LB bill numbering and works on a two-year biennium.

A. Recent bills

One measure in the current window bears directly on the condominium and association lien and fee rules that drive dispute resolution.

B. Recent appellate rulings

Two recent decisions show how Nebraska's appellate courts handle covenant enforcement and an association's authority to bring it.

C. Active legislative debates

Recurring proposals have taken aim at association liens and attorney-fee calculations (LB 1251) and at owner-rights measures — LB 360 (2025) on political signs, and LB 137 (2025), which would have barred associations from restricting solar energy devices or pollinator gardens. Each of those measures died in committee, and no bill proposes a comprehensive planned-community statute for Nebraska.²¹

Section 5: National positioning and related coverage

Nebraska is a Uniform-Condominium-Act state for condominiums only, with a split framework that turns on a January 1, 1984 line, and it has no comprehensive planned-community statute. That sets it apart from full-statute states such as California and Florida and from the UCIOA states that adopted a single common-interest code. Its restrictive attorney-fee rule shapes dispute strategy directly. Because fee recovery generally requires statutory authorization, associations enforcing assessments in post-1984 condominiums can lean on § 76-874, while planned communities relying on a declaration fee clause face real uncertainty and should weigh that before they litigate. For a multi-state operator, the practical takeaway is straightforward: in Nebraska, fee recovery turns on statutory authorization rather than on the declaration alone, and arbitration clauses are generally enforced under the FAA rather than defeated by the state's open-courts history.

HOA Weekly's Nebraska dispute-resolution coverage updates quarterly as the Legislature and the courts act. Federal frameworks also bear on Nebraska association disputes, whatever the state framework provides — most notably the Federal Arbitration Act, along with the FHA, ADA, FDCPA, SCRA, and OTARD rules.

1. Neb. Rev. Stat. § 76-825 (Nebraska Condominium Act, how cited; Laws 1983, LB 433) ↩
2. Neb. Rev. Stat. § 76-826 (applicability; post- and pre-January 1, 1984 condominiums) ↩
3. Neb. Rev. Stat. § 21-1901 (Nebraska Nonprofit Corporation Act, §§ 21-1901 to 21-19,177) ↩
4. Stewart v. Bennett, 273 Neb. 17, 727 N.W.2d 424 (2007) (contractual fee agreements against public policy absent statute or uniform course of procedure) ↩
5. Neb. Rev. Stat. § 25-2601 (Uniform Arbitration Act, how cited) ↩
6. Nebraska Judicial Branch, Office of Dispute Resolution (Mediation & Restorative Justice) ↩
7. Neb. Rev. Stat. § 76-860 (unit owners association powers; notice and opportunity to be heard before fines) ↩
8. Neb. Rev. Stat. § 76-874 (lien for assessments; foreclosure; three-year extinguishment; costs and attorney fees) ↩
9. Twin Towers Condo. Assn. v. Bel Fury Invest. Group, 290 Neb. 329, 860 N.W.2d 147 (2015) ↩
10. Neb. Rev. Stat. § 76-801 (Condominium Property Act, how cited; Laws 1963) ↩
11. Neb. Rev. Stat. § 76-817 (Condominium Property Act; common-expense lien) ↩
12. Neb. Rev. Stat. § 25-2602.01 (validity of arbitration agreement; exclusions) ↩
13. Neb. Const. art. I, § 13 (open courts; 1996 amendment; annotation citing State v. Nebraska Assn. of Pub. Employees, 239 Neb. 653, 477 N.W.2d 577 (1991)) ↩
14. Nebraska Amendment 1 (May 14, 1996), authorizing legislative enforcement of voluntary mediation and binding arbitration (Ballotpedia, citing Nebraska Blue Book) ↩
15. Neb. Rev. Stat. § 25-2943 (referral of civil cases to mediation or ADR; Dispute Resolution Act, § 25-2901 et seq.) ↩
16. Neb. Rev. Stat. § 25-2933 (Uniform Mediation Act; privilege against disclosure) ↩
17. BCL Properties, Inc. v. Boyle, 314 Neb. 607 (2023) (fees only where authorized by statute or uniform course of procedure) ↩
18. Nebraska Judicial Branch, Increased jurisdictional limits (small claims $7,500; county court $70,000, effective July 1, 2025); see Neb. Rev. Stat. § 25-2802 ↩
19. Neb. Rev. Stat. § 25-205 (five-year limitations period for written contracts) ↩
20. Nebraska Real Estate Commission (administers real estate licensing; no HOA regulator or CAM license) ↩
21. Nebraska Legislature, LB 1251 (2026), change provisions relating to liens of homeowners' associations and unit owners associations (indefinitely postponed April 17, 2026) ↩
22. Pine Tree Neighborhood Assn. v. Moses, 314 Neb. 445 (June 9, 2023) ↩
23. Hillsborough Homeowners Assn. v. Karnish, 33 Neb. App. 228 (October 8, 2024) ↩