New Jersey HOA Director Qualifications

Section 1 — Overview: Who can serve on a community association board in New Jersey

Start with the framework. New Jersey governs its community associations through two statutes working in tandem — the Condominium Act and the Planned Real Estate Development Full Disclosure Act, known as PREDFDA — and a 2017 amendment called the Radburn Law sits on top of both. The Radburn Law gives every unit owner the right to nominate candidates and run for the executive board, and it sharply limits the restrictions an association can place on who runs. Other eligibility screens come from elsewhere: the governing documents and the New Jersey Nonprofit Corporation Act. Notice what the state does not do. It requires no director certification, sets no limit on the number of terms a person may serve, and disqualifies no one automatically for a criminal record.

The Condominium Act, N.J.S.A. 46:8B-1 et seq., supplies the board provisions for condominiums.¹ PREDFDA, N.J.S.A. 45:22A-21 et seq., is the disclosure and governance statute; after the Radburn amendments, it reaches every community association, no matter when it was established.² The Radburn Law itself — P.L. 2017, c.106 — amended PREDFDA to declare that unit owners have the right to nominate candidates, run for, freely elect, and be elected to the boards that govern their communities.³ That places New Jersey apart from heavy-touch states such as Florida, which imposes director certification, term limits, and automatic disqualification of delinquent owners and certain felons.⁴ The sections below trace where these rules come from, how they apply to condominiums and other associations, and what recent legislative and judicial activity bears on director qualifications.

Section 2 — Where director qualifications come from

2A. The Condominium Act, PREDFDA, and the Radburn Law

Three statutory sources combine to decide who may serve on a New Jersey association board. The first is the Condominium Act, N.J.S.A. 46:8B-1 et seq. (P.L. 1969, c.257). It governs condominiums, and it requires the bylaws to spell out the powers, duties, and manner of selecting, removing, and compensating officers and board members (N.J.S.A. 46:8B-13).¹ The second is PREDFDA, N.J.S.A. 45:22A-21 et seq. (P.L. 1977, c.419), a consumer-protection and disclosure statute. After the Radburn amendments, it also governs how associations run their elections, and it applies to every community association — condominiums, homeowners associations, cooperatives, and community trusts alike — regardless of when the community was established.²

The third source is the Radburn Law, P.L. 2017, c.106, approved July 13, 2017. It amended PREDFDA to strengthen residents’ voting rights and to govern board elections; its legislative findings observe that more than one million New Jersey residents live under the governance of a common-interest community association.⁵ On candidacy, the law declares that owners have the right to nominate candidates, run for, freely elect, and be elected to the boards that govern their communities (N.J.S.A. 45:22A-45.1(f)).³ The implementing regulations live at N.J.A.C. 5:26, where the Department of Community Affairs administers them.⁶ An association generally may not stop a member in good standing from nominating himself, or any other member in good standing, for any board position (N.J.S.A. 45:22A-45.2(c)(4)).⁷

One court decision rounds out the picture. On February 23, 2024 (Docket A-2241-21), the Superior Court, Appellate Division, took up a challenge brought by the Community Associations Institute’s New Jersey Chapter and reversed three of the Radburn regulations — the ones addressing reserved board seats for affordable-housing owners, binding votes in closed session, and a proxy-and-absentee-ballot requirement for bylaw amendments.⁸ Each of those provisions concerns election and meeting mechanics, not who is eligible to run, and the candidacy right itself survived untouched. None of these statutes imposes director certification or education, caps the number of terms a person may serve, or disqualifies anyone automatically for delinquency or a felony conviction.

2B. The corporate-law layer: the New Jersey Nonprofit Corporation Act

Most New Jersey associations incorporate as nonprofit corporations, which means the New Jersey Nonprofit Corporation Act, N.J.S.A. 15A:1-1 et seq. (P.L. 1983, c.127), supplies the corporate scaffolding for their boards. This is corporate-governance law, not an HOA statute, but it fills the gaps the governing documents leave open. It requires at least three trustees (N.J.S.A. 15A:6-2).⁹ And it provides that trustees must be “at least 18 years of age and need not be United States citizens or residents of this State or members of the corporation unless the certificate of incorporation or bylaws so require,” while letting the certificate or bylaws add other qualifications (N.J.S.A. 15A:6-1).¹⁰

On length of service, a class of trustees may hold office for no fewer than one year and no more than six (N.J.S.A. 15A:6-4).¹¹ On removal, where the certificate or bylaws let the members elect trustees, the members may remove a trustee for cause by a majority of the votes they cast, and without cause by the same majority if the governing documents allow it (N.J.S.A. 15A:6-6).¹² A vacancy the members do not fill at the annual or biennial meeting may be filled however the governing documents direct (N.J.S.A. 15A:6-5).¹³ The Radburn amendments reach back to this Act for one mechanical point: an association in a development of 50 or more units must follow the Nonprofit Corporation Act when it counts ballots, whether or not it formed as a nonprofit (N.J.S.A. 45:22A-45.2(e)).¹⁴

2C. The declaration and bylaws

The declaration and bylaws set the day-to-day eligibility screens — whether a director must be a unit owner or a member, for instance — subject always to the Radburn rules that limit how far an association can restrict the right to run. The Condominium Act expressly tells the bylaws to specify how board members are selected and removed (N.J.S.A. 46:8B-13(a)),¹ and the Nonprofit Corporation Act lets the certificate or bylaws prescribe additional qualifications for trustees (N.J.S.A. 15A:6-1).¹⁰

The order of precedence runs in a clear line: PREDFDA and the Radburn regulations first, joined for condominiums by the Condominium Act; then the declaration and bylaws; then the Nonprofit Corporation Act’s defaults; then board-adopted rules. So a manager works from the top down — apply the Radburn candidacy rules and the relevant property statute, then read the governing documents for any remaining eligibility screen that does not collide with the right to run. A bylaw that tried to bar a member in good standing from running for the board, for example, would give way to the Radburn candidacy right.⁷

Section 3 — Director eligibility, disqualification, and tenure rules

A. Eligibility to serve: the Radburn candidacy right

The central eligibility rule is the Radburn candidacy right. Under PREDFDA as amended, an association may not stop a member in good standing from nominating himself, or any other member in good standing, for any membership seat on the executive board (N.J.S.A. 45:22A-45.2(c)(4)).⁷ The statute’s findings drive the same point home, declaring the right of owners to nominate, run for, and win election to the board (N.J.S.A. 45:22A-45.1(f)) (source layer: PREDFDA and the Radburn regulations, N.J.A.C. 5:26; applies to all community associations, condominium or not).³

Whether a director must be a member or a unit owner is not something the property statutes decide; that comes from the governing documents and the Nonprofit Corporation Act, which says trustees need not be members unless the certificate or bylaws require it (N.J.S.A. 15A:6-1) (source layer: Nonprofit Corporation Act and declaration/bylaws).¹⁰ No statute demands residency or citizenship, and a director need only be at least 18 years old (N.J.S.A. 15A:6-1) (source layer: Nonprofit Corporation Act).¹⁰

Good standing carries real weight here. PREDFDA defines it as a status that matters “solely with respect to eligibility to (1) vote in executive board elections, (2) vote to amend the bylaws, and (3) nominate or run for any membership position on the executive board,” and it attaches to a member who is current on common expenses, late fees, interest, legal fees, and other lawfully assessed charges (N.J.S.A. 45:22A-23(r)).¹⁵ Read the text closely and the consequence is plain: good standing conditions candidacy, not just voting — unlike a regime where falling behind on assessments has no effect on the right to run. The mechanics of verifying good standing and counting the ballots are taken up separately (source layer: PREDFDA; applies to all community associations).

B. Disqualification and removal

For an incorporated association, the Nonprofit Corporation Act governs how members remove a director. Where the governing documents let the members elect the trustees, the members may remove one, several, or all of them for cause by a majority of the votes cast, and without cause by that same majority if the certificate or bylaws allow it (N.J.S.A. 15A:6-6).¹² The Superior Court may review a removal or suspension that was for cause (N.J.S.A. 15A:6-6(d)) (source layer: Nonprofit Corporation Act; applies to incorporated associations of all types).¹² The Condominium Act sets no removal threshold of its own; it simply directs the bylaws to specify how board members are removed (N.J.S.A. 46:8B-13(a)) (source layer: Condominium Act plus declaration/bylaws).¹ The voting mechanics of a removal are taken up separately.

The Radburn regulations add that a vacancy can open up when a board member fails to keep any reasonable qualification — good standing among them — or when the members remove him by a vote open to all of them, conducted under the bylaws (N.J.S.A. 45:22A-45.2(c)(3)(a)).¹⁶

Beyond the good-standing definition, New Jersey has no statutory bar that disqualifies a candidate or a sitting director for delinquency, and none at all for a criminal record. Florida runs the opposite way. There, a person who is delinquent on any assessment is “not eligible to be a candidate for board membership and may not be listed on the ballot,” and a person convicted of a felony “is not eligible for board membership unless such felon’s civil rights have been restored for at least 5 years” (Fla. Stat. § 718.112(2)(d)).⁴ New Jersey leaves any such screen to the good-standing concept and the governing documents, all of it subject to the Radburn candidacy regime (source layer: PREDFDA, good standing, and declaration/bylaws). Conflicts of interest answer to the Nonprofit Corporation Act, which provides that a contract or transaction in which a trustee has an interest is not void or voidable for that reason alone, so long as it is fair and reasonable and the interest is disclosed and approved (N.J.S.A. 15A:6-8) (source layer: Nonprofit Corporation Act).¹⁷

C. Board composition and terms

An incorporated association must seat at least three trustees (N.J.S.A. 15A:6-2). There is no statutory ceiling; the governing documents set the actual number (source layer: Nonprofit Corporation Act and declaration/bylaws).⁹ For condominiums, the Condominium Act requires the bylaws to address the form of administration and the board itself (N.J.S.A. 46:8B-13) (source layer: Condominium Act and bylaws).¹

On the length of a term, PREDFDA says an association may not set a board term longer than four years, and nothing stops a member from serving on until a qualified successor is elected (N.J.S.A. 45:22A-45.2(c)(1)).¹⁸ Staggered terms are allowed.⁶ What the state does not do is cap the number of terms a person may serve; the four-year rule limits how long a single term runs, not how many a director may hold in a row. Florida, by contrast, is read to impose an eight-consecutive-year limit on condominium directors (Fla. Stat. § 718.112(2)(d)) (source layer: PREDFDA).⁴ The Nonprofit Corporation Act’s one-to-six-year range for a class of trustees (N.J.S.A. 15A:6-4) sits behind all of this as the corporate backstop.¹¹

Then there is the handoff from developer to owners. For condominiums, the Condominium Act steps the transition up in stages: owners other than the developer may elect at least 25 percent of the board once they own 25 percent of the units, at least 40 percent once half the units are conveyed, and the entire board at 75 percent conveyance — with the developer giving up control no more than 60 days after the owners elect a majority (N.J.S.A. 46:8B-12.1).¹⁹ The first executive-board elections in a condominium follow the Condominium Act’s notice timeline under that same section, and they fall outside the Radburn election rules (N.J.S.A. 45:22A-45.2(d)).²⁰ After transition, Radburn confirms the right of all owners to elect the board. And in a mixed-use development, the bylaws may parcel out board representation among the different unit uses (N.J.S.A. 45:22A-45.2(f)) (source layer: Condominium Act and PREDFDA).²¹

D. Onboarding and ongoing qualification duties

New Jersey asks no director to earn a certification or sit through a course before serving. There is no counterpart to Florida’s command that “[w]ithin 90 days after being elected or appointed to the board of an association of a residential condominium, each newly elected or appointed director shall certify in writing to the secretary of the association that he or she has read the association’s declaration of condominium, articles of incorporation, bylaws, and current written policies” (Fla. Stat. § 718.112(2)(d)4.b.).²² In New Jersey, what a new director owes on the way in comes from the governing documents and from fiduciary duty — not from a statutory certification mandate.

Once seated, a director of an incorporated association answers to the standard of care in the Nonprofit Corporation Act. It requires trustees to act in good faith and with the diligence, care, and skill that an ordinarily prudent person would use, and it protects a trustee who relies in good faith on the association’s attorney, accountants, and officers (N.J.S.A. 15A:6-14).²³ New Jersey courts apply the business-judgment rule to community-association boards and treat directors as fiduciaries to the members, much as corporate directors stand toward shareholders (Kim v. Flagship Condominium Owners Association, 327 N.J. Super. 544 (App. Div. 2000)).²⁴ Disclosing conflicts of interest is part of that fiduciary baseline, reinforced by the interested-transaction provision (N.J.S.A. 15A:6-8) (source layer: Nonprofit Corporation Act and New Jersey common law; applies to incorporated associations of all types).¹⁷

Section 4 — Recent legislative and judicial activity

A. Recent bills

New Jersey’s recent activity here amounts to one proposal, and it is not law. No bill touching director qualifications, candidacy, board composition, or removal has been enacted in the past 24 months. The single live measure that bears on director onboarding is a board-member training bill, still sitting in committee.

B. Recent appellate rulings

C. Active legislative debates

The only live proposal touching director qualifications is that same board-member training bill, S4157/A1946. It would put a three-hour onboarding requirement on elected board members, and as of June 24, 2026 it remains pending in committee.²⁵

Section 5 — National positioning and related coverage

New Jersey lands in the moderate-to-heavy range for director qualifications. The Radburn Law guarantees the right of owners to nominate candidates and run for the board, and it limits how far the governing documents may restrict candidacy; the remaining screens — member or owner status, age, any added qualification — come from those documents and the Nonprofit Corporation Act. The state requires no certification or education, caps no number of terms, and disqualifies no one automatically for a criminal record. That puts New Jersey between two poles: heavy-touch Florida, which by statute demands director certification, imposes an eight-year term limit, and automatically disqualifies delinquent owners and certain felons,⁴ and light-touch North Dakota, which has no dedicated HOA act at all and leaves director eligibility almost entirely to the documents — the bylaws and recorded covenants operating under the North Dakota Nonprofit Corporations Act.²⁷ For an operator working across several states, the practical lesson is this: in New Jersey, the governing documents cannot be used to narrow the field of who may run the way they can elsewhere, because the Radburn regime protects candidacy itself.

HOA Weekly refreshes its New Jersey director-qualifications coverage each quarter, as the Legislature, the Department of Community Affairs, and the state courts act. Federal frameworks rarely dictate director qualifications, but New Jersey associations still answer to federal law — the Fair Housing Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act, and the OTARD rule — across their broader operations.

Footnotes

1. New Jersey Department of Community Affairs, Condominium Act, N.J.S.A. 46:8B-1 et seq. (N.J.S.A. 46:8B-13, Bylaws) ↩
2. New Jersey Legislature, P.L. 2017, c.106, amending PREDFDA, N.J.S.A. 45:22A-21 et seq. (application to all community associations) ↩
3. New Jersey Legislature, P.L. 2017, c.106 (S-2492 4R), enacting N.J.S.A. 45:22A-45.1(f) and 45:22A-45.2 ↩
4. The Florida Senate, Fla. Stat. § 718.112(2)(d) (candidate eligibility, delinquency and felony disqualification, term limit) ↩
5. New Jersey Legislature, P.L. 2017, c.106, §1 (legislative findings; approved July 13, 2017) ↩
6. New Jersey Department of Community Affairs, N.J.A.C. 5:26, Planned Real Estate Development Full Disclosure Act Regulations ↩
7. New Jersey Legislature, P.L. 2017, c.106, N.J.S.A. 45:22A-45.2(c)(4) (candidacy right) ↩
8. Superior Court of New Jersey, Appellate Division, In re Challenge of CAI - New Jersey Chapter to Amendments to N.J.A.C. 5:26, Docket A-2241-21 (Feb. 23, 2024) ↩
9. New Jersey Legislature, N.J.S.A. 15A:6-2, Number of Trustees (New Jersey Nonprofit Corporation Act) ↩
10. New Jersey Legislature, N.J.S.A. 15A:6-1, Board of Trustees (age, residency, member, additional qualifications) ↩
11. New Jersey Legislature, N.J.S.A. 15A:6-4, Classification of Trustees ↩
12. New Jersey Legislature, N.J.S.A. 15A:6-6, Removal of Trustees ↩
13. New Jersey Legislature, N.J.S.A. 15A:6-5, Vacancies and Newly Created Trusteeships ↩
14. New Jersey Legislature, P.L. 2017, c.106, N.J.S.A. 45:22A-45.2(e) (ballot counting cross-reference) ↩
15. New Jersey Legislature, P.L. 2017, c.106, N.J.S.A. 45:22A-23(r) (definition of “good standing”) ↩
16. New Jersey Legislature, P.L. 2017, c.106, N.J.S.A. 45:22A-45.2(c)(3) (vacancy on failure to maintain qualification or removal) ↩
17. New Jersey Legislature, N.J.S.A. 15A:6-8, Effect of Common Trusteeships and Trustees’ Personal Interest ↩
18. New Jersey Legislature, P.L. 2017, c.106, N.J.S.A. 45:22A-45.2(c)(1) (four-year maximum term) ↩
19. New Jersey Department of Community Affairs, Condominium Act, N.J.S.A. 46:8B-12.1 (developer transition; relinquishment of control) ↩
20. New Jersey Legislature, P.L. 2017, c.106, N.J.S.A. 45:22A-45.2(d) (initial condominium elections follow Condominium Act timeline) ↩
21. New Jersey Legislature, P.L. 2017, c.106, N.J.S.A. 45:22A-45.2(f) (mixed-use board representation) ↩
22. The Florida Senate, Fla. Stat. § 718.112(2)(d)4.b. (director certification requirement) ↩
23. New Jersey Legislature, N.J.S.A. 15A:6-14, Liability of Trustees; Reliance on Records and Reports (standard of care) ↩
24. Superior Court of New Jersey, Appellate Division, opinion applying the business judgment rule and fiduciary standard to community association boards (citing Kim v. Flagship Condo. Owners Ass’n, 327 N.J. Super. 544 (App. Div. 2000)) ↩
25. New Jersey Legislature, S4157 (2026-2027), “Requires training of planned real estate development association board members” ↩
26. New Jersey Legislature, A2449 (2024-2025), board-member training bill (died in Assembly Housing Committee) ↩
27. North Dakota Legislative Branch, North Dakota Century Code, ch. 10-33, North Dakota Nonprofit Corporations Act ↩