North Dakota HOA Estoppel & Resale

Section 1: Overview — Estoppel and resale disclosure in North Dakota

North Dakota is no longer a CC&R-only state for resale disclosure. Effective August 1, 2025, N.D.C.C. § 47-10-02.3 requires a seller of property subject to a homeowners' association or a condominium project to deliver a defined package of financial and governance disclosures to the buyer, and it requires the association to furnish the underlying documents on request.¹ The provision was created by Senate Bill 2229 during the 69th Legislative Assembly; its prime sponsor was Sen. Josh Boschee, D-Fargo, a Realtor, and the bill grew out of work by the North Dakota Association of Realtors with the Community Associations Institute.² The condominium chapter itself, N.D.C.C. ch. 47-04.1 (the Condominium Ownership of Real Property Act), remains a short pre-uniform statute that governs declarations, assessments, and liens but doesn't contain its own resale certificate.⁴

North Dakota law doesn't use the terms "resale certificate" or "estoppel certificate." The statute is titled "Required disclosures — Seller to provide," and practitioners commonly refer to the resulting instrument as a statement of account, dues letter, or estoppel letter.¹ The recorded declaration still sets any additional obligations, and a stated balance on which a buyer reasonably relies may bind the association under North Dakota's codified estoppel doctrine.⁵ At a glance, North Dakota now supplies a statutory ten-day turnaround, a reasonable-fee rule, a fifteen-item content list, and a binding effect that caps buyer liability at the disclosed amount, but it doesn't set a dollar fee cap or a fixed validity period.¹ This places North Dakota between the CC&R-only states and the detailed-disclosure states such as California, and short of hard-mandate states such as Florida. The sections below detail the statute, the declaration's role, common-law estoppel, the transaction mechanics, and recent activity.

Section 2: The statutory requirements

2A. The statutory resale-disclosure provision

North Dakota does have a statutory resale-disclosure requirement for common interest communities, codified at N.D.C.C. § 47-10-02.3 and placed in the real property transfers chapter (ch. 47-10) rather than in the condominium chapter.¹ The section applies to any sale or transfer of property subject to the rules of a homeowners' association or a condominium project, with "condominium" carrying the meaning given in § 47-04.1-01 and "homeowners' association" defined as an organization making and enforcing rules for a residential subdivision or planned community.¹ This is a genuine statutory regime, not a uniform-act import: North Dakota hasn't adopted UCIOA or the Uniform Condominium Act, and the section doesn't mirror the UCIOA § 4-109 or UCA § 4-108 resale certificate. It resembles California's Davis-Stirling transfer-disclosure model more than Florida's association-issued estoppel certificate, because the seller is the discloser and the association is the document source.⁶

The content requirement is specific. Section 47-10-02.3(2) lists fifteen items the seller must disclose in writing, including a statement of the periodic assessment and any unpaid common expenses or special assessments currently due; approved special assessments; the declaration, bylaws, amendments, rules, and the minutes of the last two meetings; reserve and capital fund balances; whether a reserve study is used; current operating and reserve budgets and a year-to-date financial statement; insurance documents; unsatisfied judgments and pending litigation; alleged uncured violations tied to the unit; transfer or transaction fees; the association's remedies for nonpayment; the assessment collection policy; leasing restrictions; an amenities list; and contact information for the association or manager.¹ The documents must reflect at least the ninety days immediately preceding the agreement's effective date.¹ Developer offering disclosures for first sales are governed separately and aren't the subject of this owner-to-owner resale provision.

The condominium chapter's own lien section confirms there's no competing resale mechanic inside ch. 47-04.1: § 47-04.1-11 requires that a recorded notice of assessment state the amount and the record owner, but it creates no statement-of-unpaid-assessments duty running to a buyer.⁴ The resale-disclosure duty lives entirely in § 47-10-02.3.

2B. What the declaration supplies alongside the statute

The recorded declaration (the CC&Rs) continues to operate as a second layer. Section 47-10-02.3 sets a statutory floor for disclosure content and timing, but the declaration can impose additional transfer requirements, transfer fees, or account-statement procedures, and the statute expressly contemplates disclosure of "any fees relating to the transfer of ownership."¹ The turnaround the association must meet to furnish documents to the seller is fixed at ten days by statute, while any faster service the declaration or a management contract promises is contractual.¹

In practice the selling owner furnishes the declaration, bylaws, rules, and a current statement of the assessment account, which is exactly the package the fifteen-item list requires.¹ The account balance and any pending special assessments reach the closing table through this statutory disclosure, prepared by the association at the seller's request.¹ The North Dakota Nonprofit Corporation Act operates at the entity level: § 10-33-80 requires an incorporated association to keep its articles, bylaws, accounting records, and minutes for six years and lets a member or director inspect them for a proper purpose, but it creates no resale certificate.⁷

2C. Common-law estoppel, remedies, and scope

Common-law estoppel supplements the statute. North Dakota codifies the doctrine at N.D.C.C. § 31-11-06, which provides that a party who, by declaration, act, or omission, intentionally and deliberately leads another to believe a thing true and to act on that belief may not later falsify it in litigation arising from that conduct.⁵ An association that states an account balance on which a buyer reasonably relies may be bound by that figure under this doctrine, independent of the statute. This is doctrine, not a statutory binding effect, although the statute now supplies its own binding rule as well.

The statute's own remedy is direct. Under § 47-10-02.3(6), a buyer is not liable for any unpaid assessment or fee greater than the amount the association's documents state, and the purchase contract is voidable by the buyer until the documents are delivered and for five days after receipt, or until conveyance, whichever occurs first.¹ A seller isn't liable to the buyer for the association's failure or delay in producing the documents.¹ The scope reaches condominiums and planned communities of every vintage, because the section contains no grandfather clause; it applies to sales on or after its August 1, 2025 effective date.^1,3

Section 3: The resale transaction in practice

A. Requesting the disclosure

The request runs from the seller side. Under § 47-10-02.3(5), the homeowners' association or condominium project must furnish the required documents within ten days after a request by the seller or the seller's authorized representative, so a title company or closing attorney typically requests them as the seller's agent (statutory).¹ The clock starts on that written request, and the seller's separate duty to disclose to the buyer is triggered by executing the agreement to sell or transfer (statutory).¹

B. The statutory clock and delivery

The association's furnishing deadline is ten days from the request, and the seller must disclose to the buyer by a mutually agreed date or within ten days of executing the sale agreement (statutory).¹ The statute states "days" and doesn't specify business days, so calendar days apply (statutory).¹ Delivery is to the seller or the seller's representative, who then passes the package to the buyer; if a material fact changes before closing, the seller must furnish a written amendment (statutory).¹ If the association can't produce a requested item, it must notify the seller, except that it can't claim unavailability for the assessment statement, approved special assessments, reserve and capital balances, or the current budgets and financials (statutory).¹

C. Fees and refunds

The association may charge a reasonable fee, which must be disclosed before final acceptance of the purchase agreement; there's no statutory dollar ceiling, in contrast to Florida, which caps estoppel charges at $299 for preparation, plus $119 for expedited requests and $179 for delinquency, under the Department of Business and Professional Regulation's CPI-adjusted schedule (statutory).^1,8 The statute doesn't address an expedited or rush fee, and it doesn't address a refund if the sale doesn't close; both are therefore governed by the declaration or management contract, not by statute (statute silent).¹

D. Consequences and the binding effect

Once the documents issue, the buyer is not liable for any unpaid assessment or fee greater than the disclosed amount, so the association can't later collect from the buyer above what it stated (statutory).¹ That statutory cap operates alongside common-law estoppel under § 31-11-06 (common-law).⁵ For nondelivery or late delivery, the buyer's remedy is a contract-cancellation right: the purchase contract is voidable until the documents are provided and for five days after receipt, or until conveyance, whichever comes first (statutory).¹ The statute shields a complying seller and the seller's agent from liability for the disclosed information but doesn't set a separate money-damages standard against the association for an erroneous statement, leaving that to common law (statutory and common-law).¹

Section 4: Recent legislative and judicial activity

A. Recent bills

North Dakota's resale-disclosure regime is itself the product of a recent bill within the lookback window.

No other 2025 or 2026 bill amended § 47-10-02.3 or the condominium chapter's resale provisions.

B. Recent North Dakota Supreme Court rulings

No North Dakota Supreme Court decision has yet interpreted § 47-10-02.3, which is expected given the August 1, 2025 effective date. One case within the 36-month window bears on association account balances at sale.

C. Active legislative debates

No pending North Dakota proposal would adopt UCIOA or replace § 47-10-02.3 with an association-issued estoppel certificate, and the state's 2025 enactment appears to have settled the resale-disclosure question for now.

Section 5: National positioning and related coverage

North Dakota now sits between the CC&R-only camp and the detailed-disclosure states. The broad categories are: hard-mandate states with association-issued estoppel certificates, short business-day clocks, and indexed fee caps (Florida, via Fla. Stat. § 718.116(8) for condominiums and § 720.30851 for HOAs, where charges are capped at $299 for preparation, $119 for expedited service, and $179 for delinquency under the CPI-adjusted schedule);⁸ detailed-disclosure states with a statutory resale package of enumerated documents (California, via Davis-Stirling, Civ. Code § 4525 et seq.);⁶ UCIOA resale-certificate states such as Alaska, Colorado, and Washington, which require a resale certificate with a short turnaround, a reasonable fee, and a binding effect; and CC&R-only treatment with no statutory mechanism. As of August 1, 2025, North Dakota belongs with the detailed-disclosure states, closest to the California model, because the seller discloses a statutory package sourced from the association rather than an association-issued certificate.^1,6 For a multi-state operator expanding into North Dakota, the practical implication is that a statutory resale package now exists: the closing figure comes from the association's disclosure prepared at the seller's request, the furnishing deadline is ten days, and the fee is a disclosed reasonable amount rather than an indexed cap.¹ North Dakota showed real legislative momentum in 2025 by enacting the regime, but no further momentum toward a UCIOA-style certificate is visible.

HOA Weekly's North Dakota Estoppel and Resale coverage updates quarterly as the legislature and the North Dakota Supreme Court act. Federal frameworks also apply to North Dakota associations regardless of the state regime, notably the FDCPA where a disclosed balance is being collected, plus FHA, ADA, SCRA, and OTARD.

Footnotes

1. N.D.C.C. § 47-10-02.3, Required disclosures — Seller to provide (North Dakota Century Code ch. 47-10) ↩
2. North Dakota SB 2229, 69th Legislative Assembly (2025), bill history and sponsors ↩
3. Effective Dates of 2025 Legislation, North Dakota Legislative Council (SB 2229 — August 1, 2025) ↩
4. N.D.C.C. ch. 47-04.1, Condominium Ownership of Real Property, incl. § 47-04.1-11 ↩
5. N.D.C.C. § 31-11-06, Estoppel by declaration, act, or omission ↩
6. Cal. Civ. Code § 4525 et seq., Davis-Stirling Common Interest Development Act, transfer disclosures ↩
7. N.D.C.C. § 10-33-80, Books and records — Financial statement (North Dakota Nonprofit Corporations Act) ↩
8. Fla. Stat. § 720.30851 (HOA estoppel certificates); § 718.116(8) (condominium estoppel), DBPR CPI-adjusted fee schedule ↩
9. Industrial Commission of North Dakota v. Gould, 2024 ND 32 ↩