North Dakota HOA Fining Authority

Section 1: Overview — Fining authority in North Dakota

North Dakota takes a narrower approach than most states. Lawmakers wrote a single statute for condominiums and never got around to a comprehensive homeowners association law, so fining authority for both kinds of communities comes largely from the CC&Rs — and the state doesn't even run a functioning intermediate appellate court. Condominiums answer to the North Dakota Condominium Ownership Act, N.D. Cent. Code Ch. 47-04.1,¹ a traditional unit-ownership statute that predates the Uniform Common Interest Ownership Act and never grants an express power to levy fines. Planned communities and traditional homeowners associations answer instead to their recorded declarations, and, if the association has incorporated, to the North Dakota Nonprofit Corporations Act, N.D. Cent. Code Ch. 10-33,² which supplies corporate formalities and nothing more — no fining power at all.

Because neither statute creates a fining power, boards have to look elsewhere for the authority to fine, the dollar amount, and the procedure — all three come from the declaration and bylaws. Common law limits that authority anyway, requiring reasonable notice and a chance to be heard, and for condominiums a statutory rule adds one more boundary: recorded restrictions must be reasonable.³ No statute in North Dakota caps the dollar amount of a fine.

For any board, the question that matters most down the road is whether an unpaid fine can turn into a lien and support a foreclosure. For condominiums, the answer depends on the assessment-lien provision and on the declaration.⁴ For planned communities, the declaration decides everything, because no North Dakota statute creates an association lien at all.⁵ The Quick-Reference table below lays out these mechanics, and Section 3C works through the lien and foreclosure question in full.

Section 2: Quick-Reference Fining Mechanics Table

Here's the fining picture at a glance. Because fining authority in North Dakota is largely CC&R-derived, many cells below point to the declaration and bylaws rather than to a statute. The Condominiums column reflects the North Dakota Condominium Ownership Act, which covers assessments and liens but stays silent on fines; the Planned Communities column reflects the simple fact that no dedicated statute exists. Every value traces back to the detailed discussion in Section 3, where you'll find the controlling statute section or the CC&R-derived basis identified.

Condominiums column reflects the North Dakota Condominium Ownership Act (N.D. Cent. Code Ch. 47-04.1); Planned Communities are CC&R-derived. Appeals go to the North Dakota Supreme Court, since the state has no functioning intermediate appellate court. Last verified: July 14, 2026.

Section 3: Fining mechanics in detail

3A. Source and outer limits of fining authority

Look through the North Dakota Condominium Ownership Act and you won't find an express power to fine. Its sixteen sections cover the declaration, the bylaws, administration, assessments for common expenses, liens, and specific owner protections — but none of them authorizes a monetary penalty for breaking a covenant or a rule.¹ The enforcement provision, N.D. Cent. Code § 47-04.1-08, requires a unit owner to comply with the bylaws, rules, and recorded restrictions, and treats a failure to comply as "grounds for an action to recover sums due for damages, injunctive relief or such other relief as a court of proper jurisdiction may provide by the administrative body or in a proper case, by an aggrieved unit owner."⁶ That's a courtroom remedy, not an administrative fining power. So where a condominium association does levy fines, it draws that authority from the declaration and bylaws adopted under N.D. Cent. Code § 47-04.1-07 — not from the statute itself.⁷

Planned communities and traditional homeowners associations get no dedicated statute in North Dakota — none exists. Their authority to fine comes entirely from the CC&Rs, rising out of the recorded declaration of covenants, conditions, and restrictions. If the association has incorporated as a nonprofit, the North Dakota Nonprofit Corporations Act, N.D. Cent. Code Ch. 10-33, governs its corporate structure and procedure, but it hands over no fining power and prescribes no fine procedure.²

North Dakota never adopted the Uniform Common Interest Ownership Act, so none of UCIOA's fining or lien features apply here — not the standardized notice-and-hearing fining template, not the six-month super-priority lien. Operators shouldn't import those defaults and assume they hold.

What sets the outer limit on a fine? The declaration, and reasonableness. For condominiums, N.D. Cent. Code § 47-04.1-04 makes recorded restrictions enforceable as "equitable servitudes where reasonable" — language that gives reasonableness a statutory anchor.³ For planned communities, reasonableness works the same way but through common law, as a limit on covenant enforcement generally. Neither setting has a statutory dollar cap on fines.

3B. The required fining procedure

Neither the Condominium Ownership Act nor the Nonprofit Corporations Act spells out a fining procedure, a minimum notice period, a cure period, or a hearing deadline. That leaves two sources to define what's enforceable for both community types: the declaration and bylaws, and the common-law expectation that an owner gets reasonable notice and a real opportunity to respond before any penalty lands. Boards should treat the declaration as the operative rulebook and follow every step it lays out, because a fine imposed outside that stated process is the single most common ground for a successful challenge.

Because the timeline is contractual, the required notice, any cure window, how an owner requests a hearing, and whether the association owes a written decision — all of it comes from whatever the declaration and bylaws say.⁷ Silence in the governing documents doesn't remove the common-law expectation of reasonable notice and a chance to be heard; it just means the specifics aren't fixed by statute. The same goes for per-day or continuing fines — the declaration decides, since no statute authorizes or prohibits an accruing daily penalty.

In practice, that means a North Dakota fine's enforceability comes down to two things: the text of the declaration, and whether the association actually gave reasonable notice and an opportunity to be heard. Challenge a fine, and the case lands in North Dakota's District Courts, the state's courts of general jurisdiction; appeal it, and the case goes straight to the North Dakota Supreme Court. There's no functioning intermediate appellate court to stop at — a temporary Court of Appeals exists by rule, but it hears only cases the Supreme Court assigns, and that happens rarely. Operators should plan on District Court followed directly by the Supreme Court.⁸

3C. Enforcement of unpaid fines: assessments, liens, and foreclosure

For condominiums, the Condominium Ownership Act does create an assessment lien — just a narrower one than a general fining lien. N.D. Cent. Code § 47-04.1-11 treats a "reasonable assessment for common expenses" as a debt of the owner, and lets the amount of that assessment "plus any other charges thereon, such as interest, costs, and penalties, as such may be provided for in the declarations and bylaws" become a lien once the association records a notice of assessment with the county recorder.⁴ Notice the anchor point: a common-expense assessment. Whether a pure behavioral fine falls inside that lien isn't addressed expressly by the statute — it turns on how the declaration characterizes the charge. A fine tied to, and recorded as part of, an assessment stands on firmer ground than a free-standing penalty does. Yes, a recorded condominium assessment lien can be foreclosed like any other real property lien, but a board shouldn't assume a fine-only balance is independently foreclosable without first confirming the declaration brings that fine inside the recorded assessment lien.

Planned communities get no statutory assessment lien at all. Lien and foreclosure rights exist only where the recorded declaration creates them — and the North Dakota Supreme Court confirmed exactly that framework in Industrial Commission of North Dakota v. Gould, 2024 ND 32. There, a homeowners association in Williston recorded a lien claiming the owner owed "$3,666.25 in fines, penalties, accrued interest, and legal fees," later amended to add "$5,401.25 in costs," all of it authorized by the declaration.⁵ The court treated the lien as a creature of the declaration and applied ordinary priority rules: it held the association's lien inferior to an earlier-perfected mortgage and rejected a covenant provision — Section 11.05 — that tried to make the association's lien "superior and senior to any lien hereafter placed upon any portion of the Subject Property, including the lien of any mortgage or deed of trust." Instead, the justices applied N.D. Cent. Code § 35-01-14: "Other things being equal, different liens upon the same property have priority according to the time of their creation."⁵ The opinion noted, too, that the covenants "do not state an amount of fees due before the HOA can foreclose" — one more reminder that foreclosure terms come from the declaration, not from thin air.

Suspending voting rights or amenity use? Neither statute touches the subject. Any authority to suspend comes from the CC&Rs, and depends entirely on what the declaration and bylaws say.

Section 4: Recent legislative and judicial activity

North Dakota's Legislative Assembly meets in regular session only in odd-numbered years, which puts the most recent regular session in 2025 — the 69th Assembly. HOA-specific activity stayed light, and no enacted bill in the current window changed fining, due-process, or lien mechanics.

A. Recent bills

No bill enacted in the current window touched fining, due-process, or lien mechanics, but one measure came close to reshaping the whole planned-community landscape, and it's worth flagging below.

B. Recent rulings

One ruling this year tests how far an association-created lien can reach when it collides with an earlier mortgage.

C. Active legislative debates

The 2025 session did enact one bill, Senate Bill 2229, which added a new section to N.D. Cent. Code Ch. 47-10 requiring sellers to hand buyers HOA and condominium documents within ten days of signing a sale agreement — covering at least the past 90 days — and letting a buyer void the contract if those documents don't arrive on time. It took effect August 1, 2025.¹⁰ That law addresses pre-sale disclosure, not fining, due process, or liens. No proposal currently pending would create a general fining or due-process standard for North Dakota associations.

Section 5: National positioning and related coverage

Step back, and North Dakota sits at the light-touch end of the national spectrum. It's a condominium-statute-only state with no comprehensive homeowners association law, and fining authority is largely CC&R-derived for both kinds of communities. That sets it apart from full UCIOA states like Alaska, Connecticut, Colorado, and Minnesota, which supply a statutory notice-and-hearing fining template and a statutory assessment lien — and from a comprehensive single-statute state like California, where the Davis-Stirling Act codifies fine procedure down to the details. Operators in North Dakota have to read the individual declaration rather than lean on a statutory default, because the statute stays silent on fines and the declaration is the real source of authority, procedure, and lien rights. The state's court structure shapes how fine disputes get reviewed, too: there's no functioning intermediate appellate court, so a challenge runs through the North Dakota District Courts, with any appeal heading straight to the North Dakota Supreme Court.

HOA Weekly updates this coverage quarterly as the Legislative Assembly and the North Dakota Supreme Court act. Federal frameworks apply here too, regardless of what North Dakota's own statutes say — notably the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, which can reach third-party collection of fines, along with the Fair Housing Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act, and the FCC's OTARD rule governing satellite dishes and antennas.

1. North Dakota Legislative Branch, N.D. Cent. Code Ch. 47-04.1, Condominium Ownership of Real Property (section list) ↩
2. North Dakota Legislative Branch, N.D. Cent. Code Ch. 10-33, Nonprofit Corporations ↩
3. North Dakota Legislative Branch, N.D. Cent. Code § 47-04.1-04, Declaration of restrictions ("enforceable equitable servitudes where reasonable") ↩
4. North Dakota Legislative Branch, N.D. Cent. Code § 47-04.1-11, Liens against units for common expenses ↩
5. Industrial Commission of North Dakota v. Gould, 2024 ND 32, Docket No. 20230188 (N.D. Feb. 22, 2024); applying N.D. Cent. Code § 35-01-14 on lien priority ↩
6. North Dakota Legislative Branch, N.D. Cent. Code § 47-04.1-08, Compliance with covenants, bylaws, and administrative provisions ↩
7. North Dakota Legislative Branch, N.D. Cent. Code § 47-04.1-07, Administration - Bylaws - Rules and regulations ↩
8. North Dakota Court System, Court of Appeals (temporary court; hears only cases assigned by the Supreme Court; in some years no cases assigned) ↩
9. North Dakota Legislative Assembly, S.B. 2394, 69th Legislative Assembly (2025 Regular Session), Bill Overview and Status (Failed in Senate) ↩
10. North Dakota Legislative Assembly, S.B. 2229, 69th Legislative Assembly (2025 Regular Session), new section to N.D. Cent. Code Ch. 47-10 (resale disclosure requirements; effective Aug. 1, 2025) ↩