Oregon HOA Fining Authority

Section 1: Overview — Fining authority in Oregon

Oregon does not run its community-association fines through a single uniform code. It uses two separate, homegrown statutes, and which one applies turns entirely on how you own your home. Own a condominium, and the Oregon Condominium Act, ORS Chapter 100, governs you.¹ Live in a planned community — the statutory term that covers most HOAs — and the Oregon Planned Community Act, ORS Chapter 94, governs you, with its operative provisions running from ORS 94.550 to 94.783.² Oregon never adopted the Uniform Common Interest Ownership Act, so don't look for UCIOA machinery here. Both chapters stand on their own as Oregon law, and UCIOA features like deemed-rejection budget ratification and a uniform super-priority lien simply don't apply.

Here's what sets Oregon apart from states that let fines rest on the recorded covenants alone: both chapters hand associations an express statutory fining power. ORS 100.405(4)(k) lets a condominium association levy reasonable fines,³ and ORS 94.630(1)(n) lets a planned-community association do the same.⁴ Each provision carries the same conditions — written notice, an opportunity to be heard, and a fine based on a schedule or resolution the association has already delivered to the owners.

So the real limit on any fine is the governing chapter read together with the declaration and bylaws. The statute sets the floor: due process and a reasonableness standard. The governing documents fill in the rest — the fine schedule, the cure periods, and the hearing mechanics the statute leaves open.

Every board and manager eventually reaches the same high-stakes question: can an unpaid fine become a lien and support foreclosure? In Oregon, the answer is yes by default under both chapters, unless the declaration says otherwise.^5,6 We lay that mechanic out in the Quick-Reference table below and again in Section 3C.

Section 2: Quick-Reference Fining Mechanics Table

Here is Oregon's fining mechanics at a glance. The Condominiums column reflects the Oregon Condominium Act (ORS Chapter 100); the Planned Communities column reflects the Oregon Planned Community Act (ORS Chapter 94). Section 3 sources every value below in detail, using Oregon's own chapter and section numbers. Where a chapter doesn't address a parameter, the cell reads "Not specified by statute; set by declaration" — and we've inferred nothing from the other chapter or from any uniform-act model.

The Condominiums column reflects the Oregon Condominium Act (ORS Chapter 100); the Planned Communities column reflects the Oregon Planned Community Act (ORS Chapter 94). Last verified: July 14, 2026.

Section 3: Fining mechanics in detail

3A. Source and outer limits of fining authority

Oregon puts the fining power directly in statute rather than leaving it to the covenants. Start with condominiums. The association's general powers sit in ORS 100.405, and subsection (4)(k) lets the board, "after giving written notice and an opportunity to be heard," levy "reasonable fines for violations of the declaration, bylaws and rules and regulations of the association."³ That authority comes with a condition: the fine has to rest on something the owners have actually seen — either a schedule in the declaration or bylaws (or an amendment) delivered or mailed to each unit, or a resolution the board or association adopted and delivered or mailed to each unit.

Planned communities get the parallel provision at ORS 94.630(1)(n). It lets the association, again "after giving written notice and an opportunity to be heard," levy "reasonable fines for violations of the declaration, bylaws, rules and regulations of the association," subject to the same schedule-or-resolution predicate: the fine must rest on a schedule in the declaration or bylaws (or an amendment) delivered to each lot, or on a resolution of the association or board delivered to each lot.⁴ The two provisions read almost identically, but they sit in different chapters with different subsection lettering — so the correct citation depends on how the property is owned.

Because Oregon isn't a UCIOA state, neither chapter imports a uniform fining template or a UCIOA-style enforcement scheme. The outer limit on any fine is the single word "reasonable," read together with the declaration. Neither chapter caps fines in dollars, and neither sets a maximum per violation. Two statutory constraints do the work — the reasonableness standard and the delivered-schedule requirement — and everything else (the size of the schedule, the categories of violation, any escalation) comes from the governing documents. Miss the delivery step, and the statute isn't satisfied: a fine levied without a properly delivered basis is vulnerable to challenge no matter how small the amount.

3B. The required fining procedure

Both chapters impose the same two-part predicate before any fine: written notice and an opportunity to be heard. This is a real statutory due-process requirement, not just a common-law expectation. ORS 100.405(4)(k) for condominiums and ORS 94.630(1)(n) for planned communities each write the notice-and-hearing condition into the operative text of the fining power itself,^3,4 which means a fine imposed without it isn't properly authorized. A declaration that tried to let the board fine without notice or a hearing would collide with the statute and lose to that extent.

What the statute doesn't do is count the days. Neither chapter fixes a minimum notice period, a cure period, a deadline to request a hearing, or a deadline for the board to decide. Those timelines come from the declaration and bylaws. In practice, a defensible Oregon fining file rests on three documents read together: the statute (for the notice-and-hearing floor and the reasonableness standard), the declaration or bylaws (for the fine schedule and the timelines), and the delivered schedule or resolution the specific fine rests on. A board that can't show it delivered that schedule or resolution has a gap the statute won't fill.

Neither chapter says anything about per-day or continuing fines. Whether a fine can accrue daily for an ongoing violation therefore falls to the declaration and bylaws, bounded by the reasonableness limit — the statute neither authorizes nor forbids it. The published-schedule requirement works, in effect, as a transparency rule: because the fine has to rest on a schedule or resolution delivered to every unit or lot, owners get to see the fine structure in advance. So the first move in Oregon is always the same — figure out whether the community is a condominium under Chapter 100 or a planned community under Chapter 94, because the governing chapter, the correct citation, and the exact subsection all change even though the procedure looks much the same.

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

This is where the stakes run highest, so I want to track each chapter's lien and foreclosure text separately. Take the condominium assessment lien first, at ORS 100.450. Under subsection (1), the moment a condominium association levies an assessment, it holds a lien on the unit and its undivided interest in the common elements for the unpaid amount, including interest, late charges, attorney fees, costs, and other amounts levied under the declaration or bylaws. Subsection (5) is the one that matters for fines: "unless the declaration or bylaws provides otherwise, fees, late charges, fines and interest imposed pursuant to ORS 100.405 (4)(j), (k), (L) and (m) are enforceable as assessments under this section."⁵ Because ORS 100.405(4)(k) is the fining provision, condominium fines are enforceable as assessments — and therefore lienable — by default. Foreclosing that lien is a judicial matter: subsection (4)(a) says the proceedings conform as nearly as possible to construction-lien foreclosure under ORS 87.010, and subsection (4)(d) blocks any foreclosure or money judgment unless the association's Condominium Information Report and Annual Report are current under ORS 100.255.⁵

The planned-community assessment lien lives at ORS 94.709, and it tracks the condominium version closely. Subsection (1) gives the association a lien on the lot for unpaid assessments — interest, late charges, attorney fees, costs, and other amounts imposed under the recorded governing documents — and that lien sits ahead of a homestead exemption and other liens, though behind tax and assessment liens and a first mortgage or trust deed of record.⁶ Subsection (5) provides that "fees, late charges, fines and interest imposed pursuant to ORS 94.630 (1)(L), (n) and (o) are enforceable as assessments under this section," unless the declaration or bylaws say otherwise. Because ORS 94.630(1)(n) is the fining provision, planned-community fines are likewise enforceable as assessments — and lienable — by default. Foreclosure is again judicial, conforms to construction-lien foreclosure under ORS 87.010, and the lien can continue for up to six years from the date the assessment falls due.⁶ So in both chapters a fine-only balance can support foreclosure by default — but only where the declaration and bylaws haven't opted out, and a manager has to read the governing documents before assuming any fine is foreclosable. The prevailing party recovers reasonable attorney fees in a planned-community enforcement or foreclosure action under ORS 94.719,⁷ and the condominium chapter provides for attorney fees in lien foreclosure and related actions under ORS 100.470.⁸

On suspending rights, neither chapter hands associations a general power to suspend voting. Each does let the association adopt rules cutting off access to recreational and service facilities and to utility services paid from assessments — but only after written notice and an opportunity to be heard, and only until the owner corrects the violation: ORS 100.405(4)(L) for condominiums³ and ORS 94.630(1)(m) for planned communities.⁴ Suspending voting rights is a different story; neither statute addresses it, so it depends entirely on the declaration.

Section 4: Recent legislative and judicial activity

A. Recent bills

One measure in the past twenty-four months took aim at the very lien provisions that make fines securable and foreclosable — but it never became law.

B. Recent appellate rulings

No Oregon Court of Appeals or Oregon Supreme Court decision in the past thirty-six months — July 2023 through July 2026 — touches association fine enforceability, the fining procedure, or the lien-and-foreclosure treatment of fines under either chapter. The closest controlling authority predates that window. In Bank of New York Mellon Trust Co. v. Sulejmanagic, 367 Or 537, 481 P3d 293 (2021), the Oregon Supreme Court (Nelson, J., en banc) held that a condominium association's ORS 100.450(7) notice forces a first lienholder to start foreclosure within 90 days or lose priority, reasoning that "a foreclosure action that has been filed and dismissed is functionally identical to a foreclosure action that was never filed."¹¹ Because fines are enforced "as assessments" under ORS 100.450 and ORS 94.709, the assessment-lien case law is the body of authority that actually governs fine collection — but no fine-specific appellate holding exists in the current window.

C. Active legislative debates

The only recent proposal that even brushed these mechanics was HB 4064 in the 2026 session, and it addressed assessment accrual and lien treatment on tax-foreclosed property before stalling. Nothing is pending that would create a super-priority lien, add a dollar or time threshold to foreclosure, or change the fining procedure.

Section 5: National positioning and related coverage

Step back, and Oregon lands in a category of its own. It's a two-statute bespoke state: it codifies the fining power and its due-process predicate in its own law, rather than running everything through a full UCIOA framework like Nevada, Connecticut, Colorado, or Minnesota, and rather than leaving fines largely to the recorded covenants the way a CC&R-primary state does. The defining Oregon feature is the condominium/planned-community split. The Condominium Act (Chapter 100) and the Planned Community Act (Chapter 94) run in parallel but use different section numbers, so you have to settle the form of ownership — and the correct citation — before any fining analysis even begins. On collection, Oregon leans more association-friendly than peers that bar foreclosure on fines: because fines are enforceable "as assessments" by default under both ORS 100.450 and ORS 94.709, a fine-only balance can support judicial foreclosure unless the declaration opts out — a more permissive stance than the states that flatly forbid foreclosing on fine debt.

HOA Weekly updates its Oregon Fining Authority coverage every quarter as the Legislative Assembly and the Oregon appellate courts act. Federal frameworks reach Oregon associations too, whatever the state framework says — most notably the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, which can govern 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. A fuller treatment of each is coming once that coverage is built.

1. Oregon Revised Statutes Chapter 100 (Oregon Condominium Act); short title at ORS 100.010 ↩
2. Oregon Revised Statutes Chapter 94 (Oregon Planned Community Act), ORS 94.550 to 94.783 ↩
3. ORS 100.405 (Association of unit owners; powers), subsection (4)(k) (reasonable fines after written notice and opportunity to be heard, based on delivered schedule or resolution) and (4)(L) (termination of utility and facility access after notice and opportunity to be heard) ↩
4. ORS 94.630 (Powers of association), subsection (1)(n) (reasonable fines after written notice and opportunity to be heard, based on delivered schedule or resolution) and (1)(m) (termination of utility and facility access after written notice and opportunity to be heard) ↩
5. ORS 100.450 (Association lien against individual unit; foreclosure; priority of lien), subsections (1), (4)(a), (4)(d) and (5) ("Unless the declaration or bylaws provides otherwise, fees, late charges, fines and interest imposed pursuant to ORS 100.405 (4)(j), (k), (L) and (m) are enforceable as assessments under this section") ↩
6. ORS 94.709 (Liens against lots; priority; duration; foreclosure procedure), subsections (1), (4)(a) and (5) ("fees, late charges, fines and interest imposed pursuant to ORS 94.630 (1)(L), (n) and (o) are enforceable as assessments under this section") ↩
7. ORS 94.719 (Lien foreclosure; other legal action; attorney fees) (prevailing party entitled to reasonable attorney fees) ↩
8. ORS 100.470 (Lien foreclosure; other legal action by declarant, association or owner; attorney fees) ↩
9. House Bill 4064 (2026 Regular Session), Introduced text (amends ORS 94.709 and 100.450; adds section to ORS chapter 312; appropriation to Fishhawk Lake Reserve & Community, Inc.) ↩
10. HB 4064 (2026 Regular Session), Measure Overview, Oregon Legislative Information System (referred to House Committee on Housing and Homelessness; no further action) ↩
11. Bank of New York Mellon Trust Co. v. Sulejmanagic, 367 Or 537, 481 P3d 293 (2021), Oregon Supreme Court (S067155), reversing 299 Or App 261, 450 P3d 14 (2019) ↩