Tennessee HOA Fining Authority

Section 1: Overview — Fining authority in Tennessee

Start with a simple question: who can fine you, and where does that power come from? In Tennessee, the answer turns on what kind of community you live in. The state governs condominiums under a Condominium Act of 2008 that borrows from the Uniform Common Interest Ownership Act (UCIOA); it keeps the older Horizontal Property Act for condominiums created before 2009; and it has no comprehensive statute for planned communities at all, so a single-family HOA's power to fine comes from its own covenants. Tennessee also splits its trial courts, sending equity, liens, and foreclosure to Chancery and money damages to Circuit.¹ So a property manager's first move is always the same: identify the community type, and for a condominium, pin down its creation date.

The Tennessee Condominium Act of 2008, T.C.A. § 66-27-201 et seq. (Title 66, Chapter 27, Parts 2 through 5), is the state's adaptation of UCIOA's condominium provisions, and it applies to condominiums created on or after January 1, 2009.² Condominiums created before that date stay under the Tennessee Horizontal Property Act, T.C.A. § 66-27-101 et seq. (Part 1) — with one important exception: a defined list of 2008-Act sections reaches back to those older condominiums for events that occur after January 1, 2009.³ Planned communities stand apart. They have no comprehensive Tennessee statute, so their fining authority comes from the recorded declaration, the CC&Rs, while the Tennessee Nonprofit Corporation Act, T.C.A. § 48-51-101 et seq., supplies the corporate formalities when the association is incorporated, and a short set of targeted provisions in Parts 6 through 8 of Chapter 27 fills in around the edges.⁴

Now the question that matters most downstream, the one the table and Section 3C take up in detail: can an unpaid fine ripen into an association lien and support foreclosure? For 2008-Act condominiums, the answer is yes. Fines are enforceable as assessments, and the association can foreclose the lien judicially in Chancery Court, or nonjudicially if the declaration says so.⁵ For planned communities, there is no statutory lien, and the answer depends entirely on the declaration.⁴ The Quick-Reference table that follows lays out these mechanics for both community types at a glance.

Section 2: Quick-Reference Fining Mechanics Table

Here are Tennessee's fining mechanics at a glance. The Condominiums column reflects the Tennessee Condominium Act of 2008 for condominiums created on or after January 1, 2009, with pre-2009 condominiums under the Horizontal Property Act, as Section 3A explains. The Planned Communities column reflects the CC&R-derived framework that governs single-family HOAs, which have no comprehensive Tennessee statute. Every value below is sourced in Section 3, using Tennessee's own § 66-27 section numbers. Watch rows 12 and 13 — the lien and foreclosure of fines — because they carry the highest verification risk, and Section 3C treats them at length.

The Condominiums column reflects the Tennessee Condominium Act of 2008 (T.C.A. § 66-27-201 et seq.) for condominiums created on or after its effective date; pre-2009 condominiums are under the Horizontal Property Act. Planned Communities are CC&R-derived. Lien enforcement and foreclosure proceed in Chancery Court. Last verified: July 14, 2026.

Section 3: Fining mechanics in detail

3A. Source and outer limits of fining authority

For condominiums created on or after January 1, 2009, the power to fine is express. T.C.A. § 66-27-402(a)(11) lets the unit owners' association "[i]mpose charges for late payment of assessments and, after notice and an opportunity to be heard, levy reasonable fines for violations of the declaration, bylaws, and rules and regulations of the association."¹ It is Tennessee's version of the UCIOA association-powers provision, enacted as part of the Tennessee Condominium Act of 2008 (Public Chapter 766, Acts of 2008).⁶ One caution on where to look: the fining power does not live at § 66-27-302, which governs limited common elements. It sits in Part 4, at § 66-27-402.¹

For condominiums created before January 1, 2009, the analysis runs in two layers. The Horizontal Property Act (Part 1, §§ 66-27-101 through 66-27-123) grants no express fining power, so for a pre-2009 condominium that authority is declaration-derived and bylaw-derived — unless the 2008 Act reaches in.⁷ And it does. The applicability provision, § 66-27-202(a), makes a defined list of 2008-Act sections, including the fining power at § 66-27-402(a)(11) and the lien section at § 66-27-415, apply to condominiums created before January 1, 2009 — but only for events and circumstances occurring after that date, and, with one exception that does not matter here, without invalidating existing declaration or bylaw provisions.³ The practical result: the statutory fining power and its notice-and-hearing predicate reach pre-2009 condominiums for present-day violations, layered on top of the older governing documents.

Planned communities have no equivalent. Tennessee has never enacted a comprehensive planned-community or common-interest-ownership act, and the UCIOA planned-community features simply do not apply here. A single-family HOA's power to fine exists only if its recorded declaration creates it.⁴ Remember, Tennessee adopted UCIOA for condominiums alone and used its own § 66-27 section numbers, so UCIOA model numbers should never turn up in a Tennessee fine analysis.

The outer limit for condominiums is reasonableness. Section 66-27-402(a)(11) permits only "reasonable" fines and sets no dollar cap, which means an unreasonable fine is open to challenge.¹ For planned communities, the amount is whatever the declaration and any published fine schedule authorize — no statutory ceiling, no statutory floor.⁴

3B. The required fining procedure

For 2008-Act condominiums, the statutory predicate is straightforward: notice and an opportunity to be heard before a fine is levied, stated directly in § 66-27-402(a)(11).¹ What the statute does not do is set a minimum notice period, a cure period, a hearing-request deadline, or a requirement of written findings. Those specifics come from the declaration, master deed, and bylaws. So a board that wants a fine to stick should map the exact steps its governing documents require and follow them precisely, because the statute supplies only the floor — some notice, some opportunity to respond — not the full procedure.

For pre-2009 condominiums, that same § 66-27-402(a)(11) notice-and-hearing floor applies to post-2009 violations through § 66-27-202(a), again supplemented by the master deed and bylaws.³ For planned communities, there is no statutory notice period or hearing deadline at all; procedure is entirely declaration-derived, backed by the common-law expectation that a covenant-enforcing association act reasonably and in good faith. Tennessee courts enforce recorded covenants as binding contracts, and they construe restrictive covenants strictly against the party trying to enforce a restriction. As the Court of Appeals put it, quoting the Tennessee Supreme Court's Pandharipande v. FSD Corp., 679 S.W.3d 610, 631 (Tenn. 2023), "because restrictive covenants are in derogation of the right of free use and enjoyment of property, they are strictly construed and should not be extended to any activity not clearly and expressly prohibited by their plain terms."⁸ Every procedural step an HOA wrote into its declaration is, therefore, an obligation the HOA has to meet to make a fine hold up.

Neither statute addresses per-day or continuing fines. So whether an association may fine on a per-day or per-violation basis is a governing-document question in both community types, constrained for condominiums by that overarching reasonableness standard. The first step in any Tennessee condominium fine question is to confirm the creation date, and thus the governing statute; from there, the forum for a challenge depends on the relief sought, with equitable claims — injunctions, lien enforcement, foreclosure — going to Chancery Court, and money-damage actions to Circuit Court.

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

For 2008-Act condominiums, the assessment lien sits at § 66-27-415 — not the § 66-27-318 range, which governs termination of a condominium.⁵ Section 66-27-415(a) gives the association "a lien on a unit for any assessment levied against that unit or fines imposed against its unit owner from the time the assessment or fine becomes due, which lien may be foreclosed by judicial action." The section goes on to say that, unless the declaration provides otherwise, "fees, charges, late charges, fines, and interest charged pursuant to § 66-27-402(a)(10), (11) and (12) are enforceable as assessments under this section."⁵ Fines, then, fall squarely within the condominium lien, and because that lien "may be foreclosed by judicial action," even a fine-only balance can support foreclosure. The Tennessee Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations, in its report "Protecting the Interests of Homeowners," found that "[i]n Tennessee, an HOA could foreclose on a property for failure to pay even a small fine. Nine states limit the ability of HOAs to foreclose on homeowners, commonly by requiring a minimum dollar amount or period of delinquency."⁹

Keep two priority points distinct. First, the general lien is subordinate to liens recorded before the declaration, to a first mortgage or deed of trust recorded before the assessment became delinquent, and to real-estate-tax liens (§ 66-27-415(b)(1)); any association foreclosure is subject to a prior mortgage and does not wipe it out.⁵ Second, the six-month limited priority in § 66-27-415(b)(2) — which gives the association priority in foreclosure proceeds up to the common-expense assessments that came due in the six months before enforcement, capped at one percent of the first mortgage's maximum principal indebtedness — is expressly tied to "common expense assessments based on the periodic budget," not to fines.⁵ Fines fall within the lien and can be foreclosed, but they do not get that six-month limited-priority slot ahead of a prior first mortgage. Foreclosure is judicial by default and proceeds in Chancery Court; § 66-27-415(a) allows a nonjudicial foreclosure, like a deed of trust under Title 35, Chapter 5, only if the declaration provides for it and the association gives the required notice.⁵ And the lien is extinguished unless enforcement begins within six years (§ 66-27-415(e)).⁵

For pre-2009 condominiums, § 66-27-415 applies to post-2009 events through § 66-27-202(a), so fines imposed for current violations are enforceable as assessments and lienable on the same terms; the Horizontal Property Act's own lien provision (§ 66-27-116) covers unpaid pro-rata common expenses but does not, by itself, grant a fining power.^3,7 For planned communities, there is no statutory assessment lien. Lien and foreclosure rights exist only if the recorded declaration creates them — and one statutory limit now overrides the declaration: § 66-27-706 provides that "[i]f a member of the homeowners' association fails to pay a special assessment for a nonessential amenity, then the homeowners' association shall not take a foreclosure action against the property or the member for failure to pay the special assessment."¹⁰

On suspension of rights, the 2008 Act's powers list does not expressly authorize suspending a unit owner's voting rights, or amenity or common-element use, as a sanction; any such remedy is declaration-derived for condominiums and CC&R-derived for planned communities.¹

Section 4: Recent legislative and judicial activity

A. Recent bills

Tennessee's General Assembly has not touched the condominium fining power (§ 66-27-402(a)(11)) or the assessment-lien section (§ 66-27-415) in the past 24 months. But two enacted measures reach adjacent enforcement mechanics.

B. Recent appellate rulings

C. Active legislative debates

Proposals for a comprehensive "Tennessee Homeowners' Association Act" have surfaced again and again — SB405 in the 2015-2016 session and SB2000 in 2024 among them, both withdrawn or dead — but none has been enacted, so single-family HOA fining remains CC&R-derived.¹³ CAI's Tennessee committee reports continued monitoring of HOA-related bills through the 2025 and 2026 sessions, with no measure amending condominium fining, due-process, or lien provisions passing.¹⁴

Section 5: National positioning and related coverage

Tennessee belongs to the UCIOA family for condominiums, but it stops short of the full uniform framework. It adopted the UCIOA condominium provisions as the Tennessee Condominium Act of 2008, which places it alongside UCIOA-influenced states such as Nevada, Connecticut, Colorado, and Minnesota — yet it uses its own § 66-27 section numbers and declined to enact the uniform planned-community provisions. Two features define Tennessee. The first is the condominium/planned-community divide: condominiums get a detailed statutory fining and lien regime, while single-family HOAs get only CC&R-derived authority plus scattered Chapter 27 provisions. The second is the creation-date split: a condominium's fining and lien mechanics turn on whether it was created before or after January 1, 2009. And because Tennessee runs bifurcated trial courts, the path for a fine dispute depends on the relief sought — lien enforcement, foreclosure, and injunctions go to Chancery Court, while a suit for a money judgment on an unpaid fine can proceed in Circuit Court.

HOA Weekly updates its Tennessee Fining Authority coverage every quarter as the General Assembly and the Tennessee appellate courts act. Federal frameworks reach Tennessee associations too, regardless of the state framework — the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act can reach third-party collection of association fines, and the Fair Housing Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act, and the OTARD rule all apply as well; a forthcoming federal-law analysis will cover each of them in depth.

Recommendations

Stage 1 — Classify the community and confirm the governing framework (do this first, every time). Read the title of the recorded governing document. A "Declaration of Condominium" or "Master Deed" means condominium; a "Declaration of Covenants, Conditions, and Restrictions" means single-family HOA. For a condominium, find its creation (recording) date: on or after January 1, 2009 puts it fully under the 2008 Act; before that date puts it under the Horizontal Property Act, with § 66-27-402(a)(11) and § 66-27-415 still reaching post-2009 violations via § 66-27-202(a). Threshold that changes the analysis: if the community is a single-family HOA, stop looking for a statute and work entirely from the declaration.

Stage 2 — Confirm authority and process before levying. For a condominium, verify the fine is "reasonable" and that notice and an opportunity to be heard were given, then follow every procedural step the declaration and bylaws add (notice period, cure window, hearing mechanics). For a single-family HOA, confirm the declaration actually grants a fining power and a fine schedule, and follow that procedure to the letter; Tennessee courts strictly construe covenants against the association. Threshold: if the covenant text is ambiguous or silent on the conduct or the process, do not fine; amend the declaration or pursue a different remedy.

Stage 3 — Choose the right enforcement track and forum for unpaid fines. For a condominium, unpaid fines are enforceable as assessments and can be liened and foreclosed; file lien-enforcement and foreclosure actions in Chancery Court (or proceed nonjudicially only if the declaration expressly authorizes it), and begin enforcement within the six-year limitations window. Do not assume fine amounts share the six-month/one-percent limited priority over a first mortgage; that priority is reserved for budgeted common-expense assessments. For a single-family HOA, there is no statutory lien; rely on the declaration for any lien right, sue on the debt for a money judgment in Circuit Court, and remember that § 66-27-706 bars foreclosure for unpaid nonessential-amenity special assessments. Benchmark that changes the strategy: if the balance is fine-only and the community is a single-family HOA with no declaration lien, foreclosure is off the table and a money judgment is the realistic path.

Stage 4 — Watch for legislative change. Re-check each quarter for a comprehensive HOA act or any amendment to § 66-27-402, § 66-27-415, or § 66-27-706. Enactment of a Tennessee Homeowners' Association Act would be the single development that most changes single-family HOA fining, converting a purely CC&R-derived regime into a statutory one.

Caveats

• Statutory text was verified against Tennessee Code sources reflecting the 2024 code; always confirm the current § 66-27 text on the official Tennessee Code portal before relying on a specific subsection, because subsection lettering has shifted across codifications.
• The Greywood Crossing opinion is a Tennessee Court of Appeals Rule 10 memorandum opinion; by its own terms it "shall not be published, and shall not be cited or relied on for any reason in any unrelated case." It is used here only to illustrate procedure and forum, not as precedent.
• The precise trial-court forum can vary by county because some Tennessee counties vest concurrent law-and-equity jurisdiction in a single court; the equity/law division described here is the general rule, not a universal one.
• Whether a given condominium's declaration displaces or supplements a statutory default (for example, on nonjudicial foreclosure or on per-day fines) must be confirmed in that community's recorded documents; the statute sets defaults that declarations can and often do modify.
• The negative finding that no 2025-2026 (114th General Assembly) bill amended the condominium fining, due-process, or lien provisions rests on legislative tracking and CAI session reports; a definitive check would require the Tennessee General Assembly's Bills-by-Subject index for the 114th General Assembly, whose official pages block automated retrieval.

1. T.C.A. § 66-27-402(a)(11) (Powers of unit owners' association), 2024 Tennessee Code, Title 66, Ch. 27, Part 4 ↩ ↩ ↩ ↩ ↩ ↩
2. T.C.A. § 66-27-201 (Short title — Tennessee Condominium Act of 2008), 2024 Tennessee Code ↩
3. T.C.A. § 66-27-202 (Applicability), 2024 Tennessee Code, Title 66, Ch. 27, Part 2 ↩ ↩ ↩ ↩
4. T.C.A. §§ 66-27-701 through 66-27-706 (Part 7 — Homeowners' Association) and Part 6 (Dedicatory Instruments); no comprehensive planned-community act; Nonprofit Corporation Act at T.C.A. § 48-51-101 et seq. ↩ ↩ ↩ ↩
5. T.C.A. § 66-27-415 (Lien for assessments), 2024 Tennessee Code, Title 66, Ch. 27, Part 4 ↩ ↩ ↩ ↩ ↩ ↩ ↩
6. Public Chapter 766 (Acts of 2008), Senate Bill 2935, enacting the Tennessee Condominium Act of 2008 ↩
7. T.C.A. §§ 66-27-101 through 66-27-123 (Tennessee Horizontal Property Act), including § 66-27-116 (Prorated expenses and taxes — Lien), 2024 Tennessee Code, Title 66, Ch. 27, Part 1 ↩ ↩
8. Lone Mountain Shores Owners Ass'n v. [homeowners], No. E2024-00569-COA-R3-CV (Tenn. Ct. App., May 15, 2025 session), quoting Pandharipande v. FSD Corp., 679 S.W.3d 610, 631 (Tenn. 2023) ↩ ↩
9. Tennessee Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations, "Protecting the Interests of Homeowners: An Overview of Concerns Related to Homeowners Associations" ↩
10. T.C.A. § 66-27-706 (Special assessment levies for nonessential amenities — Foreclosure prohibited), added by 2024 Tenn. Acts, ch. 691, § 3, eff. July 1, 2024; official bill page: https://wapp.capitol.tn.gov/apps/BillInfo/Default.aspx?BillNumber=SB2150&ga=113 ↩ ↩
11. T.C.A. § 66-27-403(g) (Board of directors — reserve studies), amended by 2023 Tenn. Acts, ch. 205, § 2, eff. Jan. 1, 2024; official bill page: https://wapp.capitol.tn.gov/apps/BillInfo/Default.aspx?BillNumber=SB0863&ga=113 ↩
12. Greywood Crossing Owners Ass'n, Inc. v. Holleman, No. E2023-01369-COA-R3-CV (Tenn. Ct. App. July 31, 2024) (Clement, P.J., M.S.) ↩
13. Senate Bill 405 (109th General Assembly), "Tennessee Homeowners Association Act" (introduced; not enacted) ↩
14. Community Associations Institute, 2026 Tennessee End of Legislative Session Report (and 2024/2025 session reports) ↩