Texas HOA Board Elections

1. Overview: How board elections are governed in Texas

In Texas, three separate chapters of the Property Code govern HOA board elections, and which one applies turns on what kind of community is voting and when it was created. The Texas Uniform Condominium Act — Chapter 82 of the Property Code — governs condominiums, draws on the national Uniform Condominium Act, and reaches every condominium whose declaration was recorded on or after January 1, 1994.¹ A condominium created before that date generally stays under the older Texas Condominium Act, Chapter 81, unless it has opted into Chapter 82.² Residential planned communities answer to a third statute: the Texas Residential Property Owners Protection Act, Chapter 209.³

Chapter 209 does something many state HOA statutes do not: it writes the election rules itself rather than leaving them to the bylaws. It fixes the right to vote, the ballots, the election and makeup of the board, and recounts — and several of those provisions override anything to the contrary in the community's dedicatory instruments.⁴ Because the chapters stand apart, you cannot borrow a Chapter 82 condominium rule for a POA, or a Chapter 209 POA rule for a condominium. You start by deciding which chapter governs. Texas adopted the Uniform Condominium Act in Chapter 82 but never adopted the unified Uniform Common Interest Ownership Act, so these chapters work as separate Texas statutes, not as one combined framework.

Texas also splits its highest court in two: the Supreme Court of Texas hears civil matters, and the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals hears criminal ones. An HOA board-election fight is a civil matter, so its path ends at the Supreme Court of Texas. Along the way, the appeal runs through one of the regional Courts of Appeals — the First through Fourteenth, which cover both civil and criminal cases in their geographic districts. A Fifteenth Court of Appeals, created September 1, 2024, carries statewide jurisdiction over a defined set of civil matters, but it is not the usual route for an ordinary owner-versus-association election dispute.⁵ The sections that follow lay out the framework, the mechanics, and the recent activity in detail.

2. The election framework

2A. The Texas Uniform Condominium Act (Chapter 82) and condominium board elections

The Texas Uniform Condominium Act, Chapter 82 of the Property Code, builds on the national Uniform Condominium Act and supplies the board and voting rules for Texas condominiums.¹ It governs every condominium whose declaration was recorded on or after January 1, 1994. A condominium recorded before that date falls under Chapter 82 only if the owners voted to adopt it or the declaration already said so; otherwise the older Texas Condominium Act, Chapter 81, keeps control — though a fixed list of Chapter 82 sections does reach back to pre-1994 condominiums.⁶ So the first practical move is to check the declaration's recording date, and any opt-in amendment, before you state any rule.

Section 82.103 is the heart of the matter. The declaration may set up a period of declarant control, during which the declarant appoints and removes officers and board members. But that period ends no later than the 120th day after the declarant conveys 75 percent of the units that may be created to owners other than the declarant.⁷ Sooner than that, by the 120th day after half the units have gone to non-declarant owners, those owners must elect at least one-third of the board.⁷ And when declarant control ends, the owners elect a board of at least three members — who need not themselves be unit owners — and that board elects its officers before the 31st day after control ends.⁷

Chapter 82 stands apart from the POA statute in Chapter 209, and from the unified UCIOA that Texas declined to adopt. A condominium runs its election under Chapter 82 — or under Chapter 81 if it is an unconverted pre-1994 building — not under the Chapter 209 POA rules.

2B. The Residential Property Owners Protection Act (Chapter 209) and prescribed POA elections

The Texas Residential Property Owners Protection Act, Chapter 209, writes a set of election rules for the POAs it covers. Start with the right to vote: Section 209.0059 voids any dedicatory-instrument provision that would disqualify an owner from voting in a board election or on a matter touching the owner's rights.⁴ Section 209.0058 then requires that every vote in a POA election be in writing and signed, counts an electronic vote as written and signed, and waives the written-and-signed ballot only for an uncontested race.⁸ Section 209.00591 sets the board floor at three members and limits the eligibility restrictions a POA may impose, though it lets the bylaws require that some — but not all — directors live in the subdivision.⁹ Section 209.00593 requires owner-members to elect any director whose term has expired, lets the board appoint someone to finish out an unexpired term, and makes a POA of more than 100 lots solicit candidates at least 10 days before it sends out ballots.¹⁰ And Section 209.0057 lets any owner demand a recount within 15 days of the election or the announcement of the results.¹¹

What Chapter 209 nails down is the floor — the right to vote, the form of the ballot, candidate solicitation in larger associations, the method for filling expired terms, notice, and recounts. What it leaves to the declaration and bylaws is just as telling: the quorum percentage, the number of directors above the statutory minimum, term length, term limits, and the vote it takes to win a seat. And Chapter 209 governs POAs alone; it never reaches condominiums, which stay under Chapter 82 or Chapter 81.

2C. Corporate law, the bylaws, and order of precedence

Most Texas associations are nonprofit corporations, organized under Chapter 22 of the Texas Business Organizations Code, and that chapter fills the gaps the Property Code chapter and the governing documents leave open.¹² When the bylaws say nothing, Section 22.208 keeps a director in office until the next annual election and until a successor is elected and qualified; Section 22.211 supplies the way to remove a director; and Section 22.212 lets a majority of the remaining directors fill a vacancy.¹³

The order of precedence runs like this. The mandatory provisions of the governing Property Code chapter — 82, 81, or 209 — come first. Next come those same provisions as the declaration and bylaws modify them, where the statute allows it. Then the governing documents take over on whatever the statute leaves open. After that come the Business Organizations Code gap-fillers, and finally the board's own rules. The corporate code is scaffolding; it is not the source of the election rules themselves. The practical lesson: the controlling rule depends first on what kind of community you have — a condominium under Chapter 82 (or Chapter 81 if it predates 1994) or a POA under Chapter 209 — and for a covered POA, Chapter 209 supplies election rules the bylaws cannot override.

3. Election mechanics

Quick-Reference Election Mechanics Table

A. Eligibility and nominations

For POAs, Section 209.00591 leaves no room to maneuver: a dedicatory-instrument provision that restricts an owner's right to run for the board is void, except where the section itself allows it — and the one thing the bylaws may do is require that some, though not all, directors live in the subdivision.⁹ For condominiums, Section 82.103(e) says board members need not be unit owners at all, and the declaration and bylaws set any further qualifications.⁷ On nominations, Section 209.00593 makes a POA of more than 100 lots solicit candidates at least 10 days before it sends out ballots; for smaller POAs, and for condominiums, the bylaws set the method.¹⁰

B. Notice, annual meeting, and quorum

For POAs, Section 209.014 requires the board to call an annual meeting and hands owners a demand-and-committee remedy if it fails to.¹⁶ Section 209.0056 sets the mandatory notice window for an election — no later than the 10th day and no earlier than the 60th day before a meeting vote, or at least 20 days before the final ballot-submission date for a vote held outside a meeting — and it overrides anything contrary in the dedicatory instruments.¹⁸ For condominiums, Section 82.108 requires at least one annual meeting, and Section 82.109 sets a default quorum of 20 percent unless the bylaws say otherwise.^17,22 Chapter 209 fixes no quorum percentage for POAs, so there the quorum is the bylaws' job.¹⁹

C. Voting methods, proxies, and ballots

For POAs, Section 209.00592 lists the permitted voting methods, and it draws a clear line: "unless a dedicatory instrument provides otherwise, a property owners' association is not required to provide an owner with more than one voting method," chosen from proxy, absentee ballot, or electronic ballot. SB 2629 added electronic ballot to that list, effective September 1, 2025.^19,20 Section 209.0058 then requires written and signed ballots — electronic votes count as written and signed — and excuses them only for an uncontested race; these rules are mandatory and override anything contrary in the governing documents.⁸ For condominiums, Section 82.110 governs proxies, which must be written, signed, and dated, and which expire one year after their date unless they say otherwise.²¹ Whether owners vote per owner or per lot or unit, and whether they may vote cumulatively, the governing documents decide for both kinds of community.

D. Terms, vacancies, removal, and recall

Term length, term limits, and the vote it takes to win a seat go unmentioned in Chapter 82 and Chapter 209, so the bylaws set them; where the bylaws stay silent, Section 22.208 of the Business Organizations Code supplies a default term of office.¹³ Filling a mid-term vacancy, by contrast, is statutory in both regimes: a POA board may appoint someone for the rest of an unexpired term under Section 209.00593(a), and a condominium board may fill a vacancy for the unexpired portion under Section 82.103(b).^10,7 Removal and recall, like term limits, go unaddressed in Chapter 82 and Chapter 209; for an association that is a nonprofit corporation, Section 22.211 controls, allowing removal under whatever procedure the governing documents set and, if they set none, by the people entitled to elect the director.²³

4. Recent legislative and judicial activity

Texas lawmakers were active on association law in 2025. The 89th Legislature weighed dozens of bills that touched POA operations, and two of the measures it passed reach board elections directly.

A. Recent bills

B. Recent appellate rulings

No published Texas appellate opinion in the past 36 months squarely decides an HOA board-election contest under Chapter 82 or Chapter 209 as its central holding. The state's recent published HOA appeals have turned on restrictive-covenant amendments, assessments, foreclosure, and attorney's fees rather than on contested elections, and on January 26, 2024 the Supreme Court of Texas declined review in a set of restrictive-covenant amendment cases that had nothing to do with board elections. So this section names no board-election case. The more consequential recent development for contested-election exposure is statutory: the ratification provisions of the Texas Business Organizations Code, Section 22.501 and following, let an association ratify a defective corporate act — including a board election challenged over a quorum or a procedural defect — which can moot a post-election lawsuit.¹²

C. Active legislative debates

By the count of RMWBH PC, a law firm that specializes in POA work, the 89th Legislature took up more than 60 bills that could have reshaped POA operations — among them proposals to adjust the Chapter 209 declarant-control transition thresholds in Section 209.00591. In the end, the election-relevant measures that passed were SB 2629 and SB 711. The 90th Regular Session convenes at noon on Tuesday, January 12, 2027.

5. National positioning and related coverage

Texas ranks among the larger and more prescriptive states for POA governance. Chapter 209 writes statutory election rules for property owners' associations — the right to vote, the form of the ballot, candidate solicitation, the method of election, notice, and recounts — which pushes Texas toward the rule-setting end of the spectrum, away from the CC&R-primary states that hand most of the mechanics to the governing documents. It also sets Texas apart from the single-act UCIOA states, because Texas adopted the Uniform Condominium Act in Chapter 82 rather than the unified act. Three features define the Texas approach: the three-chapter framework (Chapter 82 and Chapter 81 for condominiums, Chapter 209 for POAs), the prescriptive Chapter 209 POA election rules, and the split courts of last resort, where the Supreme Court of Texas hears civil HOA disputes and the Court of Criminal Appeals stays confined to criminal ones. For an operator working across states, the practical sequence in Texas is to decide first whether a community is a condominium under Chapter 82 or 81 or a POA under Chapter 209, apply Chapter 209's statutory election rules wherever they govern, and carry any civil appeal through the regional Court of Appeals up to the Supreme Court of Texas.

Federal frameworks reach Texas associations no matter what the state chapters say — the Fair Housing Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act, and the FCC's OTARD rule among them.

1. Tex. Prop. Code §§ 82.001–.164 (Texas Uniform Condominium Act) ↩
2. Tex. Prop. Code §§ 81.001–.210 (Texas Condominium Act) ↩
3. Tex. Prop. Code §§ 209.001–.018 (Texas Residential Property Owners Protection Act) ↩
4. Tex. Prop. Code § 209.0059 (Right to Vote) ↩
5. Fifteenth Court of Appeals, Texas Judicial Branch (created Sept. 1, 2024; statewide civil jurisdiction over certain matters) ↩
6. Tex. Prop. Code § 82.002 (Applicability) ↩
7. Tex. Prop. Code § 82.103 (Board Members and Officers) ↩
8. Tex. Prop. Code § 209.0058 (Ballots) ↩
9. Tex. Prop. Code § 209.00591 (Board Membership) ↩
10. Tex. Prop. Code § 209.00593 (Election of Board Members) ↩
11. Tex. Prop. Code § 209.0057 (Recount of Votes) ↩
12. Tex. Bus. Orgs. Code §§ 22.001–.516 (Nonprofit Corporations) ↩
13. Tex. Bus. Orgs. Code § 22.208 (Term of Office) ↩
14. Tex. Bus. Orgs. Code § 22.204 (Board of Directors) ↩
15. Tex. Bus. Orgs. Code § 22.209 (Classification of Directors) ↩
16. Tex. Prop. Code § 209.014 (Mandatory Election Required After Failure to Call Regular Meeting) ↩
17. Tex. Prop. Code § 82.108 (Meetings) ↩
18. Tex. Prop. Code § 209.0056 (Notice of Election or Association Vote) ↩
19. Tex. Prop. Code § 209.00592 (Voting; Quorum) ↩
20. Act of May 27, 2025, 89th Leg., R.S., ch. 79 (S.B. 2629) (enrolled), Texas Legislature Online ↩
21. Tex. Prop. Code § 82.110 (Voting; Proxies) ↩
22. Tex. Prop. Code § 82.109 (Quorums) ↩
23. Tex. Bus. Orgs. Code § 22.211 (Removal of Directors) ↩
24. Tex. Bus. Orgs. Code § 22.212 (Vacancy) ↩
25. S.B. 2629, 89th Leg., R.S. (Tex. 2025) (bill history), Texas Legislature Online ↩
26. S.B. 711, 89th Leg., R.S. (Tex. 2025) (bill history), Texas Legislature Online ↩