The full cost of a missed deadline

The $25 a day is the visible number, but it is the smallest of three. Subsection (5) stacks the reasonable costs of inspecting and copying, the daily charge, and reasonable attorney fees and costs. Separately, § 57-8a-227(6)(b)(i) opens a court route with its own figure: a lot owner may request “injunctive relief…; $1,000 or actual damages, whichever is greater; or any other relief provided by law…”

That $1,000 is itself recent. It was $500 until House Bill 217 of the 2025 session doubled it, in the same bill that created the state's HOA ombudsman office.³ An association that sits on a request for a month is therefore exposed to roughly $500 in daily charges plus a statutory damages floor plus the requesting owner's legal bill — on a records dispute that, in most of the published advisory opinions, turns on documents the association already had.

What has to be available in the first place

Section 57-8a-227(1)(a) sets the shelf. Beyond the records identified in the Revised Nonprofit Corporation Act at §§ 16-6a-1601(1) through (5), an association keeps and makes available its governing documents, its most recent approved minutes, its most recent annual budget and financial statement, its most recent reserve analysis, a certificate of insurance for each policy it holds, board meeting minutes from the previous three calendar years, a profit and loss statement for the previous three fiscal years, and a balance sheet for the previous three fiscal years.

That list is a description of what exists, not a promise to build anything. The distinction is doing real work in the state's advisory opinions — see below.

Condominiums are now on the same clock

S.B. 122 amended § 57-8-17, the Condominium Ownership Act's records provision, in the same act and to the same effect. The two texts, historically separate, now read the same but for “unit owner” and “association of unit owners” in place of “lot owner” and “association.” Our Utah records inspection page sets out which chapter governs a given community — the answer turns on what the declaration says, and failing that, on whether the plats are designated as condominium plats.

Where the disputes actually land

The Department of Commerce's HOA office has been publishing advisory opinions since late 2025, and records questions are the single most common subject.⁴ Three from 2026 mark the boundaries.

In Advisory Opinion 2026-20 (Alexander v. Chimney Hill Ridge Owners Association, May 20, 2026), an owner asked for bank statements, transaction registers, vendor contracts, invoices and bids. The office concluded: “Because the Association provided the summary financial records required by statute, it complied with Utah law, and any decision to disclose additional documents beyond those requirements is left to the Association's discretion.”

In Advisory Opinion 2026-21 (Fritsche v. Deer Valley Ridge at Silver Lake, May 27, 2026), the office found no violation where “The Association maintained an owner portal on which all required records were posted” and the 2025 financial statements were provided “within a reasonable time after they became available.”

Advisory Opinion 2026-08 (Sutton v. Woodland Estates Master Association, March 18, 2026) is the counter-example, and one of the few opinions to find a violation outright: “The Association violated Utah law by failing to disclose the full details of a loan involving the Declarant and by improperly requiring payment for meeting minutes that should have been freely accessible online.”

The pattern across the three is that the deadline is mechanical and the scope is not. What the statute names, the association produces on the clock; what it does not name, the association may decline; and charging for something already published online is not a scope question at all.

What to watch next

The ombudsman's office convened a working group in April 2026 to develop recommendations for the 2027 General Session, with transparency and records access named among its subjects.⁵ The 2027 session opens in January. Nothing in S.B. 122 addressed the scope question the advisory opinions keep circling — whether an association can be made to produce underlying ledgers and invoices rather than the summary statements § 57-8a-227(1)(a) names — and that is the gap a 2027 bill would have to close.