Washington HOA Records Inspection

Section 1: Overview — How records inspection works in Washington

Washington runs two sets of records-inspection rules simultaneously, and which one governs a given community turns on that community's type and creation date. The Washington Uniform Common Interest Ownership Act (WUCIOA, RCW Chapter 64.90) — based on the 2008 UCIOA and effective July 1, 2018 — governs condominiums, plat (planned) communities, and cooperatives created on or after that date, with its records provision at RCW 64.90.495.¹ Communities created before July 1, 2018 fall under the older statutes for records: the Washington Condominium Act (RCW 64.34.372) for condominiums created July 1, 1990 through June 30, 2018; the Homeowners' Associations Act (RCW 64.38.045) for planned-community HOAs whose declarations were recorded before July 1, 2018; and the Horizontal Property Regimes Act (RCW 64.32.170) for condominiums created before July 1, 1990.² WUCIOA reaches some pre-2018 communities through the carry-over list in RCW 64.90.365 (formerly RCW 64.90.080), but the records section — RCW 64.90.495 — does not appear on that list, so pre-2018 communities keep their older-statute records rules.³ The applicable production standard therefore turns on the governing statute, which you must identify before stating any timeframe.

On that point, Washington divides internally: WUCIOA imposes a hard clock — records produced on 10 days' notice and in no event later than 21 days without a court order — placing newer communities alongside hard-deadline states such as Florida (10 business days under Fla. Stat. §720.303(5))⁴ while the three older statutes rely on a reasonableness or availability standard with no fixed day-count.² The table and detailed sections below set out each provision separately.

Section 2: Quick-Reference: Washington HOA Records Inspection

Section 3: The records-inspection framework in detail

3A. Records subject to inspection

The records an owner may inspect — and the statute that supplies that right — depend on the community's type and creation date. For communities created on or after July 1, 2018, RCW 64.90.495(1) lists the records an association must retain and, under subsection (2), make available for examination and copying: the current budget and accounting records for the last seven years, minutes, the list of current owners and their voting allocations, the declaration and organizational documents and current rules, financial statements and tax returns for seven years, the list of board members and officers, the most recent annual report, contracts entered within the last seven years, design-approval and governing-document-enforcement materials kept for seven years, insurance policies, warranties, notices, voting records kept one year, permits and certificates of occupancy, and preforeclosure information.¹

For pre-2018 communities, the parallel rights sit in three separate statutes that the 2023 Legislature amended to track WUCIOA's retention list, effective July 23, 2023. Condominiums created July 1, 1990 through June 30, 2018 use RCW 64.34.372;² planned-community HOAs whose declarations predate July 1, 2018 use RCW 64.38.045;⁵ and condominiums created before July 1, 1990 use RCW 64.32.170.⁶ Each of these statutes now carries a retention catalog closely modeled on RCW 64.90.495(1), but each applies only to records in the association's possession on July 23, 2023, and records created or maintained after that date — a limitation that does not apply to WUCIOA communities.²

The community-type split matters because the records right is statutory under all four chapters, but the governing chapter is fixed by type and creation date, not by the association's preference. WUCIOA's retroactivity list at RCW 64.90.365 carries certain WUCIOA sections back to pre-2018 communities, yet RCW 64.90.495 is not among them, so the records right for an older community rests on RCW 64.34.372, RCW 64.38.045, or RCW 64.32.170, not on WUCIOA.³ Where an association is incorporated as a nonprofit, RCW 24.03A.215 supplies a corporate member-inspection right that exists alongside — not in place of — the applicable real-property statute.⁷

3B. The request-and-response sequence

Standing to inspect is broad and parallel across the four real-property statutes: unit or apartment owners, holders of mortgages on the units, and their authorized agents may inspect and copy retained records.¹ None of the four conditions owner access on a stated proper purpose; access is granted subject to the categories the association must redact or withhold.² The nonprofit backstop differs: under RCW 24.03A.215 and RCW 24.03A.220, a member must deliver an executed notice in the form of a record at least five business days before inspection, and for operating records (as opposed to governance records) must state a purpose with reasonable particularity.⁷

The response standard is where the statutes diverge most sharply, which is why you must identify the governing statute by type and creation date before any timeframe applies. Under WUCIOA, RCW 64.90.495(2)(a) requires records to be made available during reasonable business hours at the offices of the association or its managing agent — or at a mutually convenient time and location — on 10 days' notice, extendable where the size of the request or the need to redact reasonably requires more time, but in no event later than 21 days without a court order.¹ This 10-day and 21-day framework is what ESSB 5796 added in 2024.¹⁴ By contrast, RCW 64.34.372, RCW 64.38.045, and RCW 64.32.170 require records to be made available during reasonable business hours or at a mutually convenient time and location, with no fixed day-count — a reasonableness or availability standard rather than a hard clock.⁵ The WUCIOA day-count must not be applied to a community governed by one of the older statutes.

On charges, RCW 64.90.495(5) allows a reasonable fee for producing and providing copies and for supervising the owner's inspection, while giving owners one free annual copy of the owner list and a free copy of preforeclosure information.¹ RCW 64.34.372, RCW 64.38.045, and RCW 64.32.170 likewise permit a reasonable fee for copies and supervision and a free annual owner list.² No Washington records statute sets a dollar cap on copy charges.

3C. Withholding, confidentiality, and the membership or owner list

The four statutes carry closely matched withholding categories. RCW 64.90.495(3) requires an association to redact or remove — before disclosure — personnel and medical records; contracts and commercial transactions currently being negotiated; existing or potential litigation, mediation, arbitration, or administrative proceedings; enforcement proceedings before a governmental tribunal; attorney-client privileged material and attorney work product, including communications with the managing agent; and information whose disclosure would violate a court order or law.¹ The 2023 amendments wrote equivalent categories into RCW 64.34.372, RCW 64.38.045, and RCW 64.32.170, so the attorney-client privilege and pending-litigation protections operate across all four chapters.⁵

The owner list receives special treatment. Under RCW 64.90.495, the list need not be made available to holders of mortgages, need not include electronic addresses of owners who have elected to keep them confidential, and must have redacted the address of any owner or resident known to participate in the state address-confidentiality program under Chapter 40.24 RCW; owners are entitled to one free annual copy.¹ The three older statutes carry parallel owner-list protections.² Where the nonprofit backstop applies, RCW 24.03A.240 restricts use of the membership list, and RCW 24.03A.215(3) lets the corporation withhold privileged material, address-confidentiality addresses, records reasonably likely to harm the corporation or a third party, and information required to be kept confidential by law.⁷

3D. Remedies and enforcement for noncompliance

Washington provides no agency enforcement pathway for records disputes; an owner enforces the right in court. Under WUCIOA, RCW 64.90.685 lets any person subject to the chapter bring an action to enforce a right or obligation, and the court may award reasonable attorneys' fees and costs; the same section lets the parties agree to binding or nonbinding alternative dispute resolution.¹⁰ For condominiums under the Condominium Act, RCW 64.34.455 addresses the effect of violations on rights of action and provides for attorney's fees.¹¹ For pre-2018 HOAs, RCW 64.38.050 provides that any violation entitles an aggrieved party to any remedy at law or in equity and allows the court to award reasonable attorneys' fees to the prevailing party — a provision that runs to associations as well as owners.¹² The Horizontal Property Regimes Act contains no records-specific remedy, so an owner of a pre-1990 condominium relies on general civil remedies such as injunctive relief.⁶ Where the association is a nonprofit corporation, RCW 24.03A.230 supplies a distinct backstop: a member denied inspection within a reasonable time may apply for a court order, and if the court orders inspection it must order the corporation to pay the member's costs — including reasonable attorneys' fees — unless the corporation proves it refused in good faith.¹³ Records-enforcement actions proceed through the Washington Superior Courts, with appeal to the Court of Appeals (Divisions I, II, and III) and discretionary review by the Washington Supreme Court.

Section 4: Recent legislative and judicial activity

Recent Bills

Washington's most significant recent records legislation added the 10-day-notice and 21-day-production hard clock for WUCIOA communities and set the timeline for replacing the older statutes altogether. Two bills drive the current landscape.

Recent Court Rulings

A review of Washington appellate decisions from 2022 through 2026 found no published opinion from the Court of Appeals (Divisions I, II, or III) or the Supreme Court squarely interpreting the community-association records-inspection right under RCW 64.90.495, RCW 64.34.372, RCW 64.38.045, RCW 64.32.170, or the Nonprofit Corporation Act member-inspection right as applied to an association. WUCIOA's records section is recent, and the older statutes were rewritten only in 2023, so the appellate record on these provisions is undeveloped. This section will be updated as the courts act.

Active Legislative Debates

The principal active development is implementation of the 2024 and 2025 transition acts rather than a new records-specific proposal. The records framework will become uniform when WUCIOA replaces the older chapters on January 1, 2028, and no separate bill setting a different records deadline, copy-fee cap, or penalty is currently pending.

Section 5: National positioning and related coverage

Washington sits among the UCIOA states through WUCIOA, RCW Chapter 64.90 (based on the 2008 UCIOA), and it is unusual in being mid-transition: WUCIOA governs communities created on or after July 1, 2018 and reaches some older communities through the carry-over list in RCW 64.90.365, while the Condominium Act (RCW 64.34), the Homeowners' Associations Act (RCW 64.38), and the Horizontal Property Regimes Act (RCW 64.32) continue to govern pre-2018 communities by type and creation date. On records, this places Washington among the more developed states, with a detailed retention catalog and a hard production clock for newer communities — but with real complexity in identifying the governing statute. That complexity contrasts with Florida, which applies a single 10-business-day clock for inspection under Fla. Stat. §720.303(5),⁴ and California, which uses a tiered 10-to-30-day schedule under Cal. Civ. Code §5210.¹⁶ For a multi-state operator, the practical implication in Washington is clear: identify the governing statute by community type and creation date, check the WUCIOA retroactivity list, and only then rely on any records timeframe. On recent activity, ESSB 5796 amended RCW 64.90.495 in 2024 to add the 10-day and 21-day production framework, while the older-statute records provisions were last rewritten in 2023 and are scheduled for repeal in 2028.

1. Wash. Rev. Code § 64.90.495, Association records (WUCIOA) ↩
2. Wash. Rev. Code § 64.34.372, Association records (Condominium Act) ↩
3. Wash. Rev. Code § 64.90.365, Common interest communities — Exceptions ↩
4. Fla. Stat. § 720.303(5), Association records — inspection within 10 business days ↩
5. Wash. Rev. Code § 64.38.045, Financial and other records (Homeowners' Associations Act) ↩
6. Wash. Rev. Code § 64.32.170, Records and books (Horizontal Property Regimes Act) ↩
7. Wash. Rev. Code § 24.03A.215, Inspection by members (Nonprofit Corporation Act) ↩
8. Wash. Rev. Code § 24.03A.220, Scope of member's inspection right ↩
9. Wash. Rev. Code § 24.03A.240, Use of membership list ↩
10. Wash. Rev. Code § 64.90.685, Action to enforce — Attorneys' fees — ADR ↩
11. Wash. Rev. Code § 64.34.455, Effect of violations on rights of action — Attorney's fees ↩
12. Wash. Rev. Code § 64.38.050, Violation — Remedy — Attorneys' fees ↩
13. Wash. Rev. Code § 24.03A.230, Court-ordered inspection ↩
14. ESSB 5796 (2024), Concerning common interest communities, ch. 321, 2024 Wash. Sess. Laws ↩
15. ESSB 5129 (2025), ch. 119, 2025 Wash. Sess. Laws ↩
16. Cal. Civ. Code § 5210, Davis-Stirling Act — tiered 10-to-30-day production schedule ↩