If you live in a homeowners association (HOA) in Arizona, you have the right to request and review certain HOA documents. Being informed about your HOA's finances, policies, and operations is important to understand how your community is run.

Homeowners do, however, have the ability to sue an Arizona HOA when other efforts to resolve a dispute have failed.

Recent amendments to the Arizona Condominium Act and the Arizona Planned Community Act provide important protections to property owners who wish to assemble and use to common areas of the community for meetings.

But absent an operating HOA, who enforces the CC&Rs if a homeowner is violating the terms and conditions in the recorded document? The answer is that any affected homeowner who is also bound by the CC&Rs can seek to enforce the CC&Rs.

Arizona now provides that a homeowners’ association may NOT regulate parking on public roadways, but this law only applies to communities where the Declaration of CC&Rs was recorded after December 31, 2014.

Homeowners are often surprised to receive monetary penalties for hundreds, or even thousands of dollars, for seemingly minor violations of the association’s governing documents. Although HOA’s may impose fines if they are authorized to do so by those governing documents, there are limitations on how such fines and penalties must be implemented and even vague limitations on how large those fines and penalties can be.

The court system in Arizona has three levels of jurisdiction governing what types of cases may be brought and the court’s role and responsibility in resolving those cases. This brief article will address those levels and how they interact with claims involving homeowners’ associations (“HOAs”) and Arizona homeowners.

The documents that govern Arizona homeowners Associations (“HOA”) include documents related to the formation and operation of the HOA’s corporate entity, and documents that restrict the use of property and behavior or the homeowners and the Association. Typical documents falling into the first category include (1) the Articles of Incorporation; (2) the Bylaws; and (3) Resolutions of the Board of Directors. Typical documents related to the use of property and restrictions on owners and residents include (1) the Declaration of Covenants, Conditions, and Restrictions; (2) the Rules and Regulations; and (3) Architectural Guidelines. The following discussions summarizes the documents referred to above that have the greatest impact on homeowners in communities governed by homeowners Associations.

One of the most frequent questions we have been asked over the past couple years is whether an Arizona homeowners’ association can prohibit short-term rentals. As is often the case with legal questions, the answer is “it depends.”

There are a lot of different factors to consider when you are looking for a good lawyer. You want to find someone with experience, who is knowledgeable about the law, and who will be able to represent your interests effectively. Here are a few tips to help you find a good lawyer:

The Arizona Condominium Act is a set of statutes enacted by the Arizona legislature that applies to the governance and operation of condominiums and condominium associations in the state of Arizona. Set forth below is an index of the Arizona Condominium Act and links to the text of the statutes that make up the Act as currently set out on the Arizona State Legislature’s website.

Arizona homeowners associations regularly charge homeowners for legal fees incurred collecting amounts allegedly owed by homeowners, even when no court has awarded those attorneys’ fees to the HOA. The imposition of these charges is typically based on language in the Covenants, Conditions, and Restrictions (“CC&Rs”) governing the Association that allows for the recovery of legal fees by the Association in the event of any legal dispute with a homeowner. Arizona also has a statute (A.R.S. § 12-341.01), which allows for the recovery of legal fees by a prevailing party in litigation involving a contract. That statute applies to most HOA disputes because the CC&Rs constitute a contract between and among the Association and all of the homeowners.

In a ruling filed on January 23, 2015, the Arizona Supreme Court reversed a judgment of the Superior Court and overruled the Arizona Court of Appeals' decision in M & I Marshall & Ilsley Bank v. Mueller, 228 Ariz. 478, 268 P.3d 1135 (Ct. App. 2011), which had applied the anti-deficiency protections of Arizona Revised Statute Section 33-814(G) where a borrower intended to eventually occupy a partially constructed home on the property.

In Arizona, one of the remedies available to a party who has been the victim of a contract  breach is specific performance. Specific performance, as opposed to the alternative remedy of monetary damages, refers to the situation where a court orders the breaching party to honor his or her obligations under a contract - in other words, to perform as agreed.

In some cases a lender or their successor may maintain a legal action to recover a balance left owing after the sale or foreclosure of real estate pursuant to a trust deed, which is addressed in A.R.S. § 33-807. Section 33-814 addresses the ninety-day time limitation for bringing such actions, the procedure for establishing the fair market value to determine the amount of a deficiency judgment, and the obligations of guarantors.

Over the years in meeting with thousands of clients and prospective clients I have learned that many people fail to understand the two distinct yet equally important parts of almost every lawsuit. From the moment a lawsuit is filed, your lawyer will begin preparing the case for trial, which involves gathering information to prove liability and damages.

A.R.S. § 12-3102 is part of Title 12, Chapter 22 of the the Arizona Revised Statutes, and this particular section defines in what situations the Chapter will apply - in particular confirming its application is limited to live persons, as opposed to entities like corporations.

The simple fact is that most cases settle. There are a number reasons that this is true, but at least one study suggests that settling is often the smart move. On August 7, 2008, the New York Times published an article entitled Study Finds Settling Is Better Than Going to Trial.  The findings are consistent with the observations of many litigators who advise their clients that eliminating the risks and costs of trial can frequently be a smart move.

Although most lenders, for both deficiency and tax reasons, simply assume the prevailing bid at a trustee's sale is the fair market value of a property, Arizona borrowers are entitled to challenge that presumption under Arizona law.