California condominium law is set primarily by the Davis-Stirling Common Interest Development Act, codified at Civil Code sections 4000 through 6150. It governs almost every condo community in the state and controls how HOA boards run elections, how assessments are collected, what owners can do with their units, and how disputes get resolved. Both owners and board members can face real financial consequences for ignoring it.
Which Document Controls When Rules Conflict
Condo communities operate under layered documents, and Civil Code section 4205 sets a clear order of authority: state law first, then the CC&Rs, then the articles of incorporation, then the bylaws, and finally the operating rules. The one notable exception involves election rules adopted under Davis-Stirling, which can override certain bylaw and CC&R provisions on voting procedures.
The Declaration of Covenants, Conditions, and Restrictions is recorded with the county and binds every owner, including future buyers. It spells out what you can do with your unit, who handles which maintenance, and what modifications are restricted. Buying a condo means agreeing to these rules whether you read them or not.
Bylaws govern how the HOA itself operates: board elections, director powers, meeting protocols. Amending them typically requires a membership vote at the threshold set in the existing bylaws or CC&Rs.
Operating rules are the most flexible layer. The board can adopt them without a membership vote to address day-to-day issues like parking, noise, and pool hours. The board must give owners at least 30 days’ notice of a proposed rule change, including the full text and purpose, before voting on it at a board meeting.1California Legislative Information. California Civil Code 4920 The exception is when the board determines an immediate change is needed to address a threat to health, safety, or substantial economic loss. Any operating rule that contradicts the CC&Rs or state law can be challenged.
What Owners Can Do and Must Do
Davis-Stirling gives owners defined rights: use and occupy your unit, access common areas, attend HOA meetings, and inspect association financial records. Those sit alongside obligations that keep the community functioning.
Renting Your Unit
California limits how aggressively an HOA can restrict rentals. Under Civil Code section 4741, an HOA cannot impose a rental cap more restrictive than 25 percent of the units, so a CC&R provision capping rentals at 10 or 15 percent is unenforceable. HOAs can prohibit short-term rentals of 30 days or less. Before leasing, you must provide the association with your tenant’s name and contact information. Owners who purchased before a rental restriction was recorded are generally exempt under section 4740.
Maintenance: What’s Yours, What’s Theirs
Unless the CC&Rs say otherwise, the HOA repairs, replaces, and maintains common areas, and owners handle their own units. For exclusive-use common areas like balconies and patios, the split is more specific: the owner handles routine maintenance, and the HOA handles repair and replacement.2California Legislative Information. California Civil Code 4775 Neglect inside your unit that damages a neighbor or a common area can mean personal liability. A slow plumbing leak that rots the subfloor below is your problem, not the HOA’s.
Assessments
Every owner must pay regular assessments, which fund common area upkeep, insurance, and reserves. Assessments must be levied proportionally. Fall behind and the HOA can pursue collection and ultimately place a lien. You can challenge an assessment you believe is excessive or improperly levied by requesting a hearing before the board or through dispute resolution.
Installations an HOA Cannot Block
California and federal law restrict HOA control over several specific installations, and these protections are broader than many boards acknowledge.
Solar Panels
The California Solar Rights Act, codified in Civil Code section 714, voids any CC&R provision that effectively prohibits the installation or use of a solar energy system. An HOA can impose restrictions only if they don’t increase system cost by more than $1,000 or decrease efficiency by more than 10 percent.3California Office of Historic Preservation. California Solar Rights Act – A Review of Statutes and Relevant Cases An HOA can ask you to place panels in a less visible location, but only if doing so doesn’t meaningfully hurt performance or your budget.
EV Charging Stations
Civil Code section 4745 protects owners who want to install an EV charger in a deeded parking space, exclusive-use common area, or other designated spot. Any rule that prohibits or unreasonably restricts installation is void. The HOA must process the application the way it handles architectural modifications, and if it doesn’t respond in writing within 60 days, the application is automatically approved. An HOA that willfully violates this provision faces a civil penalty of up to $1,000, and the owner can recover attorney’s fees.4California Legislative Information. California Civil Code 4745
Satellite Dishes
The FCC’s Over-the-Air Reception Devices rule prohibits HOAs from restricting installation, maintenance, or use of satellite dishes one meter or smaller on property an owner controls exclusively, such as a balcony or patio. A restriction is unlawful if it unreasonably delays installation, raises costs, or prevents acceptable signal reception. Safety and historic-preservation rules can still apply if no more burdensome than necessary. Restrictions on antennas placed in common areas like rooftops or shared exterior walls remain enforceable.5Federal Communications Commission. Over-the-Air Reception Devices Rule
Fair Housing: Accommodations and Assistance Animals
The federal Fair Housing Act applies to every California condo HOA and prohibits discrimination based on race, color, religion, national origin, sex, disability, or the presence of children. The most frequent condo issues involve disability accommodations and assistance animals.
Reasonable Accommodations
An HOA must grant a reasonable accommodation when a person with a disability needs a change to a rule, policy, or practice to have equal opportunity to use and enjoy their home, including common areas. The request doesn’t need any specific legal language. There must be a connection between the disability and the requested change, but the standard is practical. An HOA can deny a request only if it would impose an undue financial or administrative burden or fundamentally change the association’s operations, and even then it should discuss alternatives. Delays in responding can themselves constitute a fair housing violation.6U.S. Department of Justice. Joint Statement on Reasonable Accommodations Under the Fair Housing Act
Assistance Animals
HOAs cannot enforce no-pet policies against residents who need a service animal or emotional support animal for a disability. When the disability or the need isn’t obvious, the HOA may request documentation from a healthcare professional. Certificates purchased from online registries that sell documentation to anyone willing to pay are not considered reliable evidence of a disability-related need.7U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Fact Sheet on HUD’s Assistance Animals Notice The HOA cannot charge extra fees or deposits for an assistance animal, though it can charge for damage the animal causes if it charges all residents for similar damage.
What the Board Must Do
California HOAs are organized as nonprofit mutual benefit corporations. Their core job is maintaining common areas, managing finances, and enforcing community rules.
Budgets and Reserves
The HOA must distribute an annual budget report 30 to 90 days before the end of its fiscal year. It must include a pro forma operating budget, a reserve summary, and the board’s reserve funding plan. It must also disclose whether the board has deferred major repairs, whether special assessments are anticipated, and how reserves will be funded going forward.8California Legislative Information. California Civil Code 5300
At least once every three years, the board must arrange a visual inspection of major components the association maintains, as part of a reserve study. The study must identify each major component with a remaining useful life under 30 years, estimate repair and replacement costs, and calculate the annual contribution needed to keep reserves funded. The board must review the study annually and adjust its funding plan.
Elections
California requires secret ballots for board elections, assessment votes, governing document amendments, and grants of exclusive use of common areas.9California Legislative Information. California Civil Code 5100 The association must appoint one or three independent inspectors of elections to oversee the process, count ballots, and certify results. An inspector can be an association member but cannot be a current director, a candidate, or someone employed by or under contract with the association.10California Legislative Information. California Civil Code 5110 Violating these procedures can invalidate results and expose the association to legal challenge.
Open Meetings and Executive Sessions
Board meetings must be open to all homeowners, with at least four days’ notice of time, place, and agenda. Emergency meetings are exempt from the notice requirement, and meetings held solely in executive session need only two days’ notice.1California Legislative Information. California Civil Code 4920
Executive sessions are limited to specific topics: litigation, contract negotiations, personnel matters, member discipline, payment plans, and decisions about foreclosing on a lien. If a member’s conduct is being discussed, that member has the right to attend. Anything discussed in executive session must be generally noted in the minutes of the next open meeting.11California Legislative Information. California Civil Code 4935
Fiduciary Duty
Board members owe a fiduciary duty to the association and its members. The duty of care requires making informed decisions: actually reading the CC&Rs, reviewing the financials, and investigating facts before voting. The duty of loyalty requires acting in the association’s interest rather than for personal benefit. A board member who steers a landscaping contract to a relative violates that duty. Board members must also protect member confidentiality and avoid conflicts of interest.
Assessment Caps, Liens, and Foreclosure
The board cannot raise regular assessments by more than 20 percent over the prior fiscal year without a majority vote of a quorum of members. Special assessments that exceed 5 percent of the association’s budgeted gross expenses for the year also require membership approval. These caps apply even if the governing documents impose tighter limits, but they do not override documents that are more permissive toward the board.
Before recording a lien for unpaid assessments, the association must send the owner a detailed written notice by certified mail at least 30 days in advance. That notice must itemize the charges owed, explain the owner’s right to inspect association records, describe the collection and lien enforcement process, and inform the owner of the right to request a meeting with the board and to pursue dispute resolution.12California Legislative Information. California Civil Code 5660
Even after a lien is recorded, foreclosure is not automatic. The HOA cannot initiate nonjudicial foreclosure unless the delinquent assessments total at least $1,800 (excluding late charges, interest, and attorney’s fees) or are more than 12 months past due. Before proceeding, the board must vote to foreclose in executive session, and the owner has the right to request alternative dispute resolution.
Resolving Disputes
California strongly favors resolving HOA disputes outside court, and Davis-Stirling builds in multiple layers parties must attempt before heading to a courtroom.
Internal Dispute Resolution
Either the HOA or an owner can request a “meet and confer” session under Civil Code section 5900 to try resolving a disagreement informally. The association must participate if a member requests it. This is often the fastest path for contested fines or maintenance disputes.
Pre-Litigation ADR
Before filing an enforcement action in superior court, the parties must attempt alternative dispute resolution. This applies to lawsuits seeking injunctive or declaratory relief, or those combining such relief with monetary damages within small claims limits. The party filing suit must include a certificate confirming that ADR was completed, the other side refused, or temporary injunctive relief was needed. Failing to file this certificate is grounds for dismissal.13California Legislative Information. California Civil Code 5930 Small claims actions and assessment disputes are exempt.
Mediation and Arbitration
Mediation uses a neutral third party to help both sides negotiate. It is voluntary and non-binding and works well for disputes over fines, rule enforcement, and maintenance responsibilities. Arbitration is more structured. An arbitrator hears evidence and issues a decision that can be binding or non-binding, depending on what the parties agreed to. Some CC&Rs require arbitration for certain financial or contract disputes, and a binding arbitration decision can be enforced by a court.
Court
When ADR fails or isn’t viable, disputes move to court. Individual homeowners can bring monetary claims of up to $12,500 in small claims court, where attorneys cannot represent either party.14Judicial Branch of California. Small Claims in California More complex disputes like wrongful foreclosure or breach of fiduciary duty typically require superior court litigation. In lawsuits to enforce governing documents, the prevailing party is entitled to reasonable attorney’s fees. That cuts both ways: it deters frivolous claims, and it gives owners real leverage when the HOA is the one breaking the rules.
Federal Fair Housing Complaints
If you believe your HOA has discriminated against you based on race, color, religion, national origin, sex, disability, or the presence of children, you can file a complaint with HUD’s Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity. Complaints must be filed within one year of the last discriminatory act. You can file by mail, phone, or through any HUD office, and HUD staff can help you prepare the complaint. You will need to identify the person or organization that discriminated, describe what happened and when, and explain why you believe it was based on a protected characteristic.15eCFR. 24 CFR Part 103 – Fair Housing Complaint Processing