Texas HOA laws: a board member’s reference.

Chapter 209, the Texas Residential Property Owners Protection Act, is the main statute for residential property owners’ associations with mandatory membership. Most of what follows on this page comes from it.

Chapter 82, the Texas Uniform Condominium Act, governs condominium regimes. Several 2025 changes, including the website requirement and the resale certificate fee cap, land in Chapter 82 rather than Chapter 209, so a single-family board and a condominium board reading the same headline about SB 711 are often reading about different obligations. CMGT manages condominium associations under that separate chapter.

Chapter 202 governs the construction and enforcement of restrictive covenants generally, and it sits on top of the others. Three of the five 2025 laws amended Chapter 202, which is why they reach both HOAs and condominium associations. This is also where the limits on what a covenant can restrict live: solar devices, flags, religious items, rainwater harvesting, and now brown grass during drought and political gatherings.

Associations are also usually nonprofit corporations under the Business Organizations Code, which supplies corporate mechanics the property code does not address.

Before an association may suspend an owner’s right to use a common area, file suit against an owner other than to collect an assessment or foreclose, charge an owner for property damage, levy a fine, or report a delinquency to a credit reporting service, it must give the owner written notice by certified mail.

The notice has to describe the violation or damage that is the basis for the action and state any amount due. It also has to tell the owner two things: that they are entitled to a reasonable period to cure, where the violation is curable and does not pose a threat to public health or safety, and that they may request a hearing under section 209.007 on or before the 30th day after the notice was mailed.

That 30 days is widely described as a waiting period before enforcement. It is not. It is the window in which the owner can demand a hearing. The cure period is separate and is measured by what is reasonable for the violation in question.

Two provisions boards should know in the other direction. If the owner cures before the cure period expires, a fine may not be assessed at all. And the notice requirements do not apply to a violation for which the owner was already given notice and the opportunity to exercise these rights within the preceding six months, which is what makes documenting the first notice worth the effort.

A fine policy has to be adopted and made available under section 209.0061, and the hearing itself runs under section 209.007, which also addresses alternative dispute resolution. Our guide to fair-process enforcement covers building a process around this.

A payment received from an owner is applied to the debt in this order: any delinquent assessment; any current assessment; reasonable attorney fees or third-party collection costs associated solely with assessments or another charge that could support foreclosure; any other reasonable attorney fees; reasonable fines; and any other reasonable amount owed.

Fines sit fifth of six. An association cannot apply an owner’s payment to fines first and leave the assessment balance open, which is the practice that keeps a delinquency alive and eventually supports a foreclosure that should never have been available.

There is one exception. Where the owner is in default under a payment plan at the time the payment arrives, the association is not bound to that order. Even then, a fine may not be given priority over any other amount owed.

Section 209.0062 requires associations to offer an alternative payment schedule for certain assessments, and section 209.0064 governs what happens when a third-party collection agent is involved. Attorney fee recovery is governed by section 209.008, and assessment lien filings by section 209.0094. How CMGT approaches delinquency recovery covers the operational side.

An association may not foreclose its assessment lien where the debt securing the lien consists solely of fines assessed by the association, or of attorney fees incurred solely in connection with those fines. Read alongside the payment priority rule, the effect is deliberate: Texas has built its statute so that fines do not become a path to taking someone’s home.

Foreclosure is generally judicial under section 209.0092, subject to the exceptions stated there, and section 209.0093 lets a community remove or adopt foreclosure authority in its dedicatory instruments. Section 209.0091 requires notice and an opportunity to cure for certain other lienholders before the association forecloses.

After a sale, the association must give notice to the former owner and lienholders under section 209.010, and the owner has a 180-day right of redemption under section 209.011. A Texas association foreclosure is not final on the courthouse steps, and boards should plan on that half-year tail rather than be surprised by it.

An association records a management certificate in the county real property records and files it with the Texas Real Estate Commission, which maintains a public online database. SB 711 expanded what the certificate must disclose, adding declaration amendments, the management company’s phone number and email address, the website address where documents are available, and the amount and description of any transfer-related fee.

The filing deadline carries teeth. Where a condominium association fails to file its certificate with the Commission within the required window after recording, it cannot collect attorney fees or interest on unpaid assessments for that period. An administrative lapse turns directly into lost recovery.

Owner access to association records is governed by section 209.005, which sets out what must be produced, what may be withheld, and the process for requesting.

New in 2025: a condominium association with at least 60 units, or one that has contracted with a management company, must make the current version of its recorded dedicatory instruments available on a website maintained by the association or by the management company on its behalf. Section 82.1142 sits in the condominium chapter, so read carefully before assuming it reaches a single-family community.

Brown grass during drought. Section 202.008, added in 2025, requires an association to suspend enforcement of any restriction requiring an owner to plant or install grass or turf, maintain green vegetation or turf, or prohibiting discolored or brown vegetation, while the property is subject to a residential watering restriction imposed by a municipality or water supplier as a drought conservation measure, and until the 60th day after that restriction is lifted.

Political gatherings in common areas. Section 202.013, also added in 2025, bars an association from adopting or enforcing a restriction that prohibits an owner or resident from inviting government officials or election candidates to address or meet with members, residents, or their invitees in common areas. The association may still impose whatever requirements it applies to any other gathering, including rental fees, deposits, reservations, and occupancy limits, and the section does not reach areas closed for seasonal use or reserved for association meetings. Associations with 501(c)(3) status are excluded.

Solar energy devices. Section 202.010 already limited restrictions on solar installations. In 2025, HB 431 added solar roof tiles to the definition, closing an argument some associations had been making about tiles being an aesthetic choice rather than a device.

Security fencing. SB 711 expanded what an association may restrict under section 202.023, allowing prohibitions on fencing that obstructs a licensed area, a public sidewalk, or a drainage easement, and on fencing forward of a dwelling’s front-most building line, with carve-outs including fencing installed before September 1, 2025 and homes whose addresses are exempt from public disclosure.

Chapter 202 also protects flags, religious displays, rainwater harvesting, and standby generators, among others. The list grows most sessions, which is the main reason a Texas covenant enforcement policy needs a scheduled legal review rather than a one-time drafting.