The 2026 Tennessee HOA Compliance Guide

Why Tennessee HOAs Are Different

Tennessee does not have a comprehensive planned-community statute that gives every subdivision HOA the same operating powers and procedures.

Most subdivision HOAs must work from:

1. The recorded declaration of covenants and amendments.
2. Articles of incorporation and bylaws.
3. The Tennessee Nonprofit Corporation Act, if the association is organized as a nonprofit.
4. Other applicable Tennessee property, contract, foreclosure, and corporate law.

Condominiums are different. The Tennessee Condominium Act of 2008 and other portions of Title 66, Chapter 27 create detailed rules for qualifying condominium regimes covering meetings, fines, assessment liens, foreclosure, reserve studies, and records.

Tennessee HOA authority hierarchy

Most boards must work across:

1. Applicable federal law.
2. Applicable Tennessee statutes.
3. The recorded declaration, master deed, or condominium declaration.
4. Articles of incorporation and bylaws.
5. Properly adopted rules and policies supported by higher authority.

The board should identify the exact source of authority and every required process before acting.

Identify the Community Type First

Before applying this guide, determine whether the community is:

• A subdivision or planned community governed primarily by recorded restrictive covenants.
• A condominium governed by Title 66, Chapter 27.
• A nonprofit corporation, another corporate form, or an unincorporated association.

This distinction changes nearly every high-risk issue:

1. Meetings and Board Governance

Subdivision HOA meetings

Tennessee does not create a general open-board-meeting law for every subdivision HOA. Meeting notice, owner attendance, agendas, executive sessions, and board voting usually depend on the bylaws, recorded covenants, corporate law, and board policies.

For nonprofit corporations, the corporate statute supplies default rules that may be modified by the articles or bylaws. Generally:

• A corporation with members holds an annual membership meeting.
• Member-meeting notice must state the place, date, and time and, for a special meeting, the purpose.
• Directors may participate remotely when all participating directors can simultaneously hear one another, unless the articles or bylaws provide otherwise.
• Board action without a meeting generally requires unanimous written consent unless the articles or bylaws provide another permitted rule.

Because corporate defaults can be modified, read the association’s current articles and bylaws before scheduling or acting.

Condominium meetings

Under Tennessee Code Section 66-27-408, a condominium association must hold an annual unit-owner meeting.

Special owner meetings may be called by the president, a majority of the board, or owners holding 20% of association votes, unless the bylaws permit a lower owner percentage. Notice must be sent not fewer than 10 and not more than 60 days before a meeting and must state the time, place, attendance method, and agenda items, including proposed declaration or bylaw amendments, budget changes, and director or officer removal proposals.

The Condominium Act does not create a comprehensive open-board-meeting or executive-session regime. Board-meeting openness, owner attendance, and notice usually depend on the declaration, bylaws, corporate law, and board policies.

Meeting workflow

1. Confirm community type and corporate status.
2. Check the declaration, articles, and bylaws for notice, quorum, and voting rules.
3. Send timely notice and preserve delivery evidence.
4. Use an agenda and identify conflicts before discussion.
5. Record motions, votes, recusals, and actions in minutes.
6. File written consents with corporate records.
7. For condominiums, follow statutory annual owner-meeting and notice rules.

2. Records Inspection and Document Retention

Subdivision HOAs organized as nonprofits

The Tennessee Nonprofit Corporation Act requires permanent records of member and board meeting minutes and actions taken without meetings. The corporation must also maintain appropriate accounting records and a membership list showing names and addresses.

Members may inspect specified core records after giving at least five business days’ written notice. Inspection of additional minutes, accounting records, and membership lists generally requires a good-faith demand for a proper purpose that describes the purpose and requested records with reasonable particularity and connects the records directly to that purpose.

Reasonable copy charges may cover labor and materials but cannot exceed estimated production or reproduction cost.

Condominium records

Tennessee Code Section 66-27-417 requires a condominium association to keep financial records sufficiently detailed to allow the association to prepare required financial statements. All financial and other association records must be reasonably available for examination by unit owners, mortgage or deed-of-trust holders, and their authorized agents.

Sections 66-27-502 and 66-27-503 add specific financial-statement content obligations — including current balance sheet, income statement, approved budget, reserve status, and delinquency information — and impose a 10-business-day production deadline after receipt of a qualifying request. Requestors include unit owners, purchasers, lenders, and authorized agents.

Records the HOA should organize

The periods above are operational recommendations except where a statute or governing document requires otherwise.

Records-request workflow

1. Date-stamp the written request.
2. Confirm community type and corporate status.
3. Identify the applicable inspection right and whether a proper-purpose demand is required.
4. Preserve responsive records.
5. Schedule inspection after the required notice period.
6. Charge only reasonable permitted costs.
7. Log what was produced, withheld, redacted, or unavailable.

3. Violations, Fines, and Enforcement

Subdivision HOAs

Tennessee does not create a universal subdivision-HOA fine authority, fine cap, or hearing procedure. The board must identify fine and enforcement authority in enforceable recorded covenants, bylaws, valid rules, and other applicable law.

Before imposing a fine or sanction, confirm:

• The governing documents authorize the remedy.
• The cited rule was validly adopted.
• Every required notice, cure, hearing, or appeal procedure was followed.
• The amount and enforcement decision are reasonable and consistent.

Condominium associations

The Tennessee Condominium Act gives the association power, after notice and an opportunity to be heard, to impose reasonable fines for violations of the declaration, bylaws, and rules. Unless the declaration provides otherwise, qualifying fees, charges, late charges, fines, and interest may be enforceable as assessments under the condominium lien statute.

The statute does not establish a universal dollar cap for condominium fines. The governing documents and reasonableness remain important.

Defensible enforcement workflow

1. Verify authority. Identify the exact covenant, bylaw, or rule.
2. Confirm the facts. Preserve dated evidence and communications.
3. Check consistency. Review comparable cases.
4. Send clear notice. State the alleged violation, authority, cure requested, and possible sanction.
5. Provide every required opportunity to be heard.
6. Document the decision. Record the vote, reasoning, recusals, and remedy.
7. Send a written outcome and track compliance consistently.

4. Architectural Review

Architectural-review authority usually begins in the recorded declaration, master deed, or condominium declaration. Tennessee does not give every subdivision HOA a general statutory power to control exterior changes.

Defensible architectural-review process

1. Use a standard application identifying plans, materials, colors, dimensions, permits, and contractor information.
2. Identify the exact recorded design-control authority.
3. Apply written standards and prior decisions consistently.
4. Record conflicts and recusals.
5. Decide within every governing-document deadline.
6. Send a written approval, conditional approval, or denial identifying the controlling standard.
7. Preserve the complete application and decision.

Solar applications

Tennessee does not have a broad HOA-specific solar-access procedure comparable to laws in some other states. A board should trace its authority to the recorded documents, consider other applicable law, apply standards consistently, and obtain counsel review before denying or materially restricting a solar installation.

5. Assessments, Collections, and Liens

Subdivision HOAs

Tennessee does not create a universal statutory assessment lien or collection timeline for every subdivision HOA. The board must identify authority for assessments, interest, late charges, fines, collection costs, attorney fees, liens, and remedies in the recorded covenants and applicable law.

A written collection policy improves consistency but cannot create authority absent from the governing documents and law.

Condominium liens

Tennessee Code Section 66-27-415 gives a condominium association a lien on a unit for assessments and fines from the time they become due.

Important rules include:

• The lien may be judicially foreclosed.
• If the declaration permits, the lien may be foreclosed like a deed of trust with power of sale after required notice.
• Recording the declaration provides record notice of the lien.
• The statutory priority amount is perfected without a separate lien recording; delinquent amounts above that amount are perfected by recording in the county register of deeds’ lien book.
• A lien for unpaid assessments is extinguished unless enforcement proceedings begin within six years after it becomes effective.
• Upon written request, the association must provide a binding unpaid-assessment statement within seven days.

Practical collection workflow

1. Reconcile the owner ledger and verify every charge.
2. Confirm community type and exact collection authority.
3. Apply a board-approved written policy consistently.
4. Send clear notices and preserve delivery evidence.
5. Offer a documented payment-plan contact process.
6. Have Tennessee counsel validate any lien or litigation.
7. Preserve the complete collection file and record releases promptly.

6. Tennessee HOA Foreclosure Authority

Subdivision HOAs

A subdivision HOA may have foreclosure or judicial collection remedies when enforceable recorded covenants and applicable law establish them. Tennessee does not provide a universal HOA foreclosure procedure for every planned community.

Condominium associations

A condominium association may judicially foreclose its statutory lien. A nonjudicial deed-of-trust-style sale is available only when the declaration provides for it and the statutory notice requirements are followed.

Foreclosure by the association remains subject to prior mortgages and deeds of trust and does not extinguish those prior liens. Statutory priority, notice, perfection, limitations, sale, and distribution rules require careful review.

Before threatening or beginning foreclosure, the board should have Tennessee counsel verify:

• Community type and foreclosure authority.
• Declaration language.
• Ledger accuracy and enforceability of each charge.
• Lien perfection, priority, and limitation periods.
• Required notices and addresses.
• Available alternatives, including a payment plan or ordinary collection action.

7. Elections, Voting, and Board Action

Subdivision nonprofit associations

The articles and bylaws define much of the election procedure. Tennessee nonprofit law supplies default rules concerning annual meetings, notices, quorum, proxies, director terms, vacancies, removal, remote participation, and action without meetings.

Boards should not assume that the nonprofit statutory default controls when the articles or bylaws validly establish another rule.

Condominium associations

Under Tennessee Code Section 66-27-403:

• The board generally acts for the association but cannot unilaterally elect directors.
• The board may fill vacancies for the unexpired term.
• After declarant control ends, owners elect a board of at least three members, with at least a majority being unit owners.
• Owners present and entitled to vote at a meeting with quorum may remove a non-declarant-appointed director, with or without cause, by a two-thirds vote.

Can the board vote by email?

For a nonprofit subdivision HOA, casual email agreement is not enough. Unless the articles or bylaws provide otherwise, action without a meeting generally requires unanimous written consent describing the action and filed with the corporate records.

Condominium boards should follow the Condominium Act, declaration, bylaws, and applicable corporate rules. Document every valid action and do not use email to evade meeting requirements.

Election checklist

• Confirm community type, corporate status, voter eligibility, quorum, terms, nominations, and proxy rules.
• Send timely member-meeting notice.
• Verify remote voters and proxy holders where permitted.
• Preserve ballots, proxies, tallies, written consents, and minutes.
• Document challenges and rulings.
• Fill vacancies using the applicable statute and governing documents.

8. Budgets and Reserve Studies

Subdivision HOAs

Tennessee does not prescribe a universal reserve-study schedule, minimum reserve contribution, or budget-ratification process for subdivision HOAs. The declaration, bylaws, nonprofit duties, and contracts govern much of the process.

Condominium budgets

The Tennessee Condominium Act authorizes the board to adopt budgets for revenues, expenditures, and reserves and collect assessments for common expenses. Condominium associations should follow the statutory budget and assessment provisions together with the declaration.

Condominium reserve studies

Section 66-27-403 creates mandatory reserve-study duties for many condominium boards (added by SB 863, effective January 1, 2024).

If the board oversees common elements with aggregate replacement cost exceeding $10,000:

• A reserve study generally must be conducted and updated at least every five years.
• A qualifying board that had not conducted a reserve study on or after January 1, 2020 was required to obtain one by January 1, 2025.
• The board must make the study available to common-interest owners by email or community website.
• The board must review reserve funding annually for adequacy.

The requirements do not apply to:

• Declarant-controlled boards.
• Condominiums titled to a single owner.
• A husband and wife owning the condominium as tenants by the entirety.

Practical reserve program

1. Confirm whether the condominium reserve-study mandate applies.
2. Inventory association-maintained components.
3. Estimate useful life, remaining life, and replacement cost.
4. Update the study and assumptions on schedule.
5. Review reserve funding annually.
6. Document funding decisions and significant gaps.

9. Vendor Management and Contracts

Vendor approval should reflect the association’s recorded authority, budget, corporate duties, conflicts, and community-specific statutes.

For condominium associations, elected board members and officers must exercise ordinary and reasonable care. Declarant-appointed directors owe fiduciary care to unit owners.

Vendor checklist

• Define scope, service levels, price, term, renewal, and termination rights.
• Compare bids for material projects and document the selection.
• Verify licenses, insurance, references, and permits.
• Identify conflicts and record disclosures and recusals.
• Require written change orders.
• Track warranties, insurance certificates, deadlines, and performance.
• Preserve contracts and approval records.
• Have counsel review high-value, long-term, construction, management, and collection contracts.

Tennessee HOA Compliance Checklist

Legal Framework

• Confirmed whether the community is a subdivision HOA or condominium
• Confirmed corporate status
• Identified recorded authority for assessments, rules, fines, liens, and architectural review
• Avoided using condominium powers for a subdivision HOA

Governance

• Held the required annual member meeting
• Followed meeting notice, quorum, and voting rules
• Maintained permanent minutes and written consents
• Used valid written consent for board action without a meeting
• Documented conflicts and recusals

Records

• Maintained governing, financial, meeting, enforcement, architectural, and collection records
• Used the nonprofit five-business-day inspection process where applicable
• Logged and answered records requests
• Charged only reasonable permitted copying costs

Enforcement

• Verified authority for every rule, fine, and remedy
• Provided every required notice and opportunity to be heard
• Documented decisions and comparable cases
• Obtained counsel review before high-risk enforcement

Financial

• Reconciled owner ledgers before collection action
• Confirmed lien, interest, fee, and foreclosure authority
• Reviewed reserve needs and documented funding decisions
• Completed and disclosed condominium reserve studies when required
• Reviewed condominium reserve funding annually when required

Operations

• Archived architectural applications and decisions
• Verified vendor contracts, conflicts, and insurance
• Tracked contract renewals and termination windows

Frequently Asked Questions