Arizona HOA resale disclosure deadline

Arizona runs its resale disclosure through two parallel statutes: ARS 33-1806 covers planned communities and ARS 33-1260 covers condominiums, and they line up almost word for word. Who hands you the disclosure depends on the size of the community. In one with fewer than 50 units, the selling owner delivers it. In one with 50 or more units, the association delivers it after the seller notifies it of the pending sale.

The disclosure is the financial and legal picture of the association. It includes the current bylaws and rules, a dated statement of the regular assessment and any amount still owed on the unit, the operating budget, the most recent reserve study, and a summary of any pending lawsuits the association is a party to. It also includes a short statement you sign and return within 14 calendar days, acknowledging that the declaration, bylaws, and rules are a contract you are bound to and that the association can foreclose if you do not pay assessments. Signing that acknowledgment is not agreeing that you cannot back out; it just confirms you received and read the documents.

The clock is 10 days. Once written notice of the pending sale reaches whoever owes you the disclosure, the seller or the association has 10 days to deliver it, on paper or electronically. That is a deadline on them, not the whole timeline of your purchase, and a slow management company can still push the documents to the back half of your escrow.

Arizona caps what the association can charge. The total resale fee for the disclosure, lien estoppel, and related transfer services cannot exceed $400. On top of that the association may add up to $100 for rush service inside 72 hours and up to $50 to update a disclosure once 30 days have passed. The fee is collected at the close of escrow and can be charged only once for the transaction. An association that charges more than the statute allows faces a civil penalty of up to $1,200.

This is the part buyers most often get wrong, partly because some online guides describe a five-day Arizona cancellation right that the statutes do not contain. Arizona's resale disclosure law sets what you must receive, when, and for what fee. It does not give you a separate right to cancel the purchase because you did not like what the disclosure said. Read ARS 33-1806 and 33-1260 and there is no cancellation clause in either one.

States like Nevada and Florida do hand the buyer a statutory cancellation window tied to the resale package. Arizona does not. What protects an Arizona buyer instead is the inspection period written into the purchase contract. In the standard Arizona REALTORS Residential Resale Real Estate Purchase Contract, that is commonly a 10-day window, during which you can review what you find, ask the seller to address it, or cancel and keep your earnest money. The number and the terms come from your contract, so they can vary, which is exactly why the contract language is worth reading alongside the disclosure.

Because your walk-away right is the inspection period, the two clocks have to line up. If your inspection period is 10 days and the HOA takes its full 10 days to produce the disclosure, the documents can land just as your window is closing, when you have the least time to act on a reserve shortfall or a special assessment buried in the budget.

The fix is the same as in any HOA state: get the disclosure ordered as early in escrow as you can. The sooner the 10-day delivery clock starts, the more of your inspection period you still have left to read what arrives and decide what to do about it.

The resale disclosure is where the expensive surprises live: an underfunded reserve, a special assessment the board already approved, an unpaid balance riding with the unit, or a lawsuit that could land in the budget. In Arizona you usually get one real chance to act on those, and it is your contract inspection period. The statutory cancellation window some buyers go looking for is not there.

An HOA Notes brief reads the full disclosure the day it arrives, flags the reserve, the budget, the assessments, and the rules that affect you, and cites the page behind every finding. You spend your inspection period deciding, not digging through a PDF.

Arizona Revised Statutes section 33-1806 and section 33-1260 (Resale disclosure deadline and fee cap). When a home in an Arizona planned community or condominium is resold, the buyer is entitled to a resale disclosure statement. For a community with fewer than 50 units the selling owner must deliver it, and for a community with 50 or more units the association must deliver it, in either case within 10 days after receipt of written notice of the pending sale (section 33-1806 for planned communities, section 33-1260 for condominiums). The disclosure includes the current bylaws and rules, the regular assessment and any unpaid amount owed on the unit, the operating budget, the most recent reserve study, and a summary of any pending lawsuits the association is party to, plus a statement the buyer signs and returns within 14 calendar days acknowledging that the governing documents are a contract and that unpaid assessments can lead to foreclosure. Arizona does not give the resale buyer a statutory right to cancel the purchase based on the disclosure; the buyer's opportunity to walk away comes from the inspection period in the purchase contract, not from these sections. The association may charge an aggregate fee of not more than $400 for the resale disclosure, lien estoppel, and any other services related to the transfer or use of the property, plus a rush fee of not more than $100 for service within 72 hours and an update fee of not more than $50 once 30 days have passed; the fee is collected at the close of escrow and may be charged only once per transaction. An association that charges or collects a fee in violation of the section is subject to a civil penalty of not more than $1,200.

When you read the disclosure packet, watch for resale disclosure delivered late, after the contract inspection period has run, an aggregate resale fee above $400, or a rush or update fee above the $100 and $50 caps, a resale disclosure fee charged more than once for the same transaction, and the disclosure omitting the statement of unpaid assessments owed on the unit. HOA Notes flags each of these against the statute and tells you which restrictions are actually enforceable.