A.R.S. 33-1801: What the Planned Communities Act Covers in Arizona

Before any of the rules on assessments, liens, solar, or design review can help you, you have to know they apply to your community. That threshold question is what A.R.S. 33-1801 answers, serving as the front door to Arizona's HOA statutes. The short version: the Planned Communities Act covers nearly every residential HOA in the state. A few specific groups are carved out, and one of those groups can choose to opt in. Here is who is in and who is out.

What the act reaches

The statute starts as broadly as it can. It does not list categories of communities that qualify; it simply sweeps them all in:

This chapter applies to all planned communities.

A planned community is the legal label for what most people just call an HOA: a real estate development where owning a lot makes you a mandatory member of an association that can charge assessments and enforce recorded covenants. If you bought a lot in a master-planned subdivision in Scottsdale, Rio Verde, or Maricopa, you are almost certainly in a planned community, which means the full chapter, sections 33-1801 through 33-1819, governs your relationship with the HOA. You do not get to opt out of those protections, and neither does the board.

This matters because everything else in the chapter rides on it. The cap on how fast dues can rise, the solar and turf rights, the foreclosure limits, the design-review structure, all of it only binds an association that this section pulls in.

Who is carved out

A handful of groups sit outside the act. Three are worth knowing for a homeowner or builder:

Timeshares are out. The statute excludes "timeshare plans or associations that are subject to chapter 20 of this title," because Arizona regulates timeshares under their own separate law. State-funded schools, including charter schools, are exempt, though an HOA can still sign a contract letting a school use the community's common areas. And certain nonprofit corporations formed before January 1, 1974 that never had power to enforce covenants are excluded, a narrow legacy carve-out for very old associations.

These exemptions are tight. They do not give a normal residential HOA any room to claim it is outside the law. If your community charges assessments and enforces CC&Rs against owners, none of these carve-outs reaches it.

The opt-in vote

There is also a path the other direction. An association that has the power to assess its members for covenant obligations but is not automatically covered can choose to come under the act. It does so by recording a notice, approved by a majority vote of the membership, and the election takes effect the moment that notice is recorded.

For example, an older landowners' group near Cave Creek that predates the modern HOA framework might vote to adopt the act so its members get the statutory solar protection, the foreclosure limits, and the records-inspection rights. Once it records that notice, it is bound by the whole chapter going forward.

How it connects to the rest of the law

This section is the on-ramp to everything else in the chapter. Once it confirms your community is covered, the association is defined and structured under A.R.S. 33-1802 , the dues and late-fee caps come from A.R.S. 33-1803 , and the design-review machinery in A.R.S. 33-1817 becomes the rulebook for building a custom home. The homeowner protections it switches on include the solar right in A.R.S. 33-1816 and the artificial turf right in A.R.S. 33-1819 . All of these rules layer on top of the recorded CC&Rs that govern day-to-day life in the community.

Full text and source

Read the current applicability section, including any amendments, on the legislature's site: View A.R.S. 33-1801 on azleg.gov .

Whether a specific community falls inside or outside the act can turn on its formation date and governing documents, so confirm your status with a qualified attorney before relying on an exemption.