What to Prepare Before Listing an HOA Home in Arizona

If you are selling a home in a planned community in Surprise or anywhere else in Arizona, you need the association's resale disclosure package, a current statement of your assessment account, and written answers on pending litigation, special assessments, and unapproved alterations, and under A.R.S. § 33-1806 the association has ten days after it receives written notice of a pending sale to deliver that package. The Arizona Association of REALTORS® H.O.A. Condominium / Planned Community Addendum, updated June 2025, instructs the seller to complete the H.O.A. information on page one at the time of listing, not after a contract is signed.

An HOA resale disclosure package is the set of governing and financial records an Arizona association must hand to a buyer once it receives written notice that a home in the community is under contract. Under A.R.S. § 33-1806 it includes the CC&Rs, the bylaws and rules, a dated statement of assessments and amounts currently due, insurance and reserve information, pending-litigation disclosure, the current operating budget, and the most recent annual financial report. The Condominium Act imposes parallel resale-disclosure duties under A.R.S. § 33-1260.

The Arizona form tells you to gather HOA information at listing, not at contract

The Arizona Association of REALTORS® H.O.A. Condominium / Planned Community Addendum, in its June 2025 update, instructs the seller to complete the H.O.A. information on page one at the time of listing the premises for sale. The completed addendum is then uploaded to the multiple listing service, if available, or delivered to prospective buyers on request before a buyer submits a Residential Resale Real Estate Purchase Contract.

That timing is the whole point. Under the addendum, the seller gives notice of the buyer to the homeowner's association within five days after contract acceptance pursuant to Section 3d of the contract, the escrow company is instructed to provide that notice on the seller's behalf, and the association is obligated by Arizona law to provide the information to the buyer within ten days after receipt of that notice. The buyer then gets five days after receiving the information to review it.

So the clock you control is the one before the contract. Pull your CC&Rs, bylaws, rules, current operating budget, and most recent annual financial report now, read them, and know what is in them before a buyer does.

Under A.R.S. § 33-1806, in planned communities with fewer than fifty units the member, meaning you as the seller, must mail or deliver the resale information to a purchaser or the purchaser's authorized agent within ten days after receipt of written notice of a pending sale. In planned communities with fifty or more units the association carries that duty on the same ten-day clock. The statute also applies to a managing agent acting on behalf of the association.

Your assessment account and any open violations are the two items to clear first

The resale package includes a dated statement of assessments and any amounts currently due. It must also state the total amount of money held by the association as reserves, and for larger communities include the most recent reserve study if one exists. The statutory resale statement carries the acknowledgment that under Arizona law, if a member fails to pay association assessments, the association may foreclose on the property.

Violations are the second item. Nothing in the statute relieves the seller from the obligation to disclose alterations or improvements to the unit that violate the declaration, and if the resale statement is furnished by the member it must state whether the member has knowledge of any alterations or improvements that violate the declaration. The association may take action against the purchaser of a unit for violations that are apparent at the time of purchase and are not reflected in the association's records. That is the risk you are handing a buyer if you stay quiet about the back-yard structure nobody ever approved.

If you have an open violation notice, there is a defined process. Under A.R.S. § 33-1803, an owner has 21 calendar days from the date of a violation notice to provide a written response by certified mail, and the HOA must reply within 10 business days with a written explanation citing the specific community document provision violated and the date of the violation. Under Arizona law, association violation letters to owners must include the statement that the owner has the option to petition for an administrative hearing in the Arizona Department of Real Estate pursuant to A.R.S. § 32-2199.01. After notice by violation letter and an opportunity to be heard, an association or board may impose reasonable monetary penalties for violations of the declaration, bylaws, and rules.

If the dispute does not resolve, the HOA Dispute Process resides within the Arizona Department of Real Estate. Under A.R.S. Title 32, Chapter 20, Article 11, owners or HOAs initiate it by submitting a petition for hearing on the department's official HOA Dispute Process Form, and it is available only for disputes between owners and HOAs, not against individual board members. The Arizona Department of Real Estate administers the HOA Dispute Process only and directs consumers to its Homeowners Association Dispute Process page for more information. Complaints the department does investigate range from failure to disclose material facts to breach of fiduciary duties and property management violations.

Starting a dispute petition while your home is on the market is a strategy decision, not a paperwork one. Talk it through before you file.

Pending litigation, special assessments, and rule changes belong in the disclosure

A.R.S. § 33-1806 requires a statement of case names and case numbers for pending litigation with respect to the unit filed by the association against the member or by the member against the association. The member is not required to disclose pending-litigation information that would violate attorney-client privilege under Arizona law. An association is not required to disclose financial and other records of the association if disclosure would violate any state or federal law.

Special assessments and second-tier dues are a Surprise-specific issue worth checking in your own community. At Sun City Grand, a few areas carry a second association fee in addition to the main one. The Arizona public report for Homestead at Marley Park states that Homestead at Marley Park Community Association is separate from the neighboring Marley Park Community Association, Inc., and that under the CC&Rs for Marley Park Phase 4-5 it reimburses the neighboring association for maintaining certain perimeter planted areas, a cost included in the Homestead at Marley Park monthly assessment. That public report also notes that, as disclosed in the community association documents, there may be other special assessments, taxes, or fees to be paid by the purchaser. Street lights in that Marley Park phase are paid by individual lot owners through a Street Light Improvement District, as described in resolutions adopted by the City of Surprise.

If your home sits in a community with layered assessments like those, get the amounts in writing from each association before you set an asking price. A buyer who finds a second fee during escrow renegotiates.

Two more items to verify in your own documents. Assessment increases over a stated threshold still require a member vote in Arizona. And under A.R.S. § 33-1807, an HOA lien is extinguished if the association does not initiate enforcement within six years from when the full amount became due.

Missing HOA records are what stall a buyer's financing

Every conventional mortgage for a condo unit requires a completed Fannie Mae Form 1076 or Freddie Mac Form 1077 questionnaire. The questionnaire asks detailed questions about the association's financial health, governance, insurance, delinquency, reserves, and legal status, and lenders use the answers to decide whether the project meets conventional financing eligibility requirements. Fannie Mae's version is Form 1076, Freddie Mac also issues Form 476, and the form covers project completion, ownership concentration, delinquent assessments, litigation, insurance, deferred maintenance, and reserves.

The questionnaire and the estoppel certificate are different documents with different requesters. A condo questionnaire is requested by the buyer's mortgage lender and covers project-level finances, insurance, condition, and ownership mix. An estoppel certificate is requested by the title company or closing attorney and covers one owner's account balance, fines, and pending violations, typically shortly before closing.

Lender review of condominium projects got heavier in 2026. Fannie Mae retired its Limited Review process for established condominium projects for loan applications dated August 3, 2026 or later, so most projects now need a Full Review unless they qualify for a waiver or another review path, and lenders may request more detailed information about the association's finances, reserves, insurance, and litigation. Under a Full Review, the HOA must provide a current accounts receivable ledger or aging report showing compliance with the delinquency cap. If the association is involved in an active lawsuit, a formal statement from the association's legal counsel detailing the nature of the suit, claimed damages, and expected insurance coverage must be provided, and if there are no active lawsuits the HOA or property manager must certify that in writing on the project questionnaire. A project with an active special assessment can still be approved if the assessment is thoroughly documented, and lenders review the purpose of the assessment and the total amount remaining to be collected.

The consequence is stated plainly by Fannie Mae in its August 2026 document: if the lender is unable to obtain the information needed to determine that a project is not in need of critical repairs, loans on units in the project are not eligible for sale to Fannie Mae.

This matters more for condominiums than for detached homes in a planned community, because the questionnaire requirement attaches to condo projects. If you own a condo in Surprise, Peoria, Goodyear, or Glendale, ask your management company today how fast it returns a lender questionnaire and what it charges.

What the association can charge you, and the fee no statute caps

A.R.S. § 33-1806(C) allows the association to charge the member a fee of not more than an aggregate of four hundred dollars for the costs of preparing and delivering the resale statement or other documents for resale disclosure, lien estoppel, and any other services related to the transfer or use of the property. Those fees may be collected no earlier than the close of escrow and may be charged only once to a member for that transaction, and an association may not charge or collect any other fee related to resale disclosure, lien estoppel, or transfer services except as authorized in the section. An association that charges or collects a fee in violation of the section is subject to a civil penalty.

The association may also charge a rush fee if rush services must be performed within seventy-two hours after the request, and a statement or document update fee if thirty days or more have passed since the original disclosure statement or delivery date. Arizona law also caps what records review costs: under A.R.S. § 33-1805, there is no charge to review association records and copy fees are capped at 15 cents per page.

The transfer fee is a separate animal. A separate HOA transfer fee may be authorized by the CC&Rs, can amount to thousands of dollars, is frequently a percentage of the sale price, and no Arizona law limits the amount of a transfer fee. A.R.S. § 33-442 prohibits transfer fees generally but allows an exception for HOAs and condominiums only if the CC&Rs specifically allow the association to apply a transfer fee and only as authorized, and transfer fee covenants executed after July 29, 2010 are unenforceable in Arizona under that section. Closing cost fees, including HOA transfer fees, are negotiable between a buyer and a seller.

Read your own CC&Rs for the transfer fee clause before you price the home. If the fee is a percentage of the sale price, you want that number in your net sheet on day one, not in the closing statement.

The Surprise market context for a seller doing this work now

Homes sold at 99.2 percent of asking price in the same month, and months of supply, meaning how long it would take to sell every home currently listed at the current pace, stood at 3.88, down 2.02 percent compared with last month. Six months of supply is generally considered balanced.

The neighborhood figures run on different dates, so read each with its own period. Sun City Grand had 217 active listings in May 2026, down 11.72 percent year over year, meaning compared with the same period a year earlier, with a $439,450 median listing price, a $405,000 median sold price, 71 days on market, and a 97 percent sale-to-list ratio. In August 2026 Sierra Montana had 27 active listings, a $427,500 median listing price, a $420,000 median sold price, 50 days on market, and a 100 percent sale-to-list ratio. Also in August 2026, Asante had 201 active listings, a $550,000 median listing price, a $515,000 median sold price, 26 days on market, and a 99 percent sale-to-list ratio. Realtor.com's current Marley Park snapshot, with no precise calendar month displayed, reported 50 active listings, a $459,000 median listing price, and 77 days on market, up 40 percent year over year.

At 65 days on market citywide in June 2026, the ten-day statutory window for the association to deliver resale documents is not the thing that decides your sale. It is the thing that decides whether your escrow closes on the date the contract says it will.

The Bottom Line

Order your CC&Rs, bylaws, rules, current operating budget, most recent annual financial report, reserve statement, and a dated assessment statement before the sign goes in the yard, clear any open violation or balance, and write the transfer fee and any second association assessment into your net sheet. A.R.S. § 33-1806 gives the association ten days after written notice of a pending sale, caps resale document fees at an aggregate of four hundred dollars, and leaves the CC&R transfer fee uncapped, so the only part of this timeline you control is the part that happens before you have a buyer.

Written by Saul Perez, part of the Kristan Cole Network team.

Sources

Pages read on October 12, 2026.

• Fannie Mae: Media