Can You Refuse to Join an HOA When Buying in Arizona?

If the recorded declaration for a lot makes every owner a member of the association, you cannot refuse to join, and the only real decision point is which house you buy. Closing on a home in an HOA community functions as your agreement to follow the CC&Rs and pay whatever the association assesses; there is no separate membership form to sign, and no individual owner can sever that obligation on their own. The way to avoid an HOA in Arizona is to buy a property whose recorded documents never created one.

That answer matters most in places like Verrado, where the association is not an add-on to the neighborhood. It is the neighborhood's governing structure, written into the recorded documents before the first home sold.

What an Arizona HOA Actually Is Under State Law

A.R.S. § 33-1802 defines an association as a nonprofit corporation or unincorporated association of owners created pursuant to a declaration to own and operate portions of a planned community, with power under the declaration to assess association members to pay the association's costs and expenses.

A planned community under Arizona law is a real estate development where that nonprofit corporation or owners' association owns or maintains property, and where the declaration expressly states that lot owners are mandatory members required to pay assessments. The definition in § 33-1802(6)(b) excludes any real estate development that is not managed or maintained by an association, so a subdivision with recorded covenants but no managing association falls outside the chapter.

Arizona law defines "community documents" as the declaration, commonly called the CC&Rs, plus the bylaws, the articles of incorporation, and any adopted rules. The Declaration of CC&Rs is recorded with the county recorder, and all homeowners are charged with knowing it.

Mandatory Membership Runs With the Lot, Not With the Owner

A mandatory HOA's CC&Rs contain language explicitly requiring all lot owners to be members and pay assessments. In most HOA-governed communities an owner cannot opt out of membership while owning the property, because the documents that created the community bind every lot to the association permanently and the dues obligation transfers with the property.

By purchasing in an HOA community, Arizona buyers contractually agree to abide by the CC&Rs, and courts have consistently upheld HOA enforcement powers as valid contract law. The CC&Rs create a system of enforceable covenants that typically can be enforced by the association's board of directors and by any homeowner in the community.

The Arizona Planned Communities Act, A.R.S. §§ 33-1801 to 33-1818, applies to all planned communities that meet its definition regardless of when they were created. Associations formed before January 1, 1974 that lack authority to enforce use, occupancy, or appearance covenants are exempt from the Act under A.R.S. § 33-1801 unless they voluntarily opt in. That exemption is about which statute governs an old association, not a route for an individual owner in a modern community to leave one.

Master-Planned Communities and Voluntary Neighborhood Associations Are Different Animals

Not every HOA is mandatory. Some communities, particularly older neighborhoods where an association formed after the homes were already built, operate as voluntary associations in which owners are not required to join or pay dues.

Master-planned communities are the other case. Virtually every new master-planned community in Arizona has been built with mandatory HOA membership, part of a pattern starting in the 1980s and accelerating through the 1990s and 2000s. Verrado is a master-planned community in the city of Buckeye, about 25 miles west of downtown Phoenix at the base of the White Tank Mountains, developed by DMB Associates on land originally owned by Caterpillar, which partnered with DMB in the mid-1990s to develop a new town. Verrado Community Association, Inc. is the entity that issues Verrado's Residential Design Guidelines. Victory at Verrado is the 55+ district inside the larger Verrado master-planned community on the hillside above Buckeye.

In a large master-planned community you may belong to both a sub-association governing your specific neighborhood and a master HOA governing community-wide amenities. Buckeye has other master-planned communities of the same type: Trillium, where site work started in 2007, and Teravalis, formerly known as Douglas Ranch, about 25 miles west of Phoenix, where The Howard Hughes Corporation broke ground in October 2022.

One trap worth knowing. Even where an association is voluntary, a deed may contain recorded restrictive covenants that apply whether or not you join, controlling items such as building setbacks, exterior appearance, and permitted uses, and any property owner in the community can typically enforce them in court. Some properties have no HOA at all and still carry deed restrictions. No association is not the same thing as no rules.

How to Tell Whether a House Has a Mandatory HOA Before You Write an Offer

Read the recorded documents rather than the listing sheet. If the CC&Rs do not contain language requiring all lot owners to be members and pay assessments, or no CC&Rs were recorded before purchase, the association is likely voluntary.

The search tools are public and cheap.

• Maricopa County Recorder's Office documents are searchable through the Maricopa County Recorded Document Search, by name, legal description, or address. The Recorder's Office is responsible for the public recording of more than 52 million documents in Maricopa County.
• CC&Rs are typically recorded under the name of the property subdivision or the name of the HOA, and the Maricopa County Recorder's Office directs searchers to use the "Business Name" section. If you do not know which subdivision a property sits in, that information can be found through the Maricopa County Assessor.
• An unofficial copy of a recorded document may be viewed online. Official copies cost $1.00 per page.
• The Recorder's document search currently returns data for the last two years. Deeds and conveyances, subdivision plats and surveys, condominium declarations, and CC&Rs are retained permanently by Maricopa County.
• The Maricopa County Recorder's Office is located at 111 S. 3rd Avenue, Phoenix, AZ 85003. The office states that it cannot provide legal advice or assistance and that its staff cannot assist in completing documents in any capacity.

On the listing side, portals such as Zillow and Realtor.com have advanced search options that exclude homes with HOA fees, which removes communities with mandatory associations from results. Zillow's search parameters include a maximum HOA amount and a separate option for whether to include homes with no HOA data. Signals that a listing is HOA-free include a blank HOA fee field or the phrase "no HOA" in the description. Treat all of that as a filter, not as proof. The recorded declaration is the proof.

The Resale Disclosure Is Where the Obligation Gets Put in Writing

Under A.R.S. § 33-1806, for planned communities with fewer than fifty units, a member must mail or deliver disclosure information to a purchaser within ten days after receipt of a written notice of a pending sale of the unit. The statutory disclosure includes a statement acknowledging that the declaration, bylaws, and rules of the association constitute a contract between the association and the purchaser, that the purchaser has read and understands it, and that under Arizona law the association may foreclose on the property if assessments are not paid. The purchaser signs that statement and returns it to the association within fourteen calendar days.

The package also includes a copy of the association's current operating budget, its most recent annual financial report, and its most recent reserve study, if any. A.R.S. § 33-1806 does not preclude the association from taking 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.

Read the budget and the reserve study during your inspection period. That is the window where the documents are still information rather than obligation.

What Actually Happens If You Stop Paying After Closing

Nothing about the closing gives an owner a way out. No individual owner can sever the obligation unilaterally, and the dues obligation transfers with the property.

Under A.R.S. § 33-1807(C), an Arizona assessment lien outranks other interests except liens recorded before the declaration, a recorded first mortgage or first deed of trust, a seller's interest in a first contract for sale recorded before the lien arose, and tax and governmental liens. The Planned Communities Act also sets an 18-month floor before foreclosure and, under A.R.S. § 33-1803, caps a regular assessment increase at no more than twenty percent greater than the prior year's unless the community documents set a lower limit.

If your dispute is with how an association is behaving rather than with whether you are a member, the Arizona Department of Real Estate manages an HOA dispute process in which homeowners file petitions to be heard by an administrative law judge. That process addresses conduct and compliance. It is not a mechanism for cancelling membership.

What the Verrado Market Looks Like While You Decide

The median sold price in Verrado was $543,000 as of June 2026. Homes sold at 98.48% of asking price, the share of asking price a home sells for. Days on market, the median time from listing to going under contract, was 47 days. Verrado had 5.22 months of supply, meaning it would take about that long to sell every home currently listed at the current pace, with six months generally considered balanced, and that figure was down 14.7% over twelve months. There were 193 active listings and 51 homes sold. Price per square foot, the sale price divided by finished square footage, was $264.

The typical home value in Verrado was $572,450 as of July 2026, up 0.4% from the prior month and down 0.9% over twelve months.

If you are set on avoiding a mandatory association, the constraint is which recorded declarations exist, not which of these markets you shop.

The Bottom Line

You cannot opt out of a mandatory Arizona HOA once you own the lot. The declaration binds the lot, the purchase itself functions as your agreement to follow the CC&Rs and pay assessments, and the association's assessment lien sits ahead of most interests other than a recorded first mortgage, earlier-recorded liens, a seller's interest in a first contract for sale recorded before the lien arose, and tax and governmental liens. The choice is made before you sign, by reading the recorded declaration for the specific lot, and in a master-planned community like Verrado the answer is already written. If you want me to pull the recorded CC&Rs on a West Valley property before you write an offer, reach out and I will read them with you.

Written by Will McRorie, part of the Kristan Cole Network team.

Sources

Pages read on September 21, 2026.

• A.R.S. § 33-1802 (azleg.gov)
• 33-1806 (azleg.gov)
• FAQs (recorder.maricopa.gov)
• Recorded Document Search (recorder.maricopa.gov)