Updated September 4, 2026. Quick answer: Hawaii lets the board impose a special assessment alone unless it pushes spending over 20 percent above the adopted budget, which then requires majority owner approval except in a defined emergency.
Key statute: Haw. Rev. Stat. § 514B-144 (Association fiscal matters; assessments for common expenses) together with § 514B-148 (Association fiscal matters; budgets and replacement reserves), Hawaii condominium law, Chapter 514B
How Hawaii lets an association approve it
Hawaii’s assessment statute itself doesn’t condition a special assessment on a unit-owner vote. § 514B-144(a) frames assessments as board action: “Assessments shall be made based on a budget adopted and distributed or made available to unit owners at least annually by the board.” But a separate section supplies an owner-approval trigger keyed to budget overruns. Under § 514B-148(e), “except in emergency situations or with the approval of a majority of the unit owners, a board may not exceed its total adopted annual operating budget by more than twenty per cent during the fiscal year to which the budget relates.” Below that 20% overrun, or in a defined emergency, the board can act alone. Above it, majority owner approval is required, and “before imposing or collecting an assessment under this subsection that has not been approved by a majority of the unit owners, the board shall adopt a resolution containing written findings as to the necessity of the extraordinary expense involved and why the expense was not or could not have been reasonably foreseen in the budgeting process.”
The notice you’re owed
Hawaii’s law addresses notice in two places. § 514B-144(h) requires that “the board… shall notify the unit owners in writing of maintenance fee increases at least thirty days prior to such an increase,” though the statute doesn’t make explicit whether that 30-day rule covers a one-time special assessment as opposed to a recurring maintenance-fee increase. More directly on point, for an assessment that exceeds the 20%-of-budget threshold, § 514B-148(e) requires that “the resolution shall be distributed to the members with the notice of assessment,” confirming a notice obligation for that category of assessment, though the text doesn’t attach a specific day count to it.
Paying it: plan, interest, and late fees
Hawaii’s statute doesn’t give owners a right to a payment plan for a special assessment; neither § 514B-144 nor § 514B-148 addresses installment plans, so that’s left to the declaration and bylaws. On interest, § 514B-144(b) sets a cap: “Any past due common expense assessment or installment thereof shall bear interest at the rate established by the association, provided that the rate shall not exceed eighteen per cent per year.”
Does Hawaii require a reserve study?
Yes. Hawaii has a detailed, recently amended reserve-study mandate that predates Florida’s post-Surfside SIRS law, dating to 2004 in original form, and is a genuinely different statute, not a variant of Florida’s. § 514B-148(a)(5) requires the annual budget summary to disclose “[t]he estimated replacement reserves assessments that the association will require to maintain the property based on a reserve study performed by or on behalf of the association; provided that the reserve study, if not prepared by an independent reserve study preparer, shall be reviewed by an independent reserve study preparer no less than every three years.” § 514B-148(b) sets a funding floor: “The association shall assess the unit owners to either fund a minimum of fifty per cent of the estimated replacement reserves assessments or fund one hundred per cent of the estimated replacement reserves assessments when using a cash flow plan.” For larger counties, § 514B-148(a)(3) also folds in “the estimated costs of fire safety equipment or installations that meet the requirements of a building fire and life safety evaluation required by the applicable county for any building located in a county with a population greater than five hundred thousand.”
Honest gaps
Hawaii’s lien and foreclosure rules likely sit in a different part of Chapter 514B, around § 514B-146, that wasn’t reviewed for this page, so that information isn’t included here. It’s also not fully clear from the statute’s text whether the 30-day notice for maintenance-fee increases applies to one-time special assessments as well; treat that as an open question rather than a confirmed rule.
Source note. Read from https://data.capitol.hawaii.gov/hrscurrent/Vol12_Ch0501-0588/HRS0514B/HRS_0514B-0144.htm ; https://data.capitol.hawaii.gov/hrscurrent/Vol12_Ch0501-0588/HRS0514B/HRS_0514B-0148.htm on September 4, 2026.
Related: HOA rules in a 55+ community · how a special-assessment foreclosure actually works · lump sum vs. a payment plan.
General information drawn from each state’s own statutes as read at its official legislature or code-publisher site (or a verbatim codified mirror where noted), not legal advice. Special-assessment law is state law, and every association’s own declaration and bylaws add rules on top of the statutory floor described here. We are not a law firm and this is not legal advice.