Updated September 4, 2026. Quick answer: Ohio requires the board to budget enough reserves to avoid needing special assessments, waivable only by majority owner vote, but sets no separate vote requirement to approve an actual special assessment.
Key statute: Ohio Rev. Code § 5311.081 (powers/duties of unit owners association, budget and assessments) and § 5311.18 (lien for common expenses), Ohio Condominium Property Act
How Ohio lets an association approve it
Ohio frames the issue around avoiding special assessments in the first place, rather than setting a vote to approve one. § 5311.081(A)(1) requires the board to “annually, adopt and amend an estimated budget for revenues and expenditures. The budget shall include reserves in an amount adequate to repair and replace major capital items in the normal course of operations without the necessity of special assessments,” unless “the unit owners, exercising not less than a majority of the voting power of the unit owners association, waive the reserve requirement in writing annually.” No separate statutory vote threshold to approve an actual special assessment, as opposed to waiving the reserve requirement, appears in the statute.
The notice you’re owed
Ohio’s statute doesn’t set a notice requirement for a special assessment itself. The only notice rule in § 5311.081 covers a different situation: enforcement assessments for rule violations. Before imposing that kind of charge, “the board of directors shall give the unit owner a written notice” that includes “a reasonable date by which the unit owner must cure the violation to avoid the proposed charge or assessment.” That is not a rule for capital-repair special assessments.
Paying it: plan, interest, and late fees
Ohio law doesn’t address a payment-plan right; that’s a matter for the declaration or bylaws. The association does have authority to impose interest and late charges, but no statutory rate or cap is set. § 5311.081(B)(12) lets the association “impose interest and late charges for the late payment of assessments; impose returned check charges; and… impose reasonable enforcement assessments.” § 5311.18 separately allows interest “if authorized by the declaration, the bylaws, or the rules,” again without fixing a rate.
Unpaid common expenses become a continuing lien ten days after they’re due, generally ahead of later liens but behind real estate tax liens and prior first mortgages, and can be foreclosed the same way as a mortgage.
Does Ohio require a reserve study?
No. Ohio has no post-Surfside structural-integrity or professional reserve-study law. The statute requires the budget to include adequate reserves, which owners can waive by majority vote, but it doesn’t mandate a periodic professional reserve study or structural inspection the way New Jersey’s 2023 law does.
Honest gaps
Only two sections of Ohio’s Condominium Property Act were reviewed, not the full chapter, so a separate reserve-study mandate, special-assessment vote threshold, or payment-plan right elsewhere in the law can’t be fully ruled out.
Source note. Read from https://codes.ohio.gov/ohio-revised-code/section-5311.081 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.