Updated September 5, 2026. Quick answer: Under the Mississippi Condominium Law, special assessments are levied by the condominium’s “management body” using whatever assessment and notice method the recorded declaration of restrictions sets out; the statute itself does not mandate an ownership vote or a specific vote threshold to impose a special assessment. Mississippi has no comparable statewide statute for non-condominium HOAs, so those associations are governed purely by their own declarations and bylaws.
Key statute: Miss. Code Ann. §§ 89-9-17, 89-9-21 (Mississippi Condominium Law, Title 89, Chapter 9); no separate Mississippi HOA statute found for non-condominium subdivisions
How Mississippi lets an association approve it
Miss. Code Ann. § 89-9-17 lists what a condominium’s recorded declaration of restrictions may contain, including provisions “For reasonable assessments to meet authorized expenditures of any management body, and for a reasonable method for notice and levy thereof, each condominium to be assessed separately for its share of such expenses in proportion, unless otherwise provided, to its owner’s fractional interest in any common area.” Miss. Code Ann. § 89-9-21 confirms the assessment is made “in accordance with a recorded declaration of restrictions” and becomes “a debt of the owner thereof at the time the assessment is made.” The chapter does not itself impose a specific ownership-vote requirement or threshold for levying a special assessment; that approval mechanism is left to whatever the declaration provides. The only vote language found in § 89-9-17 applies to amending the declaration itself, requiring “vote or consent of not less than a majority in interest of the owners of the project given after reasonable notice.”
The notice you’re owed
Miss. Code Ann. § 89-9-17 requires only that the declaration provide “for a reasonable method for notice and levy thereof” when authorizing assessments. The statute does not itself specify a notice period, required content, or delivery method for a special assessment. On this point the statute is silent as to specifics; the actual timing, content, and method of notice depend on what each condominium’s individual declaration spells out.
Paying it: plan, interest, and late fees
Miss. Code Ann. § 89-9-21 states that “the amount of any such assessment plus any other charges thereon, such as interest, costs, attorneys’ fees, and penalties, as such may be provided for in the declaration of restrictions, shall be and become a lien upon the condominium assessed” once the management body records a notice of assessment. The statute sets no statutory interest rate or late-fee cap itself; it only authorizes the declaration to provide for interest, costs, attorneys’ fees, and penalties. No provision was found granting owners a statutory right to pay a special assessment in installments; the statute is silent on that point.
Under Miss. Code Ann. § 89-9-21, an unpaid assessment becomes a lien on the unit once the management body records a notice of assessment with the chancery clerk, that lien is “prior to all other liens recorded subsequent to the recordation of said notice of assessment” (subject to any subordination the declaration allows), it “shall expire and be of no further force or effect one year from the date of recordation of said notice of assessment” unless extended “for a time not to exceed one (1) additional year,” and “may be enforced by sale of same by the management body, its attorney or other person authorized to make the sale, after failure of the owner to pay such an assessment.”
Does Mississippi require a reserve study?
No. Nothing in Miss. Code Ann. §§ 89-9-1 through 89-9-37 (the Mississippi Condominium Law) requires a periodic reserve study, funding assessment, or structural or milestone inspection. Unlike Florida’s post-Surfside Structural Integrity Reserve Study and milestone-inspection statutes, no equivalent Mississippi enactment was found.
Honest gaps
The official Mississippi Legislature site and law.justia.com both returned errors to automated fetching this session, so verbatim quotes were sourced from codes.findlaw.com, a codified mirror. No Mississippi statute specifically regulating non-condominium homeowners’ associations was found; such HOAs may fall under the general Mississippi Nonprofit Corporation Act if incorporated, but that act’s text was not independently read this session, so this is noted as a gap rather than asserted as fact.
Source note. Read from https://codes.findlaw.com/ms/title-89-real-and-personal-property/ms-code-sect-89-9-17/; https://codes.findlaw.com/ms/title-89-real-and-personal-property/ms-code-sect-89-9-21/ on September 5, 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.