Updated September 5, 2026. Quick answer: Arkansas’s statute does not set a specific ownership-vote threshold for special assessments; it leaves the approval mechanism to the recorded master deed and bylaws, which by default statute must fix a co-owner decision threshold of at least 51%, and co-owners are personally bound to pay whatever expense is “lawfully agreed upon” under those governing documents.
Key statute: Ark. Code Ann. § 18-13-101 et seq. (Horizontal Property Act), as substantially rewritten by Act 516 of 2025 (S.B. 323), effective for regimes organized on or after September 1, 2025
How Arkansas lets an association approve it
Arkansas’s bylaws statute requires the bylaws to specify the “Method of calling or summoning the co-owners to assemble, that a majority of at least fifty-one percent (51%) is required to adopt decisions” (Ark. Code Ann. § 18-13-108(b)(2)). Separately, § 18-13-116(a)(1), as rewritten by Act 516 of 2025, says co-owners “are bound to… pay according to the percentages established by a master deed toward: (A) The expenses of administration and of maintenance and repair of the general common elements…; and (B) Any other expense lawfully agreed upon.” The statute itself never uses the phrase “special assessment” or sets an owner-vote percentage specific to one; whatever process the master deed and bylaws set for agreeing on an expense is what governs.
The notice you’re owed
The statute is silent on any specific notice period, content, or delivery method for a special assessment itself. It only requires the bylaws to state the “Manner of collecting from the co-owners for the payment of the common expenses” (§ 18-13-108(b)(4)); Arkansas law delegates the entire notice question to each association’s own bylaws rather than mandating one.
Paying it: plan, interest, and late fees
Under the post-September 2025 version of the Act, § 18-13-116(b)(4) states: “A past due assessment or installment of an assessment may bear interest at a lawful rate established by the association.” That is the only interest language in the chapter; there is no statutory interest-rate cap, no late-fee provision, and no statutory right to pay a special assessment in installments, since the association itself sets the rate. For a horizontal property regime organized before September 1, 2025 that has not opted into Act 516, even this sentence does not apply, since the older text of § 18-13-116 contained no interest provision at all.
Ark. Code Ann. § 18-13-116(c)-(d): on sale of an apartment or unit, unpaid assessments are paid out of the sale proceeds ahead of most other claims except unpaid tax liens and recorded mortgage obligations, and the purchaser is made “jointly and severally liable with the seller” for amounts the seller owed up to the time of conveyance.
Does Arkansas require a reserve study?
No. Nothing in the Horizontal Property Act, including the 2025 amendments, requires a reserve study, a reserve fund, or any minimum reserve-funding level. The reviewed sections (definitions, master-deed contents, ownership and valuation, and § 18-13-116 itself) contain no reserve language at all.
Honest gaps
Arkansas has no separate statewide HOA/planned-community act; a subdivision (non-condominium) association operates on its recorded declaration/bill of assurance plus the general Arkansas Nonprofit Corporation Act, which was not reviewed in this session for any assessment-specific rules, so a materially different practice could exist there. Act 516 of 2025 rewrote §§ 18-13-102, 103, 104, 112, and 116, but by its own terms (Section 9, uncodified) it applies automatically only to regimes organized on or after September 1, 2025; older regimes keep the pre-2025 text (which had no interest-rate language at all) unless they affirmatively opt in, so two different versions of this statute currently coexist depending on formation date, and this entry describes the post-2025 text.
Source note. Read from https://arkleg.state.ar.us/Home/FTPDocument?path=/ACTS/2025R/Public/ACT516.pdf; https://codes.findlaw.com/ar/title-18-property/ar-code-sect-18-13-116/; https://codes.findlaw.com/ar/title-18-property/ar-code-sect-18-13-108/ 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.