Updated September 5, 2026. Quick answer: Under Georgia’s Condominium Act, the board can impose a special assessment on its own, but for any condominium instrument recorded on or after July 1, 2015, a special assessment above one-sixth of a unit’s annual budget needs “the approval of a majority of the unit owners”; Georgia’s separate Property Owners’ Association Act lets the board specially assess lot owners for shared expenses without any statutory ownership-vote cap at all.
Key statute: O.C.G.A. § 44-3-70 et seq. (Georgia Condominium Act) and O.C.G.A. § 44-3-220 et seq. (Georgia Property Owners’ Association Act); both are opt-in statutes that only govern a community whose declaration expressly elects into them
How Georgia lets an association approve it
O.C.G.A. § 44-3-80(g)(1): “A condominium instrument recorded on or after July 1, 2015, shall not authorize the board of directors to impose… a special assessment fee per unit in excess of one-sixth of the annual common expense assessment for the unit… per fiscal year without the approval of a majority of the unit owners.” For homeowners’ associations, § 44-3-225 instead says “Any common expenses benefiting less than all of the lots shall be specially assessed equitably among all of the lots so benefited, as determined by the board”; the POA Act sets no comparable ownership-vote ceiling.
The notice you’re owed
§ 44-3-80 itself is silent on assessment notice. The Property Owners’ Association Act’s meeting-notice rule at § 44-3-230 requires that “Notice shall be given to each lot owner at least 21 days in advance of any annual or regularly scheduled meeting” and “at least seven days in advance of any other meeting”; a general meeting-notice rule, not one written specifically for special assessments, but it would cover the meeting at which one is adopted.
Paying it: plan, interest, and late fees
O.C.G.A. § 44-3-109(b) states that “To the extent that the condominium instruments provide,” the lien for assessments may include “(1) A late or delinquency charge not in excess of the greater of $10.00 or 10 percent of the amount of each assessment or installment thereof not paid when due; (2) At a rate not in excess of 10 percent per annum, interest on each assessment or installment thereof… from the date the same was first due.” The identical late-charge/interest cap language appears in the parallel HOA lien statute, § 44-3-232. These are ceilings that apply only if the governing documents authorize a late charge or interest in the first place; the statute does not itself impose one, and no statutory right to pay in installments was found.
O.C.G.A. § 44-3-109(c): before foreclosing an assessment lien, the association must send notice “Not less than 30 days” in advance by certified mail or statutory overnight delivery, no foreclosure may proceed “unless the amount of the lien is at least $2,000.00,” and “The lien for assessments shall lapse and be of no further effect… four years after the assessment or installment first became due.” The HOA lien statute, § 44-3-232, uses the same notice period, $2,000 floor, and four-year lapse rule.
Does Georgia require a reserve study?
No. Neither § 44-3-80 nor § 44-3-109 (condo) nor § 44-3-225/§ 44-3-232 (HOA) contains any reserve-study or reserve-funding mandate.
Honest gaps
We read §§ 44-3-80, 44-3-109, 44-3-225, 44-3-230, and 44-3-232 directly but did not review the entire Condominium Act (§§ 44-3-70 through 117) or POA Act (§§ 44-3-220 through 235), so a related requirement elsewhere in either chapter cannot be fully ruled out. There is a real divergence between the two acts: the Condominium Act’s one-sixth/majority-vote ceiling on board-set special assessments only binds condo instruments recorded on or after July 1, 2015, while the parallel Property Owners’ Association Act contains no equivalent statutory percentage cap at all; it leaves the threshold entirely to each declaration. Both acts are opt-in, so a given Georgia condo or subdivision may not be governed by these statutes unless its declaration expressly elects in.
Source note. Read from https://codes.findlaw.com/ga/title-44-property/ga-code-sect-44-3-80/; https://codes.findlaw.com/ga/title-44-property/ga-code-sect-44-3-109/; https://codes.findlaw.com/ga/title-44-property/ga-code-sect-44-3-225/; https://codes.findlaw.com/ga/title-44-property/ga-code-sect-44-3-230/; https://codes.findlaw.com/ga/title-44-property/ga-code-sect-44-3-232/ 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.