Updated September 5, 2026. Quick answer: Neither Texas statute imposes a state-law vote requirement for a special assessment: under the Uniform Condominium Act the board itself may adopt budgets and “collect assessments for common expenses from unit owners” unless the declaration says otherwise, and Chapter 209 defines a “special assessment” for subdivision HOAs but sets no approval threshold, leaving that entirely to each declaration.
Key statute: Tex. Prop. Code ch. 209 (Texas Residential Property Owners Protection Act, for subdivision HOAs); Tex. Prop. Code ch. 82 (Texas Uniform Condominium Act)
How Texas lets an association approve it
Condo Act: “the association, acting through its board, may… adopt and amend budgets for revenues, expenditures, and reserves, and collect assessments for common expenses from unit owners” (Tex. Prop. Code § 82.102(a)(2)); board action, no unit-owner vote required by statute. A vote is required only if the board wants to borrow against future assessment income: absent a lower threshold in the declaration, that requires “the consent of owners holding 67 percent of all voting interests” (§ 82.102(f)-(g)). HOA Act: Chapter 209 defines “special assessment” as “an assessment, a charge, a fee, or dues, other than a regular assessment, that each owner of property located in a residential subdivision is required to pay to the property owners’ association” (§ 209.002), but sets no statewide vote threshold or approval mechanism; that comes from the subdivision’s own declaration.
The notice you’re owed
Chapter 209 requires staged delinquency notice before an assessment lien may be filed; a first notice by “first-class mail” or email, then a second notice “not earlier than the 30th day after notice is given,” sent “by certified mail, return receipt requested” (§ 209.0094(d)-(e)), and the association “may not file an assessment lien before the 90th day after the date notice of delinquency was sent” (§ 209.0094(f)). This is delinquency/collection notice, not advance notice of imposing the special assessment itself, which neither Chapter 209 nor § 82.102 separately requires.
Paying it: plan, interest, and late fees
Chapter 209 gives owners in subdivisions of “more than 14 lots” a statutory installment-plan right: the association “shall adopt reasonable guidelines to establish an alternative payment schedule by which an owner may make partial payments… for delinquent regular or special assessments… without accruing additional monetary penalties,” with a “minimum term for a payment plan… [of] three months” and no obligation to extend one “more than 18 months from the date of the owner’s request” (§ 209.0062(a)-(c)). Neither statute caps the interest rate: the Condo Act only authorizes the board to “impose interest and late charges for late payments of assessments” (§ 82.102(a)(12)) without a rate ceiling, and Chapter 209 is silent on a cap.
Under the Condo Act, an assessment “is secured by a continuing lien on the unit,” created “by recordation of the declaration” (§ 82.113(a),(c)), foreclosable judicially or nonjudicially, with owners able to redeem “within 90 days after” a foreclosure sale (§ 82.113(g)). Chapter 209 adds extra pre-foreclosure steps for subdivision HOAs, including notifying junior deed-of-trust lienholders and giving them a 60-day cure period before an expedited or judicial foreclosure filing (§ 209.0091).
Does Texas require a reserve study?
No. Chapter 82 lets a board budget for “reserves” (§ 82.102(a)(2)) and requires a resale certificate to disclose “the amount of reserves for capital expenditures” (§ 82.157), but no provision in Chapter 82 or Chapter 209 requires that a reserve study actually be performed or that reserves be funded to any minimum level.
Honest gaps
Texas’s HOA law (Ch. 209) and condo law (Ch. 82) genuinely diverge: Ch. 82 gives the board explicit statutory budget/reserve/assessment authority, while Ch. 209 mostly regulates collection procedure and installment rights rather than the assessment-approval mechanism itself; a subdivision HOA’s special-assessment vote threshold (if any) lives in its own declaration, not state law. We focused on the sections most relevant to special assessments and did not review every section of either chapter, including the older, largely superseded Chapter 81 Condominium Act that still governs some pre-1994 Texas condos. The official statutes.capitol.texas.gov pages served only navigation, not statute text, so the quoted section text was read from the codes.findlaw.com codified mirror; the Chapter 209 section list was cross-checked via law.onecle.com.
Source note. Read from https://codes.findlaw.com/tx/property-code/prop-sect-209-002/; https://codes.findlaw.com/tx/property-code/prop-sect-209-0062/; https://codes.findlaw.com/tx/property-code/prop-sect-209-0091/; https://codes.findlaw.com/tx/property-code/prop-sect-209-0094/; https://codes.findlaw.com/tx/property-code/prop-sect-82-102/; https://codes.findlaw.com/tx/property-code/prop-sect-82-113/; https://law.onecle.com/texas/property/title-11/chapter-209/index.html 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.