Updated September 4, 2026. Quick answer: D.C.’s Condominium Act sets no statutory owner-vote requirement for special assessments at all, leaving approval entirely to each building’s declaration and bylaws, while the statute does regulate the resulting lien and a non-judicial power-of-sale foreclosure.
Key statute: D.C. Code § 42-1903.12 (Liability for common expenses; special assessments) and § 42-1903.13 (Lien for assessments against units), D.C. Condominium Act, Title 42, Chapter 19, Subchapter III
How the District of Columbia lets an association approve it
D.C.’s statute does not set an owner-vote requirement for special assessments. § 42-1903.12 governs how expenses are allocated among units, for example directing that expenses for a limited common element “shall be specially assessed against the condominium unit to which that limited common element was assigned,” but it contains no provision requiring a unit-owner vote, ratification, or supermajority before the executive board or unit owners’ association can impose a special assessment. The mechanics are framed entirely as board or association action. Any owner-approval requirement in D.C. comes from the individual condominium’s declaration and bylaws, not from the statute itself.
The notice you’re owed
Because no vote is required to trigger a special assessment, the statute doesn’t set a pre-vote notice requirement either; that’s left to your declaration and bylaws. What the statute does specify is when an unpaid assessment turns past due: § 42-1903.12(e) states, “Unless the condominium instruments provide otherwise, unpaid assessments for common expense and unpaid installments of such assessments shall become past due on the 15th day from the day such assessment or installment thereof first became due and payable…”
Paying it: plan, interest, and late fees
D.C.’s statute does not give owners a right to an installment plan for a special assessment, but it does let the condominium instruments create one, and it regulates what happens if a payment plan is adopted and then missed. Under § 42-1903.12(d), “If the condominium instruments provide for any common expense assessments to be paid in installments, such instruments may further provide that upon default in the payment of any 1 or more of such installments, the balance thereof shall be accelerated, or that the said balance may be accelerated at the option of the unit owners’ association, its executive board, or the managing agent.” On interest, § 42-1903.12(e) caps the rate: “any past due assessment or installment thereof shall bear interest at the lesser of 10 percent per annum or the maximum rate permitted to be charged in the District of Columbia to natural persons on first mortgage loans at the time such assessment or installment became past due.”
Unpaid assessments in D.C., along with interest, late fees, and collection costs, “shall, from the time the assessment becomes due and payable, constitute a lien in favor of the unit owners’ association on the condominium unit” under § 42-1903.13(a), and that lien can be enforced through a statutory power of sale rather than only a judicial foreclosure.
Does the District of Columbia require a reserve study?
No. D.C. has no statutory reserve-study or structural-inspection mandate. § 42-1903.08(a)(2) only gives the unit owners’ association the power to “adopt and amend a budget for revenues, expenditures, and reserves, and collect assessments for common expenses from unit owners,” an enabling power, not a requirement to study or fund reserves to any particular level. Separately, § 42-1904.04 requires a declarant’s public offering statement to disclose the reserve amount budgeted for repairs and replacement, or state that none is included, but that’s a one-time sale-disclosure rule, not a recurring reserve-study law.
Honest gaps
This page reflects the sections of D.C.’s Condominium Act that address special assessments, notice, payment, and reserves directly. The full chapter, which runs over 40 sections, was not reviewed section by section, so it’s possible another part of the code touches these topics in a way this page doesn’t capture.
Source note. Read from https://code.dccouncil.gov/us/dc/council/code/sections/42-1903.12 ; https://code.dccouncil.gov/us/dc/council/code/sections/42-1903.13 ; https://code.dccouncil.gov/us/dc/council/code/sections/42-1903.08 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.