Washington law and your association

Washington has rewritten its common-interest law twice. Which chapter governs an association depends mainly on when it was created, and it is genuinely common for owners — and boards — to quote the wrong one.

• The Horizontal Property Regimes Act, RCW 64.32 — the oldest condominium statute, governing regimes created under it.
• The Washington Condominium Act, RCW 64.34 — governing condominiums created in the period it covers, and applying in part to older ones.
• The Washington Uniform Common Interest Ownership Act, RCW 64.90 — the current statute. It governs communities created on or after its effective date, and a number of its provisions apply to older communities as well. An older association may also opt in by amendment.

Because parts of the newer acts reach backwards, an older association is often governed by a mixture: its original act for some questions and WUCIOA for others. This is the single most common source of confident, wrong statements about what the law requires.

Access to records

Owners have a statutory right to inspect association records, subject to defined exceptions and to reasonable notice and cost.

Open meetings, with limits

Owners generally have the right to attend board meetings, with a defined set of subjects the board may consider in executive session — typically legal advice, personnel, enforcement against a specific owner, and matters where the association’s position would be prejudiced by disclosure.

Notice and process for assessments

Budgets, ratification, notice of assessments and the procedure for special assessments are all shaped by statute, not left entirely to the documents.

A resale certificate on sale

A seller must deliver a resale certificate to a buyer, and the association must prepare it within the statutory period on request.

Limits on enforcement

Fines, liens and collection are constrained by statute as well as by the documents — including notice, an opportunity to be heard, and in some circumstances a right to a payment plan.

The declaration usually names the act it was created under, in its opening recitals. If the association has amended to opt into WUCIOA, that amendment is recorded. If the two appear to give different answers on something that matters — a vote threshold, a notice period, a collection step — that is a question for the association’s attorney, not for an internet search.

Nothing in these guides is legal advice, and none of it is specific to your association. Where a guide describes what is "typical", your association’s documents and the act that governs it decide what is actually true.