How should our neighborhood HOA board work with the master association?

By OurHOA · General information · Revised November 10, 2026

How a sub-association board works with its master HOA: who maintains what, delegate votes, collecting master dues, estoppels, approvals and a yearly calendar.

Part of the HOA board handbook: running the board.

The short answer

Treat the master association as what it legally is: a separate corporation with its own declaration, budget and board. Your board has three jobs. Know which tier owns each duty. Handle any money that passes between the two without mixing it with yours. Make sure your owners get a real say in the master's decisions through whatever seat or vote the documents give you. Most fights between tiers start with a neighborhood board that never read the master declaration and assumed the master would handle something it never agreed to. This guide is for the board of a neighborhood, village or condominium association inside a larger master-planned community. For the owner's view of how the two tiers fit together, see our guide on what a master association and a sub-association are. Rules vary by state and by each community's recorded documents, and this guide is general education, not legal advice.

Build a one-page responsibility chart

Pull each tier's declaration with every amendment, its bylaws, and any recorded supplemental declaration that annexed your neighborhood into the master. Boards forget the supplemental declaration, and it often says which master costs and rules reach your lots. Then make a table with one row per duty and a column for each tier. These rows cause the most trouble: - Entrance, perimeter walls and main road landscaping - Interior streets, sidewalks and streetlights - Ponds, drainage easements and any stormwater permit - Pools and clubhouses, and who sets their rules - Architectural review, and whether owners need one approval or two - Covenant enforcement, fines and hearings - Insurance on each piece of common area - Billing, collections and liens Put the section number in each cell. Where neither document assigns a duty, flag the row and raise it with the master board in writing. A blank row is how a broken gate sits for three months while each board waits on the other. Colorado gives the chart legal weight. Under C.R.S. 38-33.3-220(2), a master association that is not itself the association for your community may adopt budgets and collect assessments only to the extent the declarations, or the written delegations of power from each community, expressly allow it. Under 220(3), if your declaration lets your board delegate powers to the master, your directors are not liable for what the master does with those powers after the delegation. Know which powers you handed over and which you kept.

Use your seat on the master board

Your documents pick how the master board is filled. Colorado section 38-33.3-220(5) requires that, after any period of declarant control, the master board be elected one of four ways: all owners in every community elect the whole board, all directors of every community board elect the whole board, the owners of each community elect specified seats, or each community's board elects specified seats. Texas chapter 209 and Florida chapter 720 set no method for electing a master board, so in those states the master declaration and bylaws decide. If your board appoints or elects a delegate, treat it as a real job. Under 220(4), Colorado's rules on meetings, quorums, voting and proxies apply to master affairs only for the people who elect the master board. In a delegate system, your delegate's vote is the only vote your owners get. A routine that works: name a delegate and an alternate at your organizational meeting. Put a standing master association report on every board agenda. Before each master meeting, the delegate brings the master agenda to your board, which discusses budget, assessment and rule questions in open session and gives direction. Some master bylaws let delegates vote as they see fit, so read yours first. Afterward, the delegate reports in writing and the report goes in your minutes.

Keep the master's money separate from yours

Owners in a two-tier community usually owe two assessments. Some masters bill every owner directly. Others bill each neighborhood a lump sum, which the neighborhood collects from its owners and pays over. Your documents say which. If your association collects for the master: - Show the master assessment as its own line on every owner statement, so owners see what each tier charges. - Record master money in its own ledger account as a payable to the master, never as your income, and pay it over by the date the master documents set. - Adopt a written rule for splitting a partial payment between the two assessments. State payment priority rules may control the order, so have your attorney check the rule before you adopt it. - Agree in writing on who sends delinquency notices and who records liens for the master share. Two collection letters from two law firms on the same account invite a fee dispute. Ask for the master's proposed budget as soon as a draft exists. Owners see the total of both bills, and a 12 percent master increase stacked on a 5 percent neighborhood increase is the number they will bring to your meeting. Comment on the draft through your delegate before the master adopts it, and show both figures in your own budget notice.

Closings, estoppels and recorded notices

Every sale needs paperwork from both associations, and closings stall when the second one gets missed. In Florida, the estoppel form in section 720.30851(1) asks the association to list, with contact information, every other association the parcel belongs to. Keep the master's estoppel contact in your template so that line is never blank. The same section requires each association to name on its website a person or entity, with a street or email address, to receive estoppel requests, and to issue the certificate within 10 business days. Each tier charges its own fee, and under 720.30851(8) the authority to charge it must come from a written board resolution or a written management, bookkeeping or maintenance contract. In Texas, Property Code section 209.004 requires every property owners' association to record a management certificate in each county where the subdivision lies. It lists the association's name and mailing address, the person managing it, the website where its dedicatory instruments are posted, and its transfer fees. An amended certificate is due within 30 days after the association learns any of that information changed, and 209.004(b-1) requires the association to file the certificate electronically with the Texas Real Estate Commission within 7 days after recording it. Check that both tiers have current certificates on file, because buyers and title companies find you through them. The steps for preparing these documents are in our guide on answering a resale certificate or estoppel request.

Approvals and enforcement when both tiers have rules

Owners get stuck when the master approves a fence and the neighborhood denies it, or the reverse. Fix the process once instead of arguing each case. Turn your responsibility chart into a short 'Which approval do I need' sheet and attach it to your application form. If both tiers review the same kind of project, have the stricter tier review first, so owners don't pay a designer for a plan one board will reject. Some master documents let the master hand review of certain items, such as paint colors or mailboxes, to the neighborhood committee. Ask whether yours does. An owner has to comply with both sets of restrictions, so unless the master declaration says otherwise, the stricter rule usually decides what the owner can build. When your board sees a violation of a master rule, refer it to the master in writing with photos and the section number. Do not fine under a rule your association never adopted. Keep a log of referrals and what happened to each. A written record of master inaction carries more weight at a master meeting than complaints do.

A sample calendar and motion

A yearly rhythm many neighborhood boards can adopt: - January: confirm the delegate and alternate, send the master your current board roster and contact list, and check both tiers' management certificates or estoppel contacts. - Each quarter: delegate report at your board meeting, plus an update from the master on delinquencies and violation referrals. - 60 to 90 days before the master's budget meeting: request the draft budget and any reserve study summary, discuss it in open session, and give the delegate direction. - After the master adopts its budget: update owner statements to show both assessments. - Yearly: check the responsibility chart against new amendments to either declaration. Motion to copy: "I move that the board appoint [name] as the association's delegate to [master association] and [name] as alternate, for a term ending at the next organizational meeting; that the delegate report in writing at each regular board meeting; and that, to the extent the master association's documents allow, the delegate vote on master budgets and special assessments as the board directs in open session."

Mistakes neighborhood boards make

- Assuming the master insures your common area. Get the master's certificate of insurance and compare its property list against your chart. - Paying master assessments over late. If you collect for the master, a late remittance can put your association in breach of the master documents. - Sending formal requests from a director's personal email. Send them from the association, by the notice method the master documents name, and keep copies. - Suing before reading the dispute clause. Many master declarations require negotiation or mediation between associations first. - Ignoring the master while the developer controls it. Ask now when turnover happens and how your neighborhood's seat gets filled, so your board is ready when it does.

Sources

These guides are general education for HOA boards and residents, not legal, tax, or financial advice. Rules vary by state and by your community's governing documents - check with a professional for your situation.

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