The Complete Texas Condo and HOA Guide (2026)

Texas has its own logic when it comes to condominium and homeowners' association law. It is not Florida, where four successive legislative sessions produced a sweeping structural safety and reserve-funding mandate in the years following the Champlain Towers collapse. It is not Arizona, which at least requires associations of a certain size to disclose their reserve position to buyers. Texas is a state where the statutory framework for community associations is largely procedural — it tells associations how to send notices, how to file liens, and how to hold elections — but declines, by deliberate policy choice, to tell them how to maintain their buildings or fund their futures.

That makes Texas a market where due diligence is essential and where the quality difference between a well-run association and a poorly-run one is invisible on the surface of any single document. The resale certificate tells you the reserve balance. It does not tell you whether that balance is adequate. The governing documents tell you what the board is permitted to do. They do not tell you what the board has chosen to do with the latitude the statute and declaration give it.

The regulatory landscape did shift meaningfully between 2023 and 2025. The 88th Legislature passed three bills — HB 614, HB 886, and HB 1193 — that tightened the procedural framework for fines, liens, and tenant protections. The 89th Legislature passed SB 711 in 2025, which introduced fee caps on resale certificates, required large associations to publish their governing documents online, and conditioned attorney-fee recovery in collection actions on management-certificate compliance. These are real improvements to the transparency and accountability architecture of Texas community association law. They do not, however, address reserve adequacy, structural inspection, or insurance sufficiency.

This guide is for buyers, owners, and advisors who need a single grounded reference for Texas condo and HOA documents. It explains the statutory structure, the 2023–2025 legislative reforms in detail, the implications of Texas's voluntary-reserves regime, the coastal and inland insurance risk environment, and the specific verification steps a buyer should complete before closing in 2026. Where the Texas framework compares meaningfully to Florida or Arizona, those comparisons are drawn explicitly.

Section 1: The Texas Statutory Framework

Property Code Chapter 82 — the Uniform Condominium Act

Texas Property Code Chapter 82 is the Uniform Condominium Act, which governs the creation, operation, and governance of condominium associations in Texas. It is the foundational statute for any condominium — a form of ownership in which individual units are held in fee simple alongside an undivided interest in the common elements shared with other unit owners.

Chapter 82 establishes the legal structure of condominium ownership: how a condominium is created through a recorded declaration, what information the declaration must contain, how common elements are defined and allocated, and what obligations the condominium association has to owners. It sets the baseline for the association's power to levy assessments and to use association funds for the operation, maintenance, and capital improvement of the common elements.

Chapter 82 does not require reserve studies. It does not establish minimum reserve funding levels. It does not require structural inspections of existing buildings at any age. These omissions are deliberate; Texas has historically left the financial management of community associations to the discretion of the boards elected by unit owners, under whatever framework the governing documents establish.

For buyers, the practical significance of Chapter 82 is the foundation it provides for understanding what the association legally is, what powers it holds, and what rights unit owners have. The key provisions governing owner access to records, notice requirements for assessments and elections, and the procedures for amending the governing documents all flow from Chapter 82. Understanding the statutory baseline is necessary before interpreting any specific provision of the association's declaration or bylaws.

Property Code Chapter 209 — Residential Property Owners Protection Act

Chapter 209 of the Texas Property Code, the Residential Property Owners Protection Act, governs property owners' associations that administer subdivisions and planned communities — the framework most commonly associated with single-family HOAs and townhome communities. It establishes the procedural rules for how associations must operate: notice requirements for meetings and elections, procedures for the adoption and enforcement of rules, standards for access to association records, and the framework for enforcement actions including fines and liens.

Chapter 209 is more operationally detailed than Chapter 82 in several respects. It contains specific provisions on owner rights to attend meetings, rights to vote, the required content of notices, and the procedures associations must follow before imposing fines or filing liens. The 2023 legislative reforms — HB 614 and HB 886 — amended Chapter 209 to tighten the procedures for fines and lien filings respectively.

The chapter does not require reserve studies or reserve funding. Like Chapter 82, it governs process, not financial adequacy.

The Split Between Condo Associations (COA) and HOA Structures

The distinction between a condominium association and a property owners' association is not merely taxonomic. It has practical consequences for the documents a buyer will encounter and the statutory framework that governs the association's obligations.

A condominium association (COA) is formed under Chapter 82 when a declaration creating the condominium is recorded. The unit boundaries, common elements, and governing structure are established in that declaration. The association's primary legal instrument is the Chapter 82 framework supplemented by its recorded declaration, bylaws, and any rules or policies the board has adopted.

A property owners' association (HOA) in a subdivision or planned community is governed primarily by Chapter 209, supplemented by its own recorded dedicatory instruments and governing documents. Many Texas townhome communities and attached-housing developments are structured as HOAs rather than condominiums, even where the ownership and governance patterns look similar from a buyer's perspective.

The distinction matters for SB 711's application, for the specific records a buyer is entitled to request, and for the statutory default rules that govern the association's operations where the governing documents are silent. Buyers should confirm which statute governs their target association before making assumptions about the applicable procedural requirements.

Master-Planned Community Layers (Master + Sub-Associations)

Texas is the home of some of the largest master-planned communities in the United States — The Woodlands, Sugar Land, Cinco Ranch, Southlake. These communities commonly operate with layered association structures: a master property owners' association governing the broader community and its shared infrastructure, and one or more sub-associations governing specific phases, neighborhoods, or condominium buildings within that community.

A buyer in a layered community may be obligated to multiple associations simultaneously. The master association levy appears as a separate line item in the buyer's total carrying cost. The sub-association's resale certificate addresses only the sub-association's accounts; it does not capture the master association's pending assessments, reserve position, or litigation exposure.

This layered structure requires buyers to obtain and review the governing documents, budgets, and resale certificates for every association to which they are obligated — not just the most immediate one. A master association with an aging road network, underfunded reserves, and a pending infrastructure assessment can impose significant costs on sub-association owners without any warning visible in the sub-association's own documents. The master-planned community due diligence guide addresses this specific challenge in depth.

Section 2: The 2023 Disclosure Reforms — HB 614, HB 886, HB 1193

HB 614 — Property Owners' Association Fines (Effective January 1, 2024)

The official caption of HB 614, passed by the 88th Legislature in 2023, is "Relating to property owners' association fines." The bill tightened the procedural requirements an association must follow before imposing a monetary fine on a unit owner or property owner for an alleged violation of the governing documents.

Before HB 614, the statutory framework for association fines was less prescriptive about the specific sequence and content of required notices. In practice, this allowed some associations to issue fines through processes that gave owners limited advance notice and limited opportunity to contest the charge before the fine was assessed. HB 614 established clearer procedural steps: written notice of the alleged violation in the required form, a specified opportunity to cure before the fine is levied, and a formal hearing process the owner can invoke before the fine becomes final.

The practical significance for buyers is forward-looking. A Texas association that has not updated its enforcement procedures to reflect HB 614's requirements — or that has continued issuing fines through a legacy process that predates January 2024 — may have accumulated a collection of legally defective fine actions. The costs of defending challenged fines, reversing improperly imposed penalties, and managing the legal proceedings those challenges generate fall on the operating budget. Evidence of this pattern tends to appear in the meeting minutes as recurring legal-expense line items or in financial statements showing legal fees disproportionate to the association's size. Reviewing the association's enforcement history for compliance with HB 614's procedures is a meaningful due-diligence step in any Texas transaction that closes after January 1, 2024.

HB 886 — Assessment Lien Filing Procedure (Effective September 1, 2023)

HB 886 — "Relating to requirements to file a property owners' association assessment lien" — amended the procedural prerequisites that a Texas association must satisfy before recording a lien against an owner's property based on unpaid assessments.

Under the framework HB 886 established, an association must provide a specific sequence of notices to a delinquent owner before it can record an assessment lien. The notices must contain required information, must be delivered in the required sequence, and must allow the owner a cure window before the lien is recorded. A lien filed without satisfying these prerequisites is subject to challenge, which creates both legal risk for the association's collection efforts and financial exposure for its operating budget.

For buyers reviewing a Texas association's collection history, HB 886 provides a framework for evaluating whether the association's lien activity reflects a professionally managed, legally defensible process. An association with documented, procedurally compliant collection records — delinquency notices in sequence, cure windows observed, liens recorded with appropriate supporting documentation — is managing its receivables in a way that protects the association's financial position. An association whose lien filings lack supporting documentation, or whose collection proceedings have produced legal challenges or settlements without clear procedural records, may be generating financial risk through defective enforcement practices.

HB 1193 — Non-Discrimination on Tenant Payment Method (Effective September 1, 2023)

HB 1193 — "Relating to prohibiting housing discrimination by a property owners' association against a residential tenant based on the tenant's method of payment" — addressed the narrower but practically significant issue of association policies that discriminate against tenants based on how they pay rent. In practice, the bill targeted policies that effectively excluded tenants using housing assistance vouchers or other payment instruments that differ from conventional cash rent payments.

An association cannot enforce a rental policy that discriminates on this basis, and any provision in the governing documents that purports to do so is no longer legally supportable under Texas law. For buyers who intend to rent their units, this protection matters: an HOA or COA that has historically applied informal restrictions against voucher tenants, or whose recorded rules contain provisions that HB 1193 now prohibits, is operating outside the post-2023 statutory framework.

What These Reforms Mean for Buyers Reading Resale Certificates and Meeting Minutes

The 2023 legislative package is fundamentally procedural. It does not change what a Texas association is required to disclose, how much it must collect in reserves, or how it must maintain its building. What it changes is the procedural standard against which the association's governance can be evaluated.

A buyer reviewing a Texas resale document package in 2026 should assess whether the association's post-2023 conduct reflects the updated framework. The specific markers to look for: fine notices that document the HB 614-required procedure, lien filings with supporting notice sequences under HB 886, and rental policies that have been reviewed for HB 1193 compliance. An association whose governing documents and enforcement records still reflect pre-2023 practice, and whose board has not acknowledged the legislative changes in meeting minutes, may be operating in a compliance gap that will eventually produce legal exposure — and that exposure will be funded from the operating budget that every owner shares.

Section 3: SB 711 (2025) — Transparency, Fee Cap, Management Certificate

The $375 Resale Certificate Fee Cap and $75 Update Certificate Cap

Senate Bill 711, passed by the 89th Texas Legislature and effective September 2025, is the most operationally significant piece of Texas community association legislation in the current reform cycle. Its official caption — "Relating to property owners' associations, including condominium unit owners' associations" — makes explicit that it applies to both general property owners' associations and to condominium-specific associations.

Before SB 711, the fees Texas associations and management companies could charge for preparing a resale certificate were unregulated by state law. The range of fees in practice was wide: some management companies charged $200 to $250, while others charged $400, $500, or more, with additional charges layered in for expedited processing, document compilation, or administrative handling. This created a buyer-unfavorable situation where the cost of obtaining the most basic financial disclosure document in a Texas condo or HOA transaction was unpredictable and, in some cases, prohibitive.

SB 711 capped the resale certificate fee at $375. Update certificates — ordered when a previously issued certificate needs refreshing because the original has aged or circumstances have changed — are capped at $75. The cap applies to both the association itself and to any management company acting on its behalf; a management company cannot circumvent the cap by treating portions of the preparation work as separately billable services outside the certificate itself.

The fee cap matters because it standardizes access to the primary disclosure document in a Texas condo or HOA transaction. The resale certificate, prepared under Section 207.003 of the Property Code, must disclose current assessments, unpaid amounts, planned capital expenditures, reserve fund balances, pending special assessments, pending litigation, applicable rules and restrictions, and the association's insurance coverage. That document is now consistently accessible at a defined, predictable cost.

What the cap does not change is the document's substance. The resale certificate discloses what it is required by statute to disclose. Where the underlying information is incomplete — where the reserve balance exists without context, where capital expenditures are not fully anticipated, or where pending litigation is omitted — the cap on the document's price does not correct the deficiency in its content. The resale certificate remains a starting point for due diligence, not its conclusion.

Website Publication Requirement for COAs with 60 or More Units

SB 711 imposed a new transparency obligation on condominium associations with 60 or more units: these associations must maintain a publicly accessible website that publishes specified documents. The required publications include the declaration, bylaws, current operating budget, most recent audit or financial review, and meeting minutes.

This requirement changes the practical due-diligence starting point for a buyer purchasing in a covered association. Before SB 711, obtaining these documents required a formal records request, seller production through the transaction, or direct contact with management. Beginning in September 2025, a buyer should be able to access the declaration, the current budget, the most recent financials, and recent meeting minutes directly through the association's website before making any formal request or paying any fee.

An association of 60 or more units that cannot point to a compliant website as of late 2025 is not in compliance with SB 711. For buyers, this is a direct governance indicator: the absence of the required website is itself a finding about the association's operational posture, not merely a technical omission. An association that has been unable or unwilling to build and maintain a basic document portal for its owners and prospective buyers may be reflecting broader disorganization in its governance.

The 60-unit threshold also has a practical implication for smaller Texas communities. Associations with fewer than 60 units are not subject to the website requirement, which means buyers in smaller communities must continue to obtain documents through the traditional request-and-production process. The SB 711 website requirement does not establish a floor of transparency for small associations — it creates a two-tier environment where large associations are subject to a publication mandate and small associations are not.

Management Certificate Timeliness and the Attorney-Fee Bar

A management certificate is the document an association files with the county clerk to confirm its organizational status and identify its managing entity and registered agent. SB 711 tightened the rules around management certificates by conditioning the association's ability to recover attorney fees in a collection action on whether its management certificate is current and timely filed.

The financial logic of this provision is direct. Collection actions — proceedings against delinquent owners to recover unpaid assessments — are often economically viable for the association only because Texas law permits fee-shifting: the association can recover its attorney fees from the delinquent owner if it prevails. Remove that fee-shifting mechanism, and many collection actions become too expensive for the association to pursue, particularly against small balances or in contested proceedings. An association that has not filed a timely management certificate loses the ability to recover attorney fees and therefore loses much of the financial leverage that makes its collection program functional.

For buyers, the management certificate filing history is publicly available through the county clerk's office. Reviewing that history is a straightforward verification step: is the certificate current, and is the managing entity identified in the certificate the same entity that appears in the association's current governing documents and correspondence? A gap in the filing history, or a discrepancy between the certificate and the current management arrangement, is a governance finding worth investigating.

Effective Dates and Compliance Windows

SB 711 took effect in September 2025. Associations subject to the website publication requirement had until the effective date to establish compliant websites; associations that were already maintaining websites voluntarily needed to confirm that their posted documents satisfied the specific statutory requirements. The resale certificate fee cap and management certificate provisions became operative on the same timeline.

Buyers in 2026 transactions are purchasing in a market where the SB 711 framework has been in operation for at least six months. An association that claims ignorance of the fee cap or the website requirement in 2026 is not demonstrating a compliance gap caused by transition — it is demonstrating an ongoing governance failure. The reforms described in Texas Condo and HOA Law Changes: SB 711, HB 614, and What They Mean for Buyers cover each of the 2023 and 2025 legislative provisions in detail for readers who want a tighter focus on the legislative mechanics.

Section 4: The Voluntary Reserves Problem

Texas Does Not Require Reserve Studies — What This Means

The single most consequential structural feature of Texas community association law — from a buyer's risk perspective — is the absence of any statutory mandate for reserve studies or reserve funding. Texas Property Code Chapters 82 and 209 are silent on reserve requirements. There is no mandatory study frequency, no minimum funded-percentage floor, no list of components that must be covered, and no provision prohibiting associations from operating with no reserve fund at all.

This is not a gap or oversight in the statutory framework. It reflects a deliberate Texas policy preference for minimal regulatory intervention in the internal financial management of private community associations. The theory is that owner-elected boards, accountable to the unit owners who live in the community and bear the financial consequences of decisions, have sufficient incentive to manage reserves prudently without statutory compulsion.

The theory has practical limits. Boards are often composed of residents who are not trained in building management, financial planning, or reserve-fund adequacy assessment. The financial consequences of reserve decisions play out over years or decades — well beyond the term of any individual board member — which mutes the immediate feedback loop that would otherwise produce prudent behavior. Owners who vote in board elections are often more responsive to dues levels than to the abstract adequacy of a reserve balance they will not need to draw on until the roof fails or the elevator requires major rehabilitation. The result, documented in Texas associations across the state, is a wide distribution of reserve adequacy: some associations are well-funded and well-managed, some are minimally funded, and some have little or no reserve at all.

The Texas Resale Certificate's Reserve Disclosure: Balance Without Context

Section 207.003 of the Texas Property Code requires the resale certificate to disclose reserve fund balances and any designated purposes. That disclosure is a number — the current balance of the reserve fund, possibly broken into designated sub-accounts if the association maintains them — without any context for whether that number represents adequate preparation for the building's foreseeable capital needs.

A reserve balance of $350,000 in a 120-unit condo building sounds substantial. Whether it is adequate depends on factors the resale certificate does not and cannot disclose: the age and condition of the roof, HVAC systems, elevators, plumbing, parking structure, and other major building systems; the projected replacement cost and remaining useful life of each; the association's annual contribution rate and whether it is growing, flat, or declining in real terms; and the pattern of reserve draws over the past five years. None of this context exists in the resale certificate.

This is categorically different from the disclosure a Florida buyer receives through the mandatory Structural Integrity Reserve Study. The SIRS specifies each covered component, its estimated remaining useful life, its replacement cost, and the recommended annual contribution necessary to fund that replacement on schedule. The Florida buyer can calculate the funded percentage — reserve balance divided by fully-funded target — and compare the operating budget's actual contribution against the SIRS recommendation. The Texas buyer has a balance and a category label, and must reconstruct the adequacy analysis from scratch using documents and information the law does not require the association to produce.

Comparison to Florida's Mandatory SIRS Framework

The contrast between Texas and Florida on reserve obligations is worth making concrete. In Florida, a condominium building of three or more stories must complete a Structural Integrity Reserve Study prepared by a licensed engineer or architect. The SIRS must cover a specified list of structural components: roof, load-bearing walls, floor, foundation, fireproofing and fire-protection systems, plumbing, electrical systems, waterproofing and exterior painting, windows, and exterior doors. Once completed, the SIRS drives a mandatory funding schedule, and associations cannot hold a membership vote to waive reserve contributions for those components.

In Texas, the equivalent of that SIRS may not exist at all. The association may never have commissioned any reserve study. The building may be 30 years old with no engineering assessment of its structural condition and no financial plan for the capital expenditures its age implies. The resale certificate will show a reserve balance — whatever the board has chosen to accumulate — and that balance will stand without context, without comparison to any professionally determined funding target, and without any statutory requirement that context ever be established.

The reserve fund rules across Florida, Texas, and Arizona covers this comparison in detail for readers who want to understand the specific statutory provisions in each state and the practical implications for buyers evaluating properties across markets.

How Buyers Should Evaluate Reserve Adequacy Without a Mandate

A Texas buyer who takes the reserve balance in the resale certificate at face value without further investigation is accepting a risk they may not intend to assume. The analytical work the SIRS would provide if Texas required it must instead be performed by the buyer and their advisors, using whatever information the association has voluntarily maintained.

The first question is whether the association has commissioned any reserve study voluntarily. Many well-managed Texas associations have done so; the Community Associations Institute and major community association management companies have long recommended reserve studies as a best practice, even where not required by law. If a reserve study exists, it should be obtained and reviewed: how recent is it, who prepared it, what was the funded percentage at the time of the study, and has the association's contribution rate tracked the study's recommendations?

If no reserve study exists, the analytical approach is to reconstruct the key variables manually. The building's age and construction type are the starting points: a 35-year-old mid-rise concrete building has different capital needs than a 10-year-old wood-frame townhome community. The age and condition of the major building systems — roof, HVAC, elevators, exterior surfaces, parking structure — should be assessed directly, either through the association's maintenance records or through an independent inspection. The reserve balance should be compared against a rough estimate of the capital needs those systems imply over the next ten to fifteen years.

The meeting minutes are an invaluable input to this analysis. In a Texas association that has not commissioned a formal reserve study, the minutes often contain the association's practical knowledge of impending capital needs: discussions about the age and condition of the roof, complaints about elevator performance, vendor quotes for HVAC replacement, and board debates about whether to fund a special assessment or draw down reserves. The minutes do not replace a reserve study, but they reveal the board's actual awareness of and response to capital needs — which is often more informative than any formal document.

Section 5: Insurance Risk for Texas Associations

Master Policy Structure and Percentage-Deductible Wind Exposure

Texas condominium associations typically carry a master insurance policy covering the building structure, common areas, and liability exposure of the association. Unit owners carry individual HO-6 policies covering their personal property, interior improvements, and loss-assessment exposure. This master-policy / HO-6 structure is standard across the Texas condo market, and it is the same general framework used in Florida and Arizona.

The specific risk profile of a Texas association's master policy depends on geography. Inland Texas associations — in Austin, Dallas-Fort Worth, and San Antonio metro areas — primarily face exposure to hail, wind, and tornado events, and their master policies reflect the cost and deductible structure associated with those perils. Coastal Texas associations — in Galveston, Corpus Christi, Beaumont, and the surrounding Gulf Coast communities — carry the additional exposure of named-storm wind damage, which is covered by TWIA policies or private windstorm endorsements rather than standard property insurance.

The percentage-deductible structure of coastal wind policies is the most significant insurance risk factor for coastal Texas associations. Rather than a flat-dollar deductible, these policies typically carry a wind deductible equal to 2% to 5% of the insured value of the covered structure. For a mid-size condo building with a $10 million replacement value, a 2% wind deductible means the association absorbs the first $200,000 of any covered wind loss before the policy begins paying. A 5% deductible on the same building creates a $500,000 self-insured retention. In a significant named storm, the association's deductible exposure is not a theoretical risk — it is a near-certain cost that must be funded from reserves, a special assessment, or loss-assessment provisions in unit owners' HO-6 policies.

TWIA Coastal Coverage — Approximately $2,877 Average Coastal Premium (March 2026)

The Texas Windstorm Insurance Association is the statutory wind and hail insurer of last resort for the 14 Texas Gulf Coast counties and portions of Harris County. Private market insurers have, over the past decade, increasingly declined to write wind coverage in these counties, making TWIA the primary available source of windstorm coverage for a significant portion of the Texas coastal condo market.

As of March 2026, TWIA's average annual policy premium for coastal properties was approximately $2,877. This average reflects the full TWIA book, which includes a wide range of property sizes and construction types; a large condominium association master policy is likely to carry a premium substantially higher than the portfolio average, scaled to the building's insured value and construction characteristics.

TWIA's financial health is itself a risk factor for association buyers. The association has been subject to periodic assessments of its member companies and its ability to pay large storm losses has been questioned in high-activity hurricane seasons. For a coastal condo association whose master windstorm policy is a TWIA policy, the practical question is not only whether the premium is paid but whether the claims-paying capacity behind the policy is adequate in a significant storm year.

2023 Premium Spike (+22%) and 2024 Average Homeowner Premium (~$3,291)

Texas homeowners' insurance premiums increased by approximately 22% in 2023 — roughly twice the national average rate of increase for that year. The rate spike reflected a combination of factors: increased storm frequency and severity, particularly from the hail and severe convective storm events that drive Texas claims more than hurricane activity does in most years; rising construction costs that increased replacement values and therefore loss payouts; and the national reinsurance market pressure that was simultaneously affecting carriers across all high-risk states.

By 2024, the average Texas homeowner's insurance premium had reached approximately $3,291, up from roughly $2,124 in 2021. The approximately $1,167 increase over three years represents a 55% rise in three years — a rate of growth that has materially affected the operating budgets of Texas condo associations that carry large master policies.

For a Texas condo association, premium increases of this magnitude do not disappear into an abstraction. They appear as increased line items in the operating budget, which must be funded from dues collections. An association that has not adjusted its dues to absorb insurance cost increases is operating with a structural deficit in its operating budget, drawing down its cash position to fund a recurring expense it can no longer afford at current dues levels. This pattern is visible in the financials: compare the insurance expense line in the current budget and the most recent two to three years of audited financials to assess whether the association has kept pace with its rising coverage costs.

The more detailed analysis of insurance cost trends across Florida, Texas, and Arizona appears in Condo Insurance Rates: FL, TX, AZ — 2026 Update.

Carrier Exits and the Pass-Through to HOA Dues

The same insurance market conditions that drove TWIA's central role in coastal Texas have produced carrier withdrawals or coverage reductions in inland Texas markets as well. Several national carriers have declined to renew policies in Texas zip codes with high hail frequency, have imposed new sublimits on wind and hail coverage, or have increased deductibles to reduce their claims exposure. Associations that lose their primary carrier mid-policy or at renewal may face a choice between significantly more expensive replacement coverage, reduced coverage with higher self-insured retention, or enrollment in a carrier whose claims-paying capacity is less robust than the prior insurer.

When an association's insurance costs increase unexpectedly — because of a mid-term non-renewal, a forced migration to a higher-priced carrier, or a deductible increase that transfers more risk to the association — those costs pass through to unit owners in the form of dues increases, emergency assessments, or draws on operating reserves. The timing and magnitude of these pass-throughs are not predictable from the resale certificate or the current operating budget alone. The meeting minutes, where board discussions of insurance renewals and coverage changes appear in real time, are the most reliable indicator of where an association's insurance cost trajectory is headed.

Loss-Assessment Coverage on HO-6 Policies for Texas Unit Owners

The gap between the association's master policy deductible and the association's available funds to cover that deductible is a risk that falls, ultimately, on individual unit owners. When the association levies a special assessment to fund a deductible shortfall or to cover a loss the master policy does not pay — because the loss falls below the deductible, because the loss involves a category the policy excludes, or because the master policy limits are exhausted — each unit owner's share of that assessment becomes a personal financial obligation.

Texas HO-6 policies can include loss-assessment coverage, which reimburses the unit owner for their share of a covered special assessment up to the policy limit. Loss-assessment coverage is typically available in increments of $25,000 to $50,000 and adds a modest amount to the HO-6 premium. For unit owners in Texas coastal associations where the master policy's wind deductible could generate a six-figure or seven-figure special assessment in a named storm, loss-assessment coverage is not optional insurance — it is the unit owner's primary financial protection against the most significant assessment risk they face.

Buyers should confirm that their HO-6 policy includes loss-assessment coverage at a limit that is plausibly consistent with their share of the master policy's wind or hail deductible. An association with 100 units and a $500,000 wind deductible exposes each unit owner to a $5,000 pro-rata assessment for a maximum-deductible storm loss; loss-assessment coverage of at least $10,000 to $25,000 provides meaningful protection against that scenario. For buyers in the hurricane and tropical storm risk discussion that the coastal Florida and Texas comparison addresses in depth, this is an essential part of the insurance review.

Section 6: What a Texas Buyer Must Verify in 2026

Pulling and Reading the Resale Certificate

The Texas resale certificate, issued under Section 207.003 of the Property Code, is the mandatory disclosure document in any Texas condo or HOA transaction. Under SB 711, the fee for this certificate is capped at $375 for a standard certificate and $75 for an update. The buyer — or, more commonly, the buyer's real estate agent or attorney — should order the certificate as early in the due-diligence period as possible, because the information it discloses may affect the buyer's willingness to proceed or the terms they negotiate.

The certificate must be reviewed as a starting point, not a conclusion. Read it for: the current assessment amount and any pending changes; any unpaid amounts owed on the specific unit; the reserve fund balance and any designated sub-accounts; any pending or approved special assessments, including their stated purpose and per-unit amount; any pending litigation to which the association is a party; and the summary of the association's insurance coverage.

Each of these items should prompt a follow-up against other documents. The assessment amount should match the current operating budget. The reserve balance should be compared against any reserve study the association has maintained and against a reasonable estimate of the building's capital needs. The special assessment disclosure should be cross-referenced against the meeting minutes, which may reveal assessment discussions that have not yet been formally voted or billed. The litigation disclosure should be taken seriously: any pending or ongoing legal proceeding involving the association is a potential source of unbudgeted legal expenses or judgments that will ultimately be paid by unit owners.

The detailed walkthrough of what to look for in a Texas HOA resale certificate covers the Section 207.003 requirements item by item.

Cross-Checking the SB 711 Website (If COA Has 60 or More Units)

For buyers purchasing in a covered association — one with 60 or more units — the SB 711 website is a direct and accessible source for several of the key documents in the due-diligence package. Before making a formal records request or relying solely on seller-produced documents, access the association's website and verify that the required documents are posted: declaration and bylaws, current operating budget, most recent audit or financial review, and meeting minutes.

The website check is useful not only for the documents it provides but for what the absence or staleness of those documents reveals. An association that has posted its declaration but not its most recent financials, or that has a meeting-minutes archive that stops three months ago, may be selectively publishing documents or may be failing to maintain the website with the currency the statute contemplates. Either pattern is worth investigating before closing.

For associations with fewer than 60 units, no website requirement applies, and the buyer must request documents directly. The same documents are still essential to the due-diligence review — the website requirement simply changes the mechanism for access, not the substantive need.

The Reserve-Balance Question Without a Reserve-Study Mandate

The single most important analytical step a Texas buyer must complete — and the one that has no statutory analog — is evaluating the adequacy of the disclosed reserve balance without the benefit of a mandatory reserve study. This is the core of what makes Texas condo due diligence more demanding than Florida condo due diligence for a buyer who takes the analysis seriously.

The starting questions are: Does the association have a reserve study? If yes, obtain it and review it. If no, ask when one was last commissioned and whether the board has any plan to commission one.

If a reserve study exists, review it for: the date of preparation, the funding methodology used, the funded percentage at the time of the study, the recommended annual contribution, and whether the current operating budget's reserve contribution line matches the study's recommendation. A reserve study prepared five years ago with a funded percentage of 35% and a recommendation of $80,000 per year in contributions, followed by five years in which the operating budget shows contributions of $40,000 per year, implies a materially wider funding gap today than the study showed at the time of its preparation.

If no reserve study exists, reconstruct the key variables manually: the building's age and major system condition, a rough estimate of capital needs over the next ten to fifteen years, and a comparison of that estimate against the disclosed reserve balance. The meeting minutes will often fill in practical knowledge the formal documents do not capture.

Meeting Minutes for the Past 24 Months — Texas-Specific Patterns

Meeting minutes from the past 24 months are the most unstructured document in the Texas condo due-diligence package and often the most informative. Texas associations discuss the same substantive topics in their board meetings that associations everywhere discuss: building maintenance, insurance renewals, special assessment proposals, legal proceedings, and reserve adequacy. Those discussions appear in the minutes, in the board members' own words, without the editorial filter of a formal disclosure document.

Specific patterns to review in Texas association minutes:

Any discussion of capital needs, repair projects, or deferred maintenance — particularly for major building systems like the roof, elevators, HVAC, or parking structure. The absence of any capital discussion in 24 months of minutes for an aging building is itself a signal worth examining.

Any insurance-related discussion: premium increases, carrier non-renewals, coverage changes, or deductible adjustments. In the current Texas insurance market, associations that have not discussed insurance costs in recent board meetings are either holding flat premiums — which is unusual — or not discussing material financial developments in their official records.

Any discussion of a special assessment — including preliminary discussions that have not yet produced a formal vote. Texas law does not require an assessment to be disclosed in the resale certificate until it has been formally approved; an association that is actively discussing a major assessment in its board meetings, but has not yet voted to levy it, will not show that discussion in the resale certificate. It will show in the minutes.

Any legal expense or litigation reference, including collections activity, construction defect claims, or disputes with vendors or neighboring properties.

Master Policy Review with TX Coastal/Inland Distinction

Before closing, the buyer should obtain and review the association's master insurance policy declaration page. The review should establish: what the policy covers, who the carrier is, what the deductible structure is for wind, hail, and other covered perils, and what the policy limits are relative to the building's replacement value.

The coastal/inland distinction determines the windstorm framework. For coastal associations subject to TWIA coverage, the review should confirm that TWIA coverage is in force, what the current premium is, and what the wind deductible structure is. For inland associations, the review should address whether the policy includes hail coverage and at what deductible level, given that hail is the primary severe-weather peril driver for inland Texas claims.

For any Texas condo association, the liability coverage and directors-and-officers (D&O) insurance are worth confirming as well. An association without adequate D&O coverage may have board members who are personally reluctant to make difficult decisions — including voting for necessary assessments — because they are concerned about personal exposure. This creates a governance risk that is not visible in any financial disclosure but that affects the quality of the board's decision-making in exactly the circumstances — post-storm damage, deferred maintenance catch-up — where good governance matters most.

The Texas Closing-Process Due-Diligence Flow

Texas uses a title-company-centered closing process in which the escrow officer coordinates the transaction but does not typically take responsibility for reviewing the association's document package on the buyer's behalf. The responsibility for condo and HOA due diligence is the buyer's. Real estate agents, title companies, and lenders may flag obvious issues, but systematic review of the resale certificate, governing documents, financials, meeting minutes, reserve position, and insurance coverage requires intentional effort by the buyer and, typically, professional assistance.

The practical flow for a Texas buyer in 2026 is roughly as follows. Upon contract, promptly order the resale certificate under Section 207.003 at the SB 711-capped fee of $375 or less. For covered associations, access the SB 711 website for publicly posted documents. Supplement with a direct records request for items not publicly posted: audited financials for the past two years, meeting minutes for the past 24 months, any reserve study, and the master insurance policy. Review the resale certificate against the documents, cross-referencing the assessment amount against the budget, the reserve balance against any reserve study, and the litigation disclosure against the minutes. For coastal associations, review the TWIA or windstorm coverage and deductible structure. Confirm the association's management certificate status with the county clerk. Complete this review before the option period expires so that material findings can inform the buyer's decision to proceed, renegotiate, or terminate.

Comparing Your Texas Experience to Florida and Arizona

A Texas buyer who has previously purchased in Florida or Arizona will notice the absence of the statutory scaffolding those states provide. Florida buyers receive a SIRS that specifies the building's structural reserve needs component by component. Arizona buyers in associations of 50 or more units receive a disclosure of reserve balances and any existing reserve study. Texas buyers receive a reserve balance — a number without a required frame of reference.

This difference is not solely a disadvantage. Texas associations that have managed their reserves conservatively, without any statutory prodding, are sometimes better positioned than Florida associations that are in the early stages of funding compliance with post-Surfside mandates and are simultaneously absorbing the cost of engineering studies, milestone inspections, and catch-up reserve contributions. The well-run Texas association is not paying for the compliance infrastructure that the well-run Florida association must now maintain.

The distinction is that in Florida, the regulatory framework surfaces the poorly-run association's problems. In Texas, those problems may remain invisible until they become crises. A buyer who completes the due-diligence steps this guide describes — reserve balance in context, capital-needs estimate, insurance review, 24 months of minutes — is applying the equivalent analytical rigor that Florida's statutory framework provides as a baseline. The work is harder and more buyer-dependent in Texas. The protection it provides is equivalent, for buyers willing to do it.

This guide describes the Texas condominium and property owners' association statutory framework as of the 89th Legislature (2025) and reflects publicly available information through spring 2026. It is not legal advice. The implications of specific reserve shortfalls, governance patterns, insurance structures, or document disclosures in any particular association depend on facts that require analysis by a real estate or community association attorney licensed in Texas. CondoSignal's document review process is designed to surface the specific gaps and risk indicators described in this guide — it does not replace legal counsel.

Review your Texas condo and HOA documents with CondoSignal before you close. We cross-reference the resale certificate, governing documents, financials, meeting minutes, and insurance declarations to flag the specific patterns this guide describes.

Sources

• Texas SB 711 (89th Legislature, 2025) — Property owners' associations, including condominium unit owners' associations
• Texas HB 614 (88th Legislature, 2023) — Property owners' association fines
• Texas HB 886 (88th Legislature, 2023) — Requirements to file a property owners' association assessment lien
• Texas HB 1193 (88th Legislature, 2023) — Housing discrimination by property owners' association based on tenant's method of payment
• Texas Property Code Chapter 82 — Uniform Condominium Act
• Texas Property Code Chapter 209 — Residential Property Owners Protection Act