The Guide to Indiana HOA Laws

The board must call a special meeting when at least 10 percent of members submit a written demand that describes the purpose and carries the signatures of the requesting members. A member who signed the demand may set the meeting and notify the others if the board fails to send notice of the date, time, and place within 30 days. Annual meeting notices must also tell members that the demand right exists and state how many members a demand requires.

What this means for boards: An engaged minority can force a meeting on a single issue, and the annual notice must advertise it.

Boards must give at least four days’ written notice before any board meeting, and the notice must include the agenda. Delivery may be by hand, by United States mail, by email, or by other electronic means.

What this means for boards: Four days with an agenda is a hard floor, and the agenda commits you to what the meeting can cover.

A board retains authority to enforce the governing documents when an election meeting fails to reach a quorum, and sitting directors continue serving until successors are chosen and qualified. Owners stay obligated to pay assessments and follow the documents when an association cannot establish a quorum or seat a board.

Beginning in 2026, only members who use their property as a homestead (as defined in IC 6-1.1-12-37), typically meaning their primary residence, may vote on a matter that prohibits or restricts the use of a privately owned residential property as a rental. A developer is exempt from this limit while it still owns lots in the association (IC 32-25.5-3-11(d)–(e), added by HEA 1210).

What this means for boards: A failed election meeting doesn’t dissolve the board or excuse anyone from the rules and before a rental-restriction vote, the board must limit the ballot to homestead owners.

An association may not suspend a member’s voting rights for nonpayment unless the governing documents provide for suspension and the assessments run more than six months delinquent (IC 32-25.5-3-7).

A proxy is void unless it contains every required element, including the member’s name and address, the name of the person empowered to vote it, the date given, the meeting date, a signature, and an affirmation under penalty of perjury that the signer has authority to grant it (IC 32-25.5-3-10). A proxy may be limited to specific matters and may not run longer than 180 days.

What this means for boards: A sloppy proxy is void.

Governing documents must permit owners to amend them, and they may not require consent from more than two-thirds of owners. The same ceiling applies to first lien mortgage holder consent. The statute still permits governing documents to require approval of at least 95 percent of owners to convey common areas or dissolve the plan of governance. A declarant’s consent may still be required where the declarant owns one or more units and not more than seven years have passed since recording.

What this means for boards: Any document reciting 75 percent for ordinary amendments is unenforceable to that extent. The 95 percent option for conveying common areas or dissolving survives.

An association must prepare an annual budget showing estimated revenues, estimated expenses, and the estimated surplus or deficit at year-end. Every member must receive either a copy of the proposed budget or written notice that a copy is available free of charge upon request, plus written notice of any resulting change to the regular annual assessment.

Members approve the budget at a meeting by a majority of those in attendance, counting members present in person, by proxy, or by any other permitted means, including remote participation.

If a budget meeting misses quorum, the board may adopt a budget of up to 100 percent of the last approved budget. Anything more requires express authorization in the governing documents, and the ceiling depends on where the association is in its life cycle: 110 percent during the first five years after the developer’s first lot or unit sale, and after that the lesser of (a) 105 percent of the last approved budget or (b) the last approved budget increased by the average increase in the Consumer Price Index for housing in the Midwest region over the prior twelve months. Associations established before July 1, 2026, whose documents already allowed 110 percent, keep that figure until they amend or renew those documents.

What this means for boards: Skipping the notice or the meeting remains the fastest route to an Attorney General action. HOA financial tools preserve the approval trail.

A board may not enter into a contract that creates or increases an assessment by more than $500 per year for each affected member without holding at least two member meetings on the contract and securing approval from two-thirds of the affected members. Members get at least seven days’ notice of the first meeting. Contracts resolving an enforcement action for violating state or local law, and contracts under IC 36-9-27.8, fall outside the rule.

An association may not borrow more in any calendar year than the greater of $5,000 or 10 percent of its previous annual budget, without member approval. Emergency borrowing and borrowing to satisfy an enforcement action are exempt.

What this means for boards: Large commitments need a member vote before signature rather than after, which is easier to track with an HOA bookkeeping service.

An association or its agent may charge no more than $50 for a payoff or resale statement of unpaid assessments and other charges, down from the previous $250 ceiling (IC 32-21-5-8.5). A simple account balance statement must be provided to the owner free of charge, and the association must maintain that statement and produce it on request (IC 32-25.5-3-3(o)).

Associations may also not charge homeowners for services that the regular assessment already covers. Optional services stay chargeable, including clubhouse rentals, key fob replacements, and owner-requested landscaping, though the board must approve a schedule of optional services and distribute it at least annually and whenever the fees for any offered service change (IC 32-25.5-3-3(n)).

What this means for boards: Any line item beyond dues and authorized fines needs a place on an approved schedule.

Indiana handles assessment liens under the HOA Lien Act rather than inside the Homeowners Associations Act. Unpaid assessments for an owner’s share of common expenses constitute a lien once the association records a proper statement and notice, and priority dates from recording.

An association enforces the lien by filing a complaint in the county where the property is located. The complaint may not be filed earlier than 90 days after recording, and it must be filed within five years, or the lien becomes void. A lien also dies where an interested party demands filing in writing and the association fails to file within one year. A court that forecloses the lien orders a sale of the property.

What this means for boards: Collections carry hard deadlines at both ends, and the covenants still have to authorize the underlying assessment.

Financial records, including contracts, invoices, bills, receipts, and bank records, must be available for inspection by any member upon written request, and board meeting minutes must be available upon request made in person, in writing, or by email.

Members hold the right to attend any board meeting. A board may meet privately only to discuss delinquent assessments or to confer with legal counsel about litigation that is pending, threatened in writing, or under consideration.

Indiana HOA laws no longer permit any charge for producing records. The 2026 amendments struck the fee provision entirely, ending the free first hour, the $35 hourly rate, and the $200 ceiling. A request must still identify records with reasonable particularity, and an association may not unreasonably deny inspection or condition it on a stated purpose. Records created more than two years before a request fall outside the obligation.

What this means for boards: The last lever for slowing a records request has disappeared, so digital document storage now does the work that fees used to do.

An association must maintain a current roster listing each member’s mailing address and legal description, as well as email or fax contact information for members who consent to electronic notice. The roster can be sent to any member upon request. A member may use it only for association operations, never for personal reasons, and the association may not sell, exchange, or otherwise transfer that information.

What this means for boards: Hand the roster over, and state the use restriction in writing when doing so.

House Enrolled Act 1196 added Chapter 3.5 in 2022 to limit how an association can block solar. The chapter defines a solar energy system as a photovoltaic device whose primary purpose is producing electricity (IC 32-25.5-3.5-3).

An owner whose documents restrict solar, or whose request was denied under a statute that does not permit denial, may petition fellow members (IC 32-25.5-3.5-4). The petition must include a site plan, a description of the dwelling, the system color and screening, and the vendor and installer. Signatures must equal the lesser of the covenant amendment threshold or 65 percent of members, and a board or architectural committee may not deny a request that clears that bar.

Associations may still prohibit systems in narrow cases (IC 32-25.5-3.5-5), including installations on association-owned or common property, roof-mounted systems extending more than six inches above the roof or breaking the roof slope, and framing or wiring outside silver, bronze, or black tones.

What this means for boards: The petition route does not apply to roofs the association owns or maintains, which leaves many condo-style communities outside its scope.

An association may not prohibit a member from displaying a political sign on the member’s property during the period from 30 days before an election through 5 days after it. Coverage extends to signs about a candidate, a political party, or a public question. Reasonable rules on size, number, and location remain available, though an outright ban on window or yard signs does not.

Indiana added statutory flag protection in 2026 (IC 32-21-13.5). Governing documents may not prohibit display of the American flag or the Indiana state flag, though reasonable placement restrictions survive. Federal law extends further through the Freedom to Display the American Flag Act and the FCC’s OTARD rule, which covers small antennas and satellite dishes.

What this means for boards: Enforcement power during election season shrinks to time, size, and placement.

A short chapter governs how an association may regulate beekeeping. The provision matters less for its substance than for what it signals about Indiana’s method of legislating HOA topics, one narrow issue at a time.

Beyond the flag protections covered above, three new chapters further narrowed association authority. Governing documents may not restrict motor vehicles or outdoor equipment based on fuel source (IC 32-25.5-3.6), and that chapter reaches documents adopted before or after July 1, 2026. An association may not install, maintain, or operate an automated license plate reader itself. It may permit one on association property only if a law enforcement agency installs it, only that agency can access the captured data and images, and the association itself has no access (IC 32-25.5-3.8).

Associations may not prohibit a resident who owns, rents, or leases a single-family residence from operating a Class I child care home there (IC 32-25.5-3.9). The same session also barred rules prohibiting amateur radio antennas (IC 32-25.5-3.4). These two protections for child care and amateur radio antennas apply only to governing documents an association adopts or amends after June 30, 2026, so existing covenants on those topics remain until the documents are next changed.

A separate 2026 traffic law, HEA 1155, lets a large homeowners association — one governing a subdivision with at least 1,500 lots and at least 15 miles of association-owned or maintained private road — set and enforce its own speed limits and stop signs on those private roads, and contract with off-duty law enforcement to enforce them. It sits in the motor vehicle code (IC 9-21-23.5), not the Homeowners Associations Act, and it is a pilot that expires July 1, 2028.

What this means for boards: Several familiar covenant categories lost their footing in 2026.

Indiana HOA laws now give every association statutory authority to fine members for covenant violations, including associations whose governing documents never granted it. The authority carries procedural strings.

A board must first adopt a schedule of fines that identifies each type of violation, the fine amount, whether the fine recurs, and the maximum aggregate amount for any single violation. The board must then give the member written notice stating the violation, the amount of the fine, the date of assessment, and whether the fine may recur.

Boards that skip either step risk losing the fine on challenge. Associations with silent documents gained a tool they never had, and associations with detailed fine policies have to reconcile them against the statutory procedure.

What this means for boards: No fine survives without a schedule on file and notice in hand, which is what violation tracking is built to produce.

Indiana requires members to work through a pre-litigation grievance process before filing suit. A claimant provides written notice stating the nature and basis of the claim, and claims cover disputes over rights and duties under the governing documents, subdivision maintenance, and other association disputes.

Some claims are exempt from the process. An association collecting unpaid assessments does not have to run grievance resolution before pursuing a delinquent owner. Other exemptions cover emergency relief, claims facing an imminent statute of limitations, disputes already in another form of alternative dispute resolution, and claims that are substantively identical to those already resolved. One 2026 change matters here: while dues collection is exempt, the assessment or enforcement of a fine under the new fine statute (IC 32-25.5-3-12) is not exempt. Fine disputes must go through the grievance process.

Parties reaching an impasse may move to mediation or binding arbitration. The party requesting mediation or arbitration pays the mediator or arbitrator, and each side covers its own attorney’s fees.

What this means for boards: The process is mandatory before anyone files suit, and documenting every step protects the association as much as the owner.

The Indiana Attorney General, acting through its Homeowner Protection Unit, may sue a board or an individual board member for knowing or intentional misappropriation or diversion of association funds, for using a board position to commit fraud or a criminal act, for exercising a proxy in violation of IC 32-25.5-3-10, or for violating the budget and records rules in IC 32-25.5-3-3.

A court may issue an injunction, order restitution, remove the board member, require reimbursement of investigation costs, and impose a civil penalty of up to $500 for each misappropriation, fraud, or proxy violation.

What this means for boards: This tool targets individuals rather than the association, and clean books, valid proxies, and an approved budget are the defense.