A recurring assessment, usually billed monthly or quarterly, that a homeowners association charges every unit as its allocated share of the annual budget: maintaining what the association owns, insuring it, managing it, and setting money aside for the parts of it that will eventually need replacing.
The fee is not a price and it is not a service charge. It is a division problem. The board adopts a budget for the year, the declaration says what share of it each unit carries, and the monthly figure is that share divided by twelve. Change the budget or the number of units and the fee changes, which is why it moves and why no two communities can be compared by the number alone.
What it pays for has its own page. This one is about what the fee is, how the figure is built, and which line inside it actually predicts what the home will cost you. General information, not legal or financial advice.
How the number is built
Start with the association's operating budget: landscaping and irrigation, pool and amenity service, private street repair, utilities on common areas, management and accounting, legal and collections, and insurance on the common property. Nevada requires the association to carry that insurance and to prove it in the resale package (NRS 116.3113), and in a condominium the master policy over the building is usually the largest single line in the budget.
Add the reserve contribution, which is the money set aside this year toward things that will be replaced in some future year. Then allocate. Most declarations divide the total equally per unit; some allocate by square footage or by the undivided interest each unit holds in the common elements. Divide by twelve and that is the dues line on the listing.
Two consequences follow. The fee is not negotiable, because a board has no power to charge one owner less than the declaration allocates. And a low fee is not a discount, it is a smaller budget: either less to maintain, or less being set aside.
The reserve line is the one that matters
Roofs, paving, pool resurfacing, painting, elevators and pumps all have a life and a replacement cost. A reserve study estimates both, and the reserve contribution inside the dues is the association saving toward them month by month so the bill arrives from savings rather than from the owners all at once. Nevada requires an association to have that study done and to include a summary of it in the resale package under NRS 116.4109.
Read the percent funded, which compares what the reserve holds against what the study says it should hold at this point in the components' lives. A well-funded reserve with a high fee is cheaper to own than a thin reserve with a low one, because the shortfall does not disappear, it is simply not being collected yet. This is the single most useful comparison between two homes with different dues, and it is the one almost nobody makes.
A special assessment is a different thing
A special assessment is a one-time charge on top of the regular dues, levied when a repair costs more than the reserves can cover or when something arrives that no budget anticipated. It can be thousands of dollars per unit and it is often payable over months rather than years. It is an obligation of the unit in the same way the regular assessment is, so an unpaid one follows the property and can be liened.
Whether a special assessment needs an owner vote depends on the declaration and on what it is for. The practical defense is the same document either way: a reserve study showing components at the end of their life with little money behind them is a special assessment that has not been announced.
Master, sub-association and condominium dues stack
In a large master-planned community the same home can carry two or three separate bills, and a listing sometimes shows only one of them.
- Master association dues cover what the whole development shares: main entries, arterial landscaping, trails, community parks and any central amenity. Every home inside the master plan pays them.
- Sub-association dues cover one village or phase inside that plan: its own gate, its own private streets, its own pool. Only homes in that phase pay them, which is why two houses a block apart can have different totals.
- Condominium and attached-townhome dues cover the building rather than the space between buildings: the roof, exterior walls, shared plumbing and electrical, hallways, elevators, the master insurance policy, and often water, sewer and trash for the whole property. They are higher for a reason, and they replace bills you would otherwise pay directly.
- Transfer, resale package and account-setup fees are charged at closing rather than monthly, and are not part of the dues.
How it is billed and what happens if it is not paid
Dues are usually billed monthly or quarterly by the management company. They are not collected in your mortgage escrow account the way property tax and homeowners insurance are, though a lender does count them against your income when qualifying the loan, so a missed one is missed quietly.
Unpaid assessments become a lien on the unit, and in Nevada part of that lien sits ahead of the first mortgage, up to nine months of common-expense assessments based on the periodic budget plus certain collection charges (NRS 116.3116). That is a small amount of money with an unusually sharp edge on it, and it is the reason to treat the dues as a fixed housing cost rather than a bill to defer.
Questions people ask
Are HOA fees paid monthly or yearly?
Most valley associations bill monthly or quarterly; some small ones bill annually. The billing period is set by the association's documents and its management contract, and it does not change what is owed, only when.
Can you negotiate an HOA fee?
No. The assessment is your unit's allocated share of an adopted budget, and a board has no authority to charge one owner less than the declaration says. What is negotiable is the price of the home, which is where heavy dues show up in practice.
Is an HOA fee included in a mortgage payment?
Usually not. Property tax and homeowners insurance are commonly escrowed by the lender; association dues are almost always billed separately by the association. The lender still counts them against your income when qualifying the loan.
What is the difference between HOA dues and a special assessment?
Dues are the recurring share of the annual budget. A special assessment is a separate one-time charge for something the budget and the reserves cannot cover, such as a roof or a repaving project, and it can be far larger than a month of dues.