Eleven states require community associations to obtain a reserve study by statute: California, Florida, Hawaii, Maryland, Nevada, New Jersey, Oregon, Tennessee, Utah, Virginia, and Washington. A twelfth, Delaware, mandates reserve funding tied to a study — budget to the study's level, or pay statutory fallback percentages without one. Most other states settle for words like "adequate" or "reasonable" reserves — standards that sound like a requirement but don't tell you how to meet one. This page lists the twelve with their statutes and cycles, explains how the map got this shape, and covers what it means for your board on either side of the line. Every citation below was verified against the statute text in September 2026.
- Eleven states mandate a reserve study, and Delaware mandates funding your reserves to a study's level. Cycles range from annual (Oregon, Washington) to every ten years (Florida's structural study), with five years the most common interval.
- The mandates arrived in two waves: seven states that modernized their condo and HOA statutes between the mid-1990s and the 2010s, and four — Florida, Maryland, Tennessee, New Jersey — that acted after the 2021 Surfside collapse.
- Most other states require "adequate" or "reasonable" reserves without defining them — a test you can't actually apply without a study.
- Even with no state mandate, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac's 2027 rules make a current, funded reserve study the cheaper path to keeping your units mortgage-eligible.
The twelve states with reserve mandates
| State | What the statute requires | How often | Who it covers |
|---|---|---|---|
| California | Study "based upon a diligent visual site inspection" (Civ. Code §5550) | Every 3 years, reviewed annually | All common interest developments whose major components are ≥ half the budget |
| Delaware | Budget reserve line item set by "the level of funding noted in the reserve study" (25 Del. C. §81-315(a)(2)) | The study itself is optional — one counts only if performed or updated in the last 5 years; without one, fallback minimums of 5–15% of budget apply | Condos and co-ops only, HOAs exempt; pre-2009 communities included unless their documents expressly conflict |
| Florida | Structural integrity reserve study by a licensed engineer or architect (Fla. Stat. §718.112(2)(g)) | Every 10 years, plus milestone inspections | Condo and co-op buildings three or more habitable stories |
| Hawaii | Budget reserves "based on a reserve study performed by or on behalf of the association" (HRS §514B-148) | Reviewed by an independent preparer every 3 years if not independently prepared; since June 2026, associations under 20 units in buildings of two stories or less may waive one review cycle by majority vote | Condominiums |
| Maryland | Reserve study by a qualified independent preparer (Md. Real Prop. §11-109.4; HOAs: §11B-112.3) | Every 5 years; recommended funding must be attained within 5 fiscal years | Condos statewide; HOAs with ≥ $10,000 in common-area repair costs |
| Nevada | Study "of the reserves required to repair, replace and restore the major components," by a state-registered specialist (NRS 116.31152) | Every 5 years, reviewed annually | Common-interest communities (small rural communities get a lighter rule) |
| New Jersey | "Any association … shall undertake and fund a capital reserve study" with a 30-year funding plan (N.J.S.A. 45:22A-44.2, signed January 2024) | Conducted and reviewed at least every 5 years | Condos, co-ops, and HOAs; exempt under $25,000 in capital assets |
| Oregon | Board "shall annually determine the reserve account requirements by conducting a reserve study or reviewing and updating an existing study" (ORS 94.595; condos: ORS 100.175) | Annually (board may do it itself) | Planned communities and condos created after Oct 1999; older ones by board resolution or owner petition |
| Tennessee | Reserve study, updated on a fixed cycle; funding reviewed annually for adequacy (TCA §66-27-403(g), effective 2024) | Every 5 years | Condos created after January 2009 (or opted into the 2008 Act) with common elements worth more than $10,000 |
| Utah | Board "shall cause a reserve analysis to be conducted" (Utah Code §57-8a-211; condos: §57-8-7.5) | Every 6 years, reviewed and updated every 3 | HOAs and condos — unless the governing documents provide otherwise |
| Virginia | Study "to determine the necessity and amount of reserves required to repair, replace, and restore the capital components" (Va. Code §55.1-1965; POAs: §55.1-1826) | Every 5 years, reviewed annually | Condos and property owners' associations |
| Washington | Updated reserve study every year; "at least every third year by a reserve study professional and based upon a visual site inspection" (RCW 64.90.545) | Annually; professional site visit every 3rd year | All common interest communities as of Jan 1, 2026, with narrow exemptions |
Three fine-print warnings before you act on this table. First, "who it covers" is where the exceptions live — Florida's mandate stops below three habitable stories, Delaware's reserve rules reach only condos and co-ops (its HOAs owe nothing), and Utah's duties apply only where the governing documents don't say otherwise. Second, a mandated study doesn't always mean mandated funding: Utah owners can veto the reserve line item by a 51% vote within 45 days of budget adoption — though funding then reverts to the last un-vetoed amount, not to zero — and an Oregon board can skip a year of reserve funding only with the approval of every single owner. A study you don't fund is a well-documented problem, not a plan. Third, statutes in this area change constantly — Washington repealed its "unreasonable hardship" opt-out in 2026, Hawaii has amended its reserve statute in 2022, 2023, 2025, and 2026, and Florida has amended its rules every year since 2022. Our state law hub tracks each state's current requirements with re-verification dates.
Why these twelve — the two waves
The map isn't random. It records two distinct bursts of lawmaking.
The first wave came with statute modernization, mostly in the West. Between the mid-1990s and the mid-2010s, a group of states rewrote their community association laws — California's Davis-Stirling Act, Nevada's NRS 116 (its adoption of the Uniform Common Interest Ownership Act), Washington's WUCIOA, plus updates in Oregon, Hawaii, Utah, and Virginia. When legislators sat down to rewrite the rulebook, requiring boards to actually measure their future obligations was an obvious addition. Delaware's DUCIOA rewrite belongs to the same wave but took a different path: it never orders an association to commission a study — it mandates funding the reserve to the level in a current study, with 5–15%-of-budget fallbacks for associations that don't have one. States still running on condo statutes from the 1960s–80s never had that rewrite moment, so the requirement never got in.
The second wave followed a building collapse. After Champlain Towers South fell in Surfside, Florida in June 2021 — a building with documented structural problems and reserves nowhere near the repair cost — four states acted in quick succession: Florida's structural integrity reserve study law (2022), Maryland's HB 107 (2022), Tennessee's condo study requirement (2023, effective 2024), and New Jersey's structural inspection and reserve study law (effective January 2024). The post-Surfside laws read differently from the first wave: they tie studies to structural safety, pair them with engineering inspections, and — in Florida's and Maryland's case — restrict the board's ability to not fund what the study finds.
That's also the honest answer to "why not the other 38": no rewrite moment, no disaster close enough to force one. Bills to mandate studies were introduced and died in New York, Illinois, Connecticut, and Rhode Island during the 2025–26 sessions alone.
What most other states require instead
The most common statutory standard outside the twelve is a word: adequate. Massachusetts requires an "adequate replacement reserve fund." Minnesota requires budgets to include "adequate" replacement reserves. Illinois requires "reasonable reserves." Ohio and Michigan set a floor of 10% of the annual budget — and Ohio lets owners waive even that by majority vote each year. Colorado requires only that the board adopt a written policy about reserve studies; nothing compels ever commissioning one.
Here's the problem with "adequate" as a legal standard: adequacy is a comparison, and the statute only gives you one side of it. Adequate compared to what? The answer is the future cost of repairing and replacing your components — which is precisely the number a reserve study exists to produce. A board in an "adequate reserves" state that has never had a study isn't in a position to know whether it complies with its own statute. A board with a six-year-old study isn't in much better shape. Oregon and Washington require annual updates for a reason: a study prices your components as of the day of the site visit, and costs, remaining life, and the balance behind them all move every year whether or not your statute asks you to look again.
The percentage floors have the same flaw with more decimal places. Take a 120-unit community in Ohio with a $480,000 annual budget. The statutory floor is 10%, so the board moves $48,000 a year to reserves and is fully compliant. Now look at one component: an asphalt shingle roof across the buildings with a $840,000 replacement cost and seven years of life left. If the reserve balance earmarked for it is near zero, that single component needs $120,000 a year — two and a half times the entire statutory contribution, before the pavement, the pool, or the siding. The board can satisfy the law every year for seven years and still arrive at re-roofing day facing a roughly $7,000-per-unit special assessment. The floor measured the budget; the roof only cares about the roof.
Notice what changed the picture. Not the statute — tracking one component with its own cost, its own date, and its own funding line. A board that watches the roof that way sees the $120,000-a-year gap in year one, when a dues increase can still close it. A board that watches the 10% line sees it in year seven, when nothing can.
No mandate doesn't mean no consequences
Two of the country's largest community-association markets — Texas and New York — have no statewide reserve study requirement at all. If you're on a board in a state like that, the pressure simply arrives through different channels:
- Lenders. For loan applications from January 4, 2027, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac require condo budgets to put 15% of assessment income into reserves — unless the association has a reserve study updated within three years and funds it at the highest recommended level. Skipping the study means taking the flat 15%, which for many older buildings is less than the real need and for many newer ones is more. Either way, a stale study now shrinks your owners' pool of eligible buyers.
- The math itself. Statutes don't age roofs; time does. The amount your association should hold in reserves is set by your component inventory, not by whether your legislature got around to saying so.
- Your neighbors. A board that raises dues can point to a study's component list and percent funded figure; a board without one is asking the community to take its word. When the increase is contested at an annual meeting, the study is the difference between an argument and an explanation.
If your state is on the list
Read your actual statute — the table above links each one — and check three things: the cycle (when your current study ages out of compliance), the preparer requirement (Florida, Maryland, Nevada, New Jersey, and Tennessee require credentialed professionals; California, Utah, Oregon, and Virginia let the board do the work itself; Washington asks only for someone independent and suitably qualified), and the funding rule (Florida, Maryland, New Jersey, and Hawaii bind the budget to the study's findings, which turns an out-of-date study into a budget problem). Then schedule the renewal a year early: study preparers book out during budget season, and several of these statutes set hard initial deadlines that have already passed — Maryland's first studies were due October 2023, Tennessee's January 2025, and Florida's SIRS December 2025. Put the renewal date somewhere that outlasts the current board. A five-year cycle is longer than most treasurers serve, and the studies that lapse are rarely the ones a board decided to skip; they're the ones whose renewal date left with the person who knew it.
This page is informational, not legal advice — statutes carry exceptions and phase-in rules that depend on your community's type, size, and formation date, so confirm your obligations against the current statute or with a community association attorney.