An HOA or condo board is one of the strangest jobs in volunteer life: legal authority you didn’t ask for, fiduciary duties that don’t pause for the weekend, and the people you serve are the people you see at the mailbox. We’ve worked alongside community boards across Washington for decades. We counsel them, defend them, and help them rebuild after a hard year.
Talk to an association attorneyWe represent condominium and homeowner associations across Washington, from new builds taking the keys from the declarant to long-standing communities working through defect claims, governance friction, and the occasional member dispute that ends up in court. For boards, we handle covenant interpretation and amendments, CC&R enforcement, collections and liens, reserve and disclosure compliance, construction-defect litigation, and the harder member conversations boards do not want to handle alone.
Meeting protocols, fiduciary-duty training, board orientation, and the everyday legal questions that arise between meetings.
Reading the declaration and rules in real-world context, with the written guidance boards rely on when an enforcement decision is contested.
Investigation, expert coordination, mediation, and trial work on envelope, warranty, and construction-defect matters.
Demand letters, payment plans, and the structured collections rhythm that keeps the operating budget sound.
Recording, perfecting, and enforcing assessment liens, through judicial foreclosure when voluntary cure isn’t forthcoming.
Reserves analysis, funding strategy, and disclosure compliance under the 2026 WUCIOA amendments.
Rule drafting, enforcement, and the litigation work when a covenant or amendment is challenged.
Policy review, claims handling, and the coverage disputes that come up after defect or governance matters.
Reasonable-accommodation analysis, service-animal requests, and the federal and state compliance framework boards rely on.
HOA clients return for the same three reasons. None of them is the matter at hand. It’s the next one.
Your manager can pick up the phone Tuesday morning. The right shareholder is on it that afternoon, not the following week.
Most defect matters touch governance. Most governance matters touch enforcement. The same firm handles all three without handoffs.
We prefer settlement, but the cases we don’t try often resolve faster because the other side knows we’re prepared to try them.
We read the declaration, bylaws, rules, and last twelve months of minutes. Most strategy questions answer themselves once we’ve read the documents.
Map the immediate matter, the governance backdrop, and the items the board didn’t know to ask about. A short written memo follows.
We propose the policy framework, demand path, or amendment plan in plain language, with the trade-offs and the realistic timeline.
Demand letters, governance amendments, hearings, or filings. Senior attorney handling drafting from the first version.
Most matters resolve here. We arrive prepared as if for trial, which usually shapes the resolution favorably.
Boards turn over. We stay. The institutional memory and the document set are with the firm regardless of who’s in the next chair.
We handle developer-to-owner transition: warranty review, reserve study analysis, governance setup, and the early-decision framework that sets the next twenty years.
We coordinate inspection, expert workups, demand, and mediation. Most matters resolve before trial, but the preparation discipline is what makes the resolution favorable.
We defend the board’s authority through the hearing process and, if necessary, through litigation. The procedural record matters; we help boards build one that holds up.
We rewrite the declaration, bylaws, and rules to match current Washington law and the way the community actually operates. Member approval, on a real timeline.
Board’s counsel through investigation, expert-witness assembly, mediation, and a settlement that funded the building’s envelope-repair program in full, coordinated with the special-assessment process.
Worked with the board to rewrite outdated covenants, modernize the architectural-review process, and bring the rules into line with current Washington law. Membership approved by a comfortable margin.
Managed assessment collections for a self-managed community of 180 lots; resolved roughly 80 percent at the demand-letter stage and pursued judicial foreclosure on the remainder.
Most engagements are hourly, with a monthly cap or fixed monthly retainer available for ongoing general-counsel work. Special matters (defect, major litigation) are billed separately with a written budget for each phase.
Managers handle most things well. Boards typically need counsel for the harder governance questions, the demand letters that need to come from an attorney, defect matters, and the document-rewrite projects. We work alongside your manager, not in place of one.
The 2026 WUCIOA amendments cleaned up several issues around reserves disclosure, electronic and hybrid meetings, and pre-litigation collection notices. Most boards need a one-page policy refresh and a notice-template update.
Yes. Most boards have D&O coverage through their association policy, and we coordinate with the carrier on defense. Volunteer-board members are usually entitled to indemnification from the association under the governing documents and Washington law.
Drafting takes weeks. Member approval usually takes three to six months, depending on the percentage required and the level of owner education needed. We help boards plan the timing.
Steady documents, calm hearings, and the counsel a community can lean on.
Oseran Hahn P.S. · 11225 SE 6th St, Suite 100 · Bellevue, WA 98004
This content is provided for general informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. Viewing this page does not create an attorney–client relationship.
