The $26,000 Letter: What Emergency Assessments Mean for Every Condo Owner

A letter arrives. Your share of a new roof is more than $26,000, it is due, and nobody asked you to vote on it. That is the position owners at Villa Moura, a 198-unit condominium complex in San Clemente, California, say they are in.

The dollar figure is what makes the story travel. The part that matters to every condo owner in California is narrower and duller: there is a specific, short list of situations in which a board may levy a large assessment without a vote, and everything turns on whether this one is on it.

What was reported

ABC7 Los Angeles reported on September 1, 2026 that owners in the 198-unit complex were each assessed more than $26,000 for roof replacement, issued as an emergency assessment, which under California law proceeds without an owner vote.

Owners told the station the work is deferred maintenance rather than an emergency, citing section 5610 by name, and that a vote was therefore required. They also dispute the scope, arguing the underlayment needs replacing rather than every tile, and say they want multiple competitive bids. They are seeking to recall board members and filing a claim alleging the board violated the law; a lawsuit is described as under consideration rather than filed. One owner said the board threatened to place liens on properties of those who do not pay.

The board has not publicly stated the basis for the assessment. It told ABC7 it could not comment because of ongoing legal matters, so the reasoning behind the emergency classification is not on the record anywhere. We take no position on who is right. What follows is the law the argument will be decided under, and nothing here is a finding about this association.

The default rule: over a threshold, owners vote

Under California Civil Code section 5605(b), a board may not impose special assessments which in the aggregate exceed 5 percent of the association's budgeted gross expenses for that fiscal year without the approval of a majority of a quorum of members. The same section caps a regular assessment increase at 20 percent over the prior fiscal year on the same terms.

Read that threshold carefully, because it is widely misquoted. It is not 5 percent of your unit's value, or of the reserve balance, or of the project cost. It is 5 percent of what the association budgeted to spend that year, counted in the aggregate across the year's special assessments. For most associations that is a low bar, and a roof project clears it easily.

So the default for a project of this size is: the owners vote.

The exception, and it is a closed list of three

Section 5610 says section 5605 does not limit assessment increases necessary for emergency situations, and then defines an emergency situation as any one of the following three things:

1. An extraordinary expense required by an order of a court.
2. An extraordinary expense necessary to operate, repair, or maintain the development where a threat to personal health or safety, or another hazardous condition or circumstance on the property, is discovered.
3. An extraordinary expense necessary to repair or maintain the development that could not have been reasonably foreseen by the board in preparing and distributing the annual budget report.

That list is the whole exception. There is no general "the board decided it was urgent" category, and calling something an emergency in a letter does not place it on the list.

"Emergency" here is a legal term, not a description of how worried anyone is. A roof can be genuinely, urgently failing and still fail this test, because the question is not how badly the work is needed now. For the third category it is whether the need could have been reasonably foreseen when the budget was prepared.

That is the crux of the owners' argument as they put it: a roof wears out on a schedule everyone can see coming, reserve studies exist to anticipate exactly this, and deferred maintenance is the opposite of unforeseeable. Whether that argument succeeds is not something this article can tell you, and the association has not given its side.

The one document to ask for

The third category carries a requirement the first two do not, and it is the single most useful thing an owner in this situation can request.

Before imposing or collecting an assessment under the unforeseeable-expense category, the board must pass a resolution containing written findings setting out why the expense is necessary and why it was not, or could not have been, reasonably foreseen in the budgeting process. That resolution must be distributed to members with the notice of assessment.

So:

• If you received a written-findings resolution with your notice, the board is relying on the unforeseeable-expense category, and the resolution is its own explanation of why the expense could not have been anticipated. That document is where the argument actually lives.
• If you received no such resolution, either the board is relying on one of the other two categories, a court order or a discovered hazard, or the requirement was not met. Which of those it is, is worth establishing early and in writing.

This version of section 5610 was amended effective January 1, 2025, so it is the current text rather than an older rule some online summaries still describe.

Notice, and what a lien can and cannot do

Two more provisions are worth knowing before anyone panics about the letter.

Notice timing. Under section 5615, an association must give individual notice of any increase in regular or special assessments not less than 30 and not more than 60 days before the increased assessment becomes due. A demand that is payable sooner than that window allows is worth asking about.

Foreclosure has a floor, and it will not help here. Under section 5720, an association may not collect a delinquent assessment debt of less than $1,800 through judicial or nonjudicial foreclosure, though it may still sue in small claims court and pursue the debt other ways. That figure excludes late charges, collection costs, attorney's fees and interest.

Be clear-eyed about that one: at more than $26,000 a unit, the $1,800 floor offers these owners no protection at all. It is a real protection against foreclosure over a few missed monthly dues. It is not a shield against a large special assessment, and anyone telling owners otherwise is misreading it.

If you are the owner holding the letter

None of this is legal advice, and a five-figure assessment is worth an hour with a California community association attorney. The groundwork, though, is yours and it is mostly paperwork:

1. Request the written-findings resolution and the notice of assessment, in writing.
2. Request the reserve study and the last few years of budget reports. If the roof appears there with a projected replacement date, that is directly relevant to whether the expense was foreseeable.
3. Request the board minutes covering the decision and the meeting at which the assessment was adopted.
4. Check the dates against the 30-to-60 day notice window.
5. Keep paying while you dispute. This ordering protects you. Withholding usually adds late charges, collection costs and interest on top of the original amount, and those are exactly the categories the $1,800 floor does not count.
6. Organise with your neighbours, and write things down. A recall, an election challenge and a claim all run on records and dates.

If you are buying a California condo

Ask for these before you close, and read them rather than skim them:

• The reserve study, and specifically whether major components are funded on schedule or deferred. A well-funded reserve is the difference between a planned expense and a $26,000 letter.
• The last two years of minutes. Deferred maintenance arguments appear there long before they appear in an assessment.
• Any special assessment in the last five years, its amount, and whether it went to a vote.
• The current budgeted gross expenses, which is what the 5 percent voting threshold is measured against.

We covered the same shape of dispute in Florida, where a judge later found the meeting notice violated the state's 14-day rule, in what the Villa Medici assessment fight means for Orlando condo buyers. And if you are financing, an association with deferred structural maintenance now affects whether the loan happens at all, which we covered in what Fannie Mae's full review rules mean for buyers.

Why none of this reaches a listing

A listing shows a monthly HOA fee. It does not show a reserve study, a deferred roof, or a board that has taken to declaring emergencies. The fee is the number you can see, and it is the least predictive thing on the page.

That is the gap this site exists to close. Villa Moura does not have a profile on HOAReview yet, so if you live there, request the community and it will be added. You can browse California associations already on the site or search for your own.

Source: ABC7 Los Angeles, reported by Leanne Suter, September 1, 2026. Read the full report. Statutory text is drawn from California Civil Code sections 5605, 5610, 5615 and 5720 as currently in force. This post is general information about California law, not legal advice, and it is not a finding about any association.