HOA Board Turnover: What 3,152 Expired Colorado HOAs Show

The short answer

1. When an HOA board member steps down, what they knew can leave with them. Colorado listed 3,152 HOA registrations as expired at the end of 2025, and its HOA Center names board turnover as one reason: when a board member steps down, knowledge of the registration requirement can be lost.
2. Boards also change how they run, in big numbers. Colorado's share of HOAs reporting professional management went from 61% in 2018 to 80% in 2022, 2023 and 2024, and stood at 75% in 2025.
3. So every new treasurer is already a cut-over. Give each seat change a date and a short list, and run it the same way every year.

At the end of 2025, Colorado's Division of Real Estate had 3,152 homeowners associations on its books as "Expired." Each had registered once and not renewed, and until it registers again, the law says it cannot impose or enforce a lien for assessments.

The state's HOA Information and Resource Center offers three explanations in its 2025 annual report. One is a missed deadline. One is a penalty that may not deter boards enough. The middle one is the one every board should read twice: "When an existing board member steps down or a manager is terminated, knowledge of the state registration requirement can be lost."

That is a story about people, not software. The lien rule is § 38-33.3-401(3), and it lifts only when the association registers again.

This is general information, not legal advice; your governing documents and your state's statute come first.

The count: What one state's registry shows

Colorado keeps a public count. Its law requires every association to register with the state each year, and its HOA Center publishes the totals in an annual report: a public, yearly count of who is registered and who has lapsed.

11,767 HOA registrations on file in Colorado at the end of 2025: 8,615 active and 3,152 expired. — Colorado Division of Real Estate, HOA Information & Resource Center, 2025 Annual Report

The same report counts 1,084,321 homes in those registrations and estimates about 2.75 million Coloradans living in an HOA. The communities are small: the median registration has 32 units. And 2,672 registrations reported that the association is self-managed.

Thirty-two homes is a community where the board is the staff.

The churn: The people change on a schedule

The HOA Center says it plainly: "regular turnover of HOA boards, as well as community managers, tends to lead to a net decline in institutional knowledge (much like the turnover of employees in the private sector)."

Turnover is not a failure. It is how a volunteer board is built: terms end, people sell their homes, and a treasurer who said yes for one year eventually says no.

Florida's law treats every new director as an event with its own clock. Under § 720.3033(1), each newly elected or appointed director must complete department-approved education and submit the certificate within 90 days. A director who does not is suspended from the board until they do.

Your community does not need to change software or managers to have a cut-over. It has one every time a seat changes hands.

Colorado writes the same idea into registration. The association's registered details, including its management company or designated agent and its contact information, have to be "updated within ninety days after any change" (§ 38-33.3-401(2)(a)). And the HOA Center sends its renewal notice by email about a month before the registration expires. If the contact on file belongs to a treasurer who left, the reminder goes to someone who no longer reads it for the community.

The switch: Boards change how they run, too

People are not the only thing that moves. Colorado also tracks how each registered HOA says it is run: self-managed or professionally managed.

Share of Colorado HOAs reporting professional management, from the HOA Center's 2025 annual report:

• 2018: 61%
• 2019: 56%
• 2020: 60%
• 2021: 59%
• 2022 to 2024: 80%
• 2025: 75%

The 2025 figure is the report's chart; counted against every registration, including those that did not say how they are run, the share is 68%.

The HOA Center counts hybrid arrangements, where a board hands some work to a company and keeps the rest, as professional management. It suggests the pandemic pushed some boards to hire help, when meetings went online and quorum and voting got confusing, and it lists what drives the choice: size, cost, whether a company is nearby, the board's experience and its time.

Two things follow. First, the decision is live: the HOA Center reads the jump as boards' preference shifting, and 59% to 80% in a single year is not a rounding error. Second, a statewide share is a net number. It shows where the total landed, not how many communities moved each way. Some boards hired a company; others let one go. Each of those was a handover.

The next count: What the state starts asking

Colorado is about to know more. For registrations and renewals from October 1, 2025, the HOA Center began asking two optional questions: how many board positions the association's governing documents set, and how many were vacant on the day it registered. House Bill 25-1043 also made several collection questions required, including how many owners were six or more months behind on assessments in the past year.

Worth knowing The vacancy questions are optional, so the first counts will be partial. The HOA Center says the new answers will appear in future annual reports.

That is the forward look: a state that already names turnover as a cost is starting to measure empty seats directly.

The plan: Give every seat change a date

A cut-over is a date, not a project. On that date, the open work and the people move to the new hands. Past years can follow as a file anyone can read. Run it the same way every time a seat changes, so it never depends on who happens to remember.

One cut-over, every time a seat changes hands.

1. The date: Put it on the calendar: the first board meeting after the election, or within 30 days of a resignation.
2. The registry: Check what your state holds for your community: the agent, the email, the phone. Fix anything that names someone who has left.
3. The money: Change bank signers and online access on the date, not "soon."
4. The open items: List every approval, violation, claim and contract still in motion, each with an owner and a date.
5. The archive: Move closed years into a shared folder the whole board can open. They do not need to be re-entered.

Then check where you stand tonight:

• We know the date our state registration, if our state requires one, next expires.
• The email on file with the state reaches a current board member.
• Every bank signer is a current board member.
• Our open items are written down somewhere the whole board can see.
• Last year's records are in a shared folder, not one person's inbox.

An empty box is the next meeting's work. Open items are where handovers break most often:

The five open items boards lose in a handover

The sentence: What to say at the next meeting

Boards fear a switch because they picture moving every past year at once. Colorado's count points to the bigger risk: the switch nobody plans, where a treasurer moves away and the renewal notice goes to an inbox nobody reads.

So say this at the next meeting: "Every election is a cut-over. Let's set the date and the list now, while the people who know are still on the board."

Every seat change is a cut-over. Give it a date, a list and an owner, and the next new treasurer starts with what the last one knew.

Frequently asked questions

How often do HOA boards turn over? It depends on your bylaws, which set term lengths and how many seats are elected each year. No national count of turnover is published that we could verify. Colorado's HOA Center calls board turnover "regular" and names it as one reason associations let their state registration lapse. Since October 1, 2025, it has asked registering associations how many board seats are vacant.

What happens if a Colorado HOA's registration expires? Under § 38-33.3-401(3), the association's right to impose or enforce a lien for assessments, and to use certain enforcement remedies, is suspended until it registers again. Registering again restores them, and a lien recorded while the association was validly registered is not wiped out by the lapse.

Do we have to move every old record when a new treasurer starts? Not into a new system. What moves on the date is the open work: balances, bank access, approvals and items still in motion. Closed years can be handed over as a complete, readable archive the whole board can open. Keep them for as long as your state's statute and your documents require.