Washington HOA & condo associations in court: the numbers

Washington on the map

335 of the 545 communities with court records (rings, coloured by their most common case type) have an address or ZIP in the record and are drawn here; the rest have no location in any record and are not on the map, but stay searchable. Click a pin for the community's report, or open the full-screen map.

HOA Spy indexes 16,591 Washington homeowner and condominium associations. 545 of them appear in 852 court records — 0 from county and state trial courts, 475 from appellate courts and 377 from federal dockets. Washington ranks 13th of the 15 states with the most court records on HOA Spy. Every number on this page is computed from official court and county records; data as of 2026-10-02.

The facts

• The records are spread thin: 373 of the 545 communities with a court record appear in exactly one case, and the ten most-litigated together hold only 9% of the records.
• Associations are usually the ones suing: they were the plaintiff in 480 records and the defendant in 129 — 79% of the cases with a known side were brought by the association, typically to collect assessments.
• The busiest year on file was 2020, with 44 records. The last full year, 2025, had 17 — down 61% on 2020 (44).
• Appellate cases make up 56% of the records (475): decisions of the state's appellate courts. Next come Insurance cases (229).
• HOA Spy indexes no Washington trial court yet, so these are appellate decisions (475) and federal dockets (377) only — the county-court suits where most HOA litigation happens are not counted here.
• 26 records are fair-housing, disability-accommodation or other civil-rights suits — the kind of case a buyer with a service animal or an accessibility request should know about.
• 3,194 associations (19% of those indexed) are not in good standing with the state's corporate registry.

What the cases are about

Each court record is labelled by its nature of suit the way the map colours it. Washington's 852 records break down as:

• Appellate475 · 56%
• Insurance229 · 27%
• Other92 · 11%
• Civil Rights26 · 3%
• Foreclosure11 · 1%
• Collections8 · 1%
• Property6 · 1%
• Tax4 · 0%
• Labor1 · 0%

Appellate: decisions of the state's appellate courts · Insurance: coverage disputes with an insurer · Other: dockets that carry no nature of suit or one outside these groups (county civil dockets often say only "civil") · Civil Rights: fair-housing, disability-accommodation and other civil-rights claims · Foreclosure: the association foreclosing its lien, or named in a lender's foreclosure · Collections: assessment, debt and contract claims · Property: property and condominium disputes · Tax: tax matters · Labor: employment and labor claims

Who is suing whom

The side comes from the role the court recorded for the association where the docket gives one, otherwise from which side of the “v.” the association's name sits. Appeals, petitions and association-versus-association captions stay undetermined.

Filings by year

court records · 2026 is partial

The oldest records on file date from 1982. Years reflect the filing date on the docket (the decision date for appellate opinions); records with no date are left out. Coverage grows as courts are added, so part of any rise is HOA Spy reaching more dockets — see the sources below.

Where the cases are

The county is the community's own (from its registration or ZIP), not the court's. Courts with the most Washington records: Court of Appeals of Washington (379); District Court, W.D. Washington (339); Washington Supreme Court (96); District Court, E.D. Washington (32); Supreme Court of the United States (3); Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit (3).

Associations with the most court records

A long record is not by itself a verdict on a community: a large association collecting assessments through the courts can have hundreds of small-claims entries. Open the profile to see what the cases are and who brought them.

Corporate standing

Status as the registry lists it: active (13,172), administratively dissolved (2,408), delinquent (392), inactive (246), voluntarily dissolved (108), expired (33). An association that lets its corporation lapse can lose the right to sue in its own name until it is reinstated.

How Washington compares

The states with the most court records on HOA Spy. The share column is the part of each state's indexed communities that appear in at least one case; it depends on which courts are indexed there as much as on the communities themselves.

Where this data comes from

• Federal dockets and state appellate opinions: CourtListener (RECAP archive and bulk data, snapshot 2026-09-30)
• Corporate standing: Washington Secretary of State — Corporations & Charities Filing System (CCFS) (20,148 records)
• IRS roster: IRS Exempt Organizations Business Master File (157 records)
• Not collected: SOS CCFS bulk extract — discontinued (was free); the search UI is Turnstile-gated and its export buttons are disabled — swept page by page instead (get_wa_ccfs.py)
• Not collected: King County recorder bulk — paid

Most HOA litigation happens in state trial courts, which have no national index; HOA Spy reads the portals it can. A Washington community outside the indexed courts can have cases this page does not count. Names are matched conservatively, so an ambiguous match is left out rather than guessed. Sources & methodology.

Questions people ask

How many HOA lawsuits are filed in Washington each year?

In 2025, the last full year, 17 court records naming a Washington community association were filed in the courts HOA Spy indexes; the five-year average is 26 a year. The busiest year on file is 2020 with 44.

Which Washington associations have the most court cases?

By records on file: Community Association for Restoration of the Environment (18); Sixty-01 Association of Apartment Owners (11); SUDDEN VALLEY COMMUNITY ASSOCIATION (10). Most of these are suits the associations brought themselves, typically to collect assessments.

Do Washington HOAs sue homeowners more than they get sued?

In the records with a known side, the association was the plaintiff 480 times and the defendant 129 times. Suits brought by associations are typically assessment collection and lien enforcement; suits against them typically come from owners, insurers or lenders.

How do I check a specific Washington HOA?

Search it by name on HOA Spy: the report lists every lien, case and complaint on file with a link to the official record, and says which sources were checked. Communities with records also have a profile page under the Washington directory. Data as of 2026-10-02.