Membership is typically tied to property ownership, not residency — the owner of record on the deed is the HOA member, whether or not they actually live in the unit. A tenant renting from an owner is not automatically an HOA member and generally doesn't have voting rights, even though they're subject to many of the community's day-to-day rules while living there.

Most communities assign one vote per unit or lot, regardless of how many people share ownership of that property, though exact voting structures are set out in the governing documents and can vary. Multiple owners of a single unit typically need to designate how their shared vote gets cast, since the association generally can't accept multiple, potentially conflicting votes from one property.

Membership automatically comes with the obligation to pay assessments and follow the community's CC&Rs — this isn't optional or something an owner can decline, since it's a condition of owning property within the community, recorded against the property itself. New owners are bound by these obligations from the moment they take title, even if they never formally "joined" anything in the way a voluntary club membership works.