Passed 40-0 and still died: the construction defect overhaul HOAs fought is gone
Passed 40-0 and still died: the construction defect overhaul HOAs fought is gone
2026-09-09 · California · Legislation · Did not pass
The most consequential construction defect bill California has seen in years never drew a single no vote — and it is dead. AB 1903 passed the Assembly 70–0 in May and the Senate 40–0 on the final night of session. It then needed one more Assembly vote to concur in the Senate's amendments, and the clock ran out.1
The bill's last recorded action, dated September 2, 2026, reads: “In Assembly. Held at Desk.”2
What it would have done
AB 1903, authored by Assemblymembers Buffy Wicks and Lori Wilson with Senator Josh Becker as principal coauthor, would have rewritten the Right to Repair Act — the SB 800 framework at Civil Code sections 895 through 945.5 that governs residential construction defect claims in California.
It would have amended Civil Code sections 895, 896, 897, 910, 930 and 942, added sections 898, 942.2, 945.1 and 945.6 and a new chapter at section 945.9, and repealed and re-added section 926.3
The core of it: homeowners would have had to document defects before filing suit and give the builder an opportunity to repair, and a builder who completed repairs would have been absolved of future liability for them.
The provision associations opposed
One change drew the organized opposition. The bill would have authorized a builder to obtain a release or waiver in exchange for repair work — reversing an existing prohibition.
The Legislative Counsel’s Digest states it plainly: the bill “would repeal the prohibition on, and, instead, authorize, a builder to obtain a release or waiver in exchange for certain repair work, as specified.” The operative language, in an amended section 926, read: “With agreement of the claimant and the builder, the builder may obtain a release or waiver of any kind in exchange for the repair work pursuant to this chapter effective one year after the conclusion of the repair.”
Under current law a builder who repairs a defect cannot demand that the owner sign away claims as the price of the repair. AB 1903 would have permitted exactly that trade.
It also revised the standards themselves: water intrusion at doors, windows, roofs, decks, foundations, stucco, plumbing and showers; structural standards for cracking, vertical displacement and earthquake and wind code compliance; soils and retaining walls; fire code compliance. And it narrowed the catch-all, so that an unaddressed function or component would be actionable only “if it causes damage to another component part.”
An insurance provision, effective July 1, 2027, would have barred insurers from characterizing repairs as voluntary payments or refusing to apply repair costs against deductibles and self-insured retentions.
Who was on which side
Opposed: Consumer Attorneys of California and homeowners associations. Supported: the California Building Industry Association, YIMBY organizations, cities and real estate interests.
What this means for associations: nothing changed, and that is the point
The Right to Repair Act stands exactly as it did. The prelitigation procedures at Civil Code sections 910 through 938 are unamended. The standards at section 896 are unamended. And the prohibition on a builder conditioning repair work on a release remains in place.
For an association currently in or approaching a construction defect claim, the practical consequence is that the analysis its counsel performed before August 31 is still the correct analysis. No transition rule applies, because there is no transition.
That is worth stating plainly because dead bills generate persistent confusion. A board that heard in June that “California is changing its construction defect law” and deferred a decision on that basis has been waiting for something that will not arrive.
How a unanimous bill dies
The mechanics are worth understanding, because they will recur.
When the second house amends a bill, the originating house must vote to concur in those amendments before the bill can be enrolled. That concurrence vote is a real vote with a real deadline. The Senate passed AB 1903 after 11:15 p.m. on August 31 — the constitutional last day for either house to pass bills. The Assembly never took the concurrence vote before midnight.
The bill therefore died holding two unanimous roll calls and no opposition on the record anywhere.
Author Buffy Wicks said she was “incredibly disappointed and frustrated” that the bill “was ultimately held by the Senate.” A lobbyist for the urban policy group SPUR alleged that Senate Judiciary chair Tom Umberg had been “moving the goal posts and running out the clock.”4
It cannot come back this session
This is the part boards most often get wrong. California runs two-year sessions, and a bill introduced in the first year can carry into the second. 2026 was the second year. The 2025–2026 session has adjourned sine die, and nothing carries past it.
AB 1903 is not parked in committee awaiting January. It is over. Any successor must be introduced as a new bill, with a new number, in the 2027–2028 session convening in December 2026, and must start again at the first committee.
What to watch next
Expect a successor. A measure that cleared both houses without a dissenting vote has demonstrated something about its support that a failed floor vote would not: the coalition held, and the failure was procedural.
What is genuinely unpredictable is whether the successor carries the same release-in-exchange-for-repair provision. That was the term associations and consumer attorneys fought, and a bill reintroduced in January will be negotiated against a year of additional pressure on housing production.
Associations with active or contemplated defect claims should watch introductions in the first weeks of the new session — and should not assume a successor will resemble AB 1903 in its final amended form. It reached the last night having been amended repeatedly; the version that died is not necessarily the version that returns.
Related California HOA Topics
- AB 1903, California Legislature — bill status (Right to Repair Act) ↩
- AB 1903, California Legislature — complete bill history, showing 'In Assembly. Held at Desk.' on 09/02/26 as the final action ↩
- AB 1903, California Legislature — bill text and Legislative Counsel's Digest (amending Civil Code §§ 895, 896, 897, 910, 930, 942; adding §§ 898, 942.2, 945.1, 945.6, 945.9) ↩
- CalMatters, 'Why a bill to juice condo construction died even though California lawmakers voted for it' (September 2026) ↩
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