The bill to loosen California's $100 HOA fine cap died in May
The bill to loosen California's $100 HOA fine cap died in May
2026-09-09 · California · Legislation · Did not pass
California's $100 cap on most homeowners association fines survives the 2026 session unchanged. The bill that would have loosened it — AB 2579 — died four months before the session ended, and it died at its own author's request.1
The final action, dated May 21, 2026, reads: “Ordered to inactive file at the request of Assembly Member Petrie-Norris.” It never came off, missed the house-of-origin deadline, and is finished.
The cap it would have changed
AB 130, signed June 30, 2025 and effective immediately, amended Civil Code section 5850 to cap most association fines at $100 per violation, with a general exception for violations having an adverse impact on health or safety.
That cap took effect fast and has governed association enforcement ever since. AB 2579, authored by Assemblymember Cottie Petrie-Norris, was the attempt to work on it.
What it would have done
The bill would have amended Civil Code sections 5850 and 5855 and added section 5851.2
It would have removed the blanket $100 cap and replaced the general health-and-safety exception with a detailed enumerated list of violations permitting higher penalties: storage of flammable or combustible material in a common area, architectural safety issues, animal control violations, maintenance problems, common area damage, and violent acts.
It would then have directed the Department of Real Estate to publish, by January 1, 2028, a comprehensive list of violations justifying penalties above $100 — “limited to violations that are clearly defined and address significant risks to health, safety, or the integrity” of the development.
And it would have closed the cure loophole
The second half is the part boards raised first after AB 130. Section 5855 would have been clarified so that “a member engaged in habitual, repeated, or continuing violations is not deemed to have cured a violation simply because the violation is not occurring at the time of the hearing.”
That addresses a specific pattern: an owner who stops the conduct the day before the hearing, is treated as having cured, and resumes afterward.
What this means for boards: the current rules are confirmed, not paused
AB 2579's death is a confirmation story rather than a change story, and confirmations are worth publishing because boards act on rumors of pending relief.
The $100 cap stands. Civil Code section 5850's limit applies to monetary penalties for governing document violations, and no enumerated list has replaced the general standard.
The health-and-safety exception remains a general standard. This is the operationally significant point. AB 2579 would have converted a judgment call into a list, and a list is easier to apply and easier to defend. Without it, an association imposing a penalty above $100 is asserting that the violation has an adverse impact on health or safety, and bears the burden of that characterization on its own facts.
The Department of Real Estate is not producing a list. Boards waiting for state guidance in 2028 should stop waiting; that assignment died with the bill.
The cure problem is unfixed. An owner whose violation has stopped by the hearing date may argue the violation is cured. Associations facing habitual violators have the tools they had before — a documented history, separate notices for separate occurrences, and the general enforcement provisions — and nothing new.
A bill its own author shelved
The procedural history is unusual enough to be worth reading closely.
AB 2579 was referred to the Appropriations suspense file on May 13, 2026, and the committee passed it 15–0 the next day with Joint Rule 62(a) notice suspended. It was read a second time on May 18 and ordered to third reading. Three days later its author moved it to the inactive file.
A bill on the inactive file can be revived by its author. This one was not, through more than three months of remaining session. The bill had CAI-CLAC's support and a unanimous committee vote behind it, which makes the decision to shelve it a genuine question rather than a formality — and one the record does not answer.
What it does not affect
The bill's death does not touch the other AB 130 changes to association enforcement, which remain in force. Nor does it affect an association's non-monetary remedies: suspension of privileges, alternative dispute resolution, and injunctive relief are outside the fine cap entirely.
That last point deserves emphasis for boards frustrated by the cap. The $100 limit is a limit on monetary penalties. It is not a limit on enforcement, and an association that treats fines as its only tool has been under-using the ones the cap does not reach.
What to watch next
Because 2026 closed a two-year session, AB 2579 cannot be revived. A successor would be a new bill in the 2027–2028 session convening December 2026.
Whether one appears is worth watching for a specific reason: the $100 cap arrived in 2025 through AB 130, a broad housing measure, rather than through a dedicated common interest development bill. Provisions that arrive that way tend to be revisited once their operational effects surface — and the first full year of the cap's operation will have produced exactly the kind of evidence a 2027 bill would be built on.
Related California HOA Topics
- AB 2579, California Legislature — bill status and history (ordered to inactive file at the author's request, May 21, 2026) ↩
- AB 2579, California Legislature — bill text and Legislative Counsel's Digest (amending Civil Code §§ 5850, 5855; adding § 5851) ↩
- Civil Code § 5850, California Legislative Information — current operative text of the monetary penalty provisions ↩
- CAI-CLAC, Legislative Session Hot Bills — position (support), status recorded as Assembly Inactive File ↩
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