Signed and effective now: AB 2692 lets burned-out LA County HOAs revive terminated CC&Rs
Signed and effective now: AB 2692 lets burned-out LA County HOAs revive terminated CC&Rs
2026-09-09 · California · Legislation
A California common interest development whose declaration has been terminated cannot ordinarily bring it back. For associations in Los Angeles County rebuilding after the 2025 Palisades and Eaton fires, that changed on August 24, 2026.
AB 2692 was approved by the Governor that day and chaptered as Chapter 124, Statutes of 2026. It is an urgency statute requiring a two-thirds vote, which means it took effect immediately on signing rather than on the following January 1.1
Authored by Assemblymember Jacqui Irwin, the bill adds and repeals Civil Code section 4276. The Assembly concurred in the Senate amendments 75–0 on August 6, and the bill was enrolled and presented on August 12.
The problem it addresses
Declarations can terminate — by their own terms, by expiry of a stated term, or through a termination vote. When a development is then destroyed, the owners who want to rebuild as a community may find they no longer have the instrument that made them one: no architectural standards, no maintenance obligations, no assessment power, no association.
The urgency clause states the purpose in those terms: to prevent displacement and promote the rebuilding of common interest developments damaged or destroyed by the 2025 fires.2
How reinstatement works
The approval threshold is the percentage the declaration itself required for extending its term. Where the declaration is silent, the threshold is a majority of all members.
Reinstatement takes effect only after three steps: member approval at that threshold; written certification by a designated officer or the association president; and recording with the county recorder.
The renewed term equals the number of years of the initial term of the declaration, or 20 years, whichever is less.
Balloting must follow the governing documents and applicable law, with a “reasonably diligent effort” to allow all eligible members to vote — a standard that matters in a community whose members are dispersed after a fire. Recorded copies must be delivered to members within a reasonable time.
Two limits that define it
The section applies exclusively to Los Angeles County. And it repeals itself: section 4276 “shall remain in effect only until January 1, 2028, and as of that date is repealed.”
What it changes for boards and owners
The deadline is the story. A statute that repeals itself on January 1, 2028 gives affected communities roughly sixteen months from today. Reinstatement requires a membership vote, an officer certification and a recording — a sequence that takes months in a functioning association and longer in one whose members are scattered across temporary housing.
“Reasonably diligent effort” is the provision that will be tested. After a total loss, the association's address list points at destroyed buildings. Members are in rentals, with relatives, out of state. The statute does not define the standard, and an association that mails to the last known address and stops has a weak record. Contemporaneous documentation of the effort — forwarding addresses obtained, email and telephone outreach, notices published — is what supports the certification.
The threshold may be lower than boards assume. The percentage is the one for extending the term, not the one for amending the declaration, and those are frequently different numbers. In a declaration silent on extension, it is a majority of all members. The correct figure is in the association's own instrument; a supermajority is not the default.
The renewed term may be shorter than the original. It is the initial term or 20 years, whichever is less. A declaration originally written for 40 years comes back for 20. That is a finite horizon, and one a reinstating community should understand at the outset rather than discover later.
Recording is what makes it real. A vote and a certification without a recorded instrument do not reinstate anything. In a rebuild where lenders, insurers and title companies are all examining the state of title, the recorded reinstatement is the document that establishes the association exists.
What it does not do
AB 2692 does not create an association where none existed, does not revive a dissolved corporation, and does not resolve the corporate side of the problem at all. An association whose nonprofit mutual benefit corporation has been suspended or dissolved has a Corporations Code question that section 4276 does not touch.
It does not apply outside Los Angeles County. Communities elsewhere in California facing the same problem after a different disaster have no equivalent provision, and would need new legislation — which, because the 2025–2026 session has closed, could not be introduced before December 2026.
And it does not reinstate a declaration on its own motion. Every step is the association's to take.
What to watch next
The practical question for the fire footprint is how many communities are in a position to use this. A terminated declaration and a destroyed development frequently mean no functioning board, which raises the question of who convenes the vote and who signs the certification — the statute contemplates a designated officer or the association president, and a community without either has a first problem to solve before it reaches the second.
Associations rebuilding under a reinstated declaration should also expect the ordinary insurance and reserve obligations to attach again on reinstatement, including the exterior elevated element inspection duties for qualifying buildings. Reinstatement restores the instrument and the statutory scheme that runs with it.
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