AB 739 would make California HOA management fee breakdowns an inspectable record
AB 739 would make California HOA management fee breakdowns an inspectable record
2026-09-09 · California · Legislation · Pending — not yet law
A bill that would require California homeowners association boards to review an itemized breakdown of what their management company charges — and make that breakdown a record any member can inspect — is awaiting the Governor's signature. AB 739 is not law. It was enrolled and presented to Governor Gavin Newsom on September 3, 2026.1
Authored by Assemblymember Corey Jackson and introduced on February 18, 2025, AB 739 is a two-year bill that survived a full session cycle. The Senate passed it 38–0 on August 25 and the Assembly concurred 79–0 the next day. It is a non-fiscal, majority-vote measure with no urgency clause.
The annual fee statement
The bill adds subdivision (g) to Civil Code section 5500, requiring the board to annually review a statement of fees charged by the managing agent. The statement must contain the time period covered, the total number of separate interests during that period, the total amount billed and paid to the managing agent, and a breakdown by category.2
The categorization is the substance of the bill, and it is three-way:
Base management fees — fixed or recurring compensation. Fee schedule charges — additional optional services. Reimbursable expenses — third-party costs passed through.
And it becomes a record members can inspect
Civil Code section 5200 defines what counts as an association record for inspection purposes. AB 739 adds a new item (16): “Statements of fees charged by the managing agent pursuant to subdivision (g) of Section 5500.”
That places the fee statement inside the records inspection regime, with the same access rights, timelines and redaction rules that attach to other association records.
What it is not
AB 739 contains no fee caps and no limiting language. It is a disclosure bill. An association whose manager charges a high per-door rate or an extensive menu of ancillary fees would be required to see those figures categorized and to make the statement available — not to renegotiate them.
“Managing agent” excludes association employees, so self-managed associations are not swept in.
What it would change for boards and managers
The three-way split is the whole point, and it is aimed at a specific complaint. Owners comparing management proposals see a per-door monthly rate. What they do not see, until it appears on a statement, is the fee schedule — charges for document transfers, demand statements, escrow packages, additional meetings, mailings, late notices, and so on. Separating base fees from fee schedule charges makes visible the gap between the headline number a board voted on and the total the association actually paid.
Boards will be able to compare bids on the right basis. A management proposal with a low per-door rate and a rich fee schedule can cost more than a higher-rate proposal with fewer ancillary charges. Until now that comparison required a board to reconstruct a year of invoices. The annual statement produces it as a matter of course.
Reimbursable expenses become a category boards have to look at. Postage, copying and third-party pass-throughs are routinely invisible in aggregate. Separating them answers a question boards rarely ask: how much of what the association pays its manager is the manager's compensation, and how much is a cost the association would incur regardless.
Management agreements may need a reporting clause. The obligation to review sits on the board, but the data sits with the manager. Agreements that do not require the manager to produce a categorized annual statement leave the board with a statutory duty and no contractual means of performing it. Renewals from 2027 onward should address that directly.
Inspection means the statement will be read by members. Adding the statement to section 5200 changes its audience. A document produced for a board is written differently from one that any member may request. The categorization will be scrutinized, and boards will answer for what is in it — particularly the fee schedule column, in a year when assessments have risen.
The overlap with SB 1238
SB 1238, also on the Governor's desk, makes the same addition to section 5200 — manager fee statements under section 5500(g) as an inspectable record. If both bills are signed, section 5200 will have been amended by two chaptered bills in one session, and the chaptering order determines the final text.
The two bills come at manager regulation from different directions. AB 739 is pure disclosure. SB 1238 adds a statutory standard of care at new section 5390 and redefines “management services” in the Business and Professions Code. Signed together, they would represent the most substantial change to California's regulation of community association managers in years — one measuring what managers charge, the other what they owe.
What to watch next
The Governor must act by September 30, 2026.3 A veto ends the bill; the two-year session has closed and nothing carries into 2027.
If signed, the ordinary operative date is January 1, 2027, which places the first annual review in the 2027 budget cycle for most associations. The practical preparation is a conversation with the management company about what the statement will contain and who produces it — before the first one is due, not after a member requests it.
Related California HOA Topics
- AB 739, California Legislature — bill status and complete history (enrolled and presented to the Governor September 3, 2026) ↩
- AB 739, California Legislature — bill text and Legislative Counsel's Digest (amending Civil Code §§ 5200, 5500) ↩
- 2026 Tentative Legislative Calendar, California State Senate (September 30 last day for the Governor to act) ↩
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