2026-09-09 · Connecticut · Legislation

Owners holding at least twenty per cent of the votes in a Connecticut common interest community can now ask a judge to order an independent audit of their association's financial records. The new right is Section 1 of Public Act 26-31, approved May 27, 2026 and effective October 1, 2026.¹

It is the first Connecticut statute to give unit owners a direct judicial remedy aimed at suspected financial misconduct inside their own association. It is also narrower than the headline suggests: the act builds four conditions into the petition, and one of them has to be satisfied before an owner ever reaches the courthouse.

What the new section does

Section 1 is a new, free-standing section rather than an amendment to the Common Interest Ownership Act. It opens with language that overrides the community's own documents:

“Notwithstanding any provision of the declaration or bylaws to the contrary and except as provided in subsection (c) of section 47-260 of the general statutes, any group of unit owners of units to which at least twenty per cent of the votes in the association are allocated pursuant to the declaration may petition the Superior Court for an order directing such association to retain an independent third party to conduct an audit of such association's financial records.”¹

The records reachable are those the association must already keep under § 47-260(a) — the same body of documents that governs ordinary records inspection — limited to those “related to such association's expenditures and any other financial matters.”

A petitioning group must satisfy all four conditions in subsection (a). They must certify in writing a good faith belief in grounds for an audit; obtain the accountant's opinion described below; certify their twenty per cent holding and attach a certified copy of the vote allocation from the recorded declaration; and establish that no such audit has been completed in the preceding twelve months.²

The accountant's opinion is the real gate

Condition two is the one that decides most cases, and it is demanding. The group must obtain

“a signed opinion of an independent certified public accountant who specializes in fraud or financial forensics that there appears to be evidence of financial fraud or misuse of such association's funds. Such signed opinion shall identify the basis for the formation of such opinion.”¹

Two things follow from that sentence. The accountant must be a specialist — not any CPA — and the opinion must be reasoned, not conclusory. And the owners must obtain it before filing, which means paying for a forensic review of whatever records they already have, at their own cost, with no assurance the petition will be granted.

The threshold doubled on the way through

This is the second attempt. In the 2025 long session the same measure ran as House Bill 7068, under the identical title, and it set the petitioning threshold at ten per cent of the association's votes rather than twenty. That version cleared the Insurance and Real Estate Committee, was re-referred to Judiciary, won a joint favourable report on April 7, 2025 and reached the House calendar as File No. 749 on April 23, 2025 — where it was never called, and died at adjournment.⁵

The 2026 bill that passed carries the doubled threshold. In a community of 200 units, the difference is between assembling 20 owners and assembling 40.

1. Public Act No. 26-31 (Substitute House Bill No. 5265), full enrolled text, Connecticut General Assembly — approved May 27, 2026 ↩
2. OLR Bill Analysis, sHB 5265, Office of Legislative Research, Connecticut General Assembly ↩
3. HB 5265 bill status and history, Connecticut General Assembly ↩
4. 2026 Acts Affecting Housing and Real Estate, OLR Report 2026-R-0090 (June 15, 2026) ↩
5. HB 7068 (2025) bill status and history — the 10% predecessor that died on the House calendar, Connecticut General Assembly ↩