Georgia bill to abolish HOA foreclosure cleared committee, then was never called
Georgia bill to abolish HOA foreclosure cleared committee, then was never called
2026-09-10 · Georgia · Legislation · Did not pass
What happened. The most far-reaching community-association bill of Georgia's 2025-2026 biennium got further than has been reported, and then stopped without a vote. House Bill 1035, the “Georgia Homeownership Protection Act of 2026,” died at sine die on 2 April 2026.
What it would have done
HB 1035 did not propose to regulate association foreclosure. It proposed to end it, by changing the character of the debt: unpaid condominium and property owners' association assessments would have been declared unsecured debts, stripping associations of lien and foreclosure power outright.
It went wider than associations. The bill would also have barred local governments from rolling unpaid water, sewer and solid-waste charges onto the ad valorem tax roll for tax execution, and barred utilities from foreclosing on owner-occupied homes over service fees.
It carried enforcement: civil damages up to $5,000 per violation plus attorney's fees for homeowners, and Attorney General penalties reported at up to $10,000.1
The sponsors were bipartisan, and that is unusual
Six representatives signed on: Viola Davis (D-Stone Mountain), Gerald Greene (R-Cuthbert), David Huddleston (R-Roopville), Kim Schofield (D-Atlanta), Sandra Scott (D-Rex) and Rhonda Taylor (D-Conyers).
Two Republicans on a bill to abolish association foreclosure is not a rounding error. It is a signal that the constituent pressure behind Georgia's HOA reform push crossed party lines in a way the eventual vote on SB 406 — 155-10 in the House — confirmed.
How far it actually got
The House's own Session Final composite status report records the sequence:2
- referred to House Ways and Means;
- read first time 28 January 2026;
- read second time 29 January 2026;
- favourably reported 26 February 2026.
That last line is the one that has gone unreported. HB 1035 was not a bill that died quietly in committee. It was voted out of committee, favourably, with eight days remaining before Crossover Day on 6 March.
The Georgia Municipal Association's tracker records the endpoint: status “Passed House Committee, Pending in House Rules,” under a banner reading “DID NOT CROSS.”3
Where it died, and what that tells you
The House Rules Committee decides which reported bills reach the floor and when. A bill sitting in Rules is a bill whose fate is a scheduling decision, and HB 1035 was never scheduled.
That is a materially different death from the one usually reported. “Died in committee” — the phrase CAI's end-of-session report uses — implies a substantive committee rejected it. Ways and Means did the opposite. What happened is that House leadership declined to give floor time to a bill abolishing association foreclosure in the same session it was passing a bill regulating it.
CAI recorded HB 1035 under “Opposed Legislation” and counts it among its wins for the session, on the argument that eliminating foreclosure authority shifts the financial burden onto homeowners who do pay.4
Why this bill explains the shape of the law Georgia did pass
Set HB 1035 beside what SB 406 actually did to § 44-3-232(c) and the enacted statute reads as the negotiated middle.
| The question | What each measure does |
|---|---|
| Can an association foreclose at all? | HB 1035: no — assessments would have become unsecured debts. Act 715: yes, above a threshold. |
| Do fines count toward that threshold? | HB 1035: no lien at all, so the question never arises. Act 715: fines and specific assessments are excluded from the calculation. |
| Notice before sale | HB 1035: not applicable. Act 715: 60 days, with an express statutory cure right. |
| Homeowner damages remedy | HB 1035: up to $5,000 per violation plus attorney's fees. Act 715: none — a $100 administrative fee on the losing party. |
| How long the lien lasts | HB 1035: no lien. Act 715: extended from four years to six. |
The point of the comparison is not that one is better. It is that Georgia's legislature had a live proposal to abolish association foreclosure sitting in Rules while it passed a bill that raised the threshold and extended the lien — and chose the second.
What it would have meant if it had passed
Two consequences are worth understanding, because they explain why the bill was always going to be hard.
Collection would have moved to money judgments. An unsecured debt is still a debt. Georgia associations would have sued, obtained judgments, and pursued garnishment and levy — which is slower, costs more per dollar recovered, and does not attach to the property. Associations would not have stopped collecting; they would have collected differently and less efficiently.
The cost would have landed on paying owners. This is CAI's argument and it is the strongest one available to the industry. An association's income is assessments; shortfalls are made up by the owners who pay. Whether that consequence outweighs the harm of losing a home over assessments is a policy judgment, and Georgia's legislature made it by not making it.
What to watch next
Whether HB 1035 returns in 2027, and in what form. All six sponsors were in office when the session ended, and the biennium reset means any return will carry a new number. The more likely 2027 version is narrower — the parts of HB 1035 that were not about associations, particularly the ban on rolling unpaid utility charges onto the tax roll, are a live Georgia grievance that the enacted HOA statute does not touch at all.
Related Georgia HOA Topics
- “Georgia reps introduce bills to stop HOA foreclosures, allow homeowners to dissolve an HOA” — Atlanta News First, 28 January 2026 ↩
- 2026 Composite Status Report, Session Final, Georgia House of Representatives (14 May 2026) ↩
- HB 1035 — Georgia Municipal Association bill tracker (“DID NOT CROSS”) ↩
- 2026 Georgia End of Session Report — Community Associations Institute Advocacy ↩
Stay on top of Georgia HOA law
Every week: new Georgia legislation, court rulings, and regulatory developments affecting condos, planned communities, and property managers. Free.
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.