A local TV investigation produced Georgia's HOA law, and lawmakers said so on the floor
A local TV investigation produced Georgia's HOA law, and lawmakers said so on the floor
2026-09-10 · Georgia · Compliance · Reported — unconfirmed
What happened. Georgia went from having no state oversight of community associations to a signed statutory regime in roughly eighteen months. The documented driver was a local television investigation, and the legislators who passed the bill said so on the record.
The series
Investigative reporter Anastassia Olmos ran HOA Nightmares for Atlanta News First across broadcast, digital and podcast, beginning in 2025 and continuing through the legislative session.1
Its signature datapoint came from a survey of Georgia homeowners in association disputes. A survey of more than 130 homeowners found 63% facing fines and fees averaging around $9,000, 41% in litigation with their association, and 30% carrying liens. A later account of the advocacy-day period put it at roughly 63% owing fines averaging over $8,000.2
These are self-selecting samples — homeowners in dispute are the ones who answer a survey about disputes — and should be read as evidence of the grievance's intensity rather than as a population estimate.
The credit, on the record
Rep. Rey Martinez (R-Loganville), who carried SB 406 in the House, thanked “Atlanta News First's Anastassia Olmos for reporting on this very important issue” when presenting the bill.
Rep. Viola Davis (D-Stone Mountain) told the station in January 2026: “Your series on this issue has put a lot of heat in this house.”
That is an unusually clean documented instance of local investigative journalism producing a statute, and it is worth recording as such.
The individual cases behind the numbers
The series' force came from named Georgians, not aggregates. Among the cases reported in the period:
- Ayanna Fuller, a multiple myeloma patient undergoing chemotherapy in Fairburn, had $828.54 garnished from her bank account by her association, plus a $125 legal fee. The garnishment overdrew the account by $855, and she was subsequently billed $1,386. After the story aired in August 2025, an anonymous viewer paid her entire HOA bill.3
- Michelle Bernard of Conyers sued over a lien for under $3,000 in fines; in May 2025 a Rockdale County judge granted the association's motion to enforce a settlement at $40,000 — more than thirteen times the disputed lien.4
- In Greighfield, Loganville — 28 homes on a 0.2-mile street — residents voted out their board president in February 2025. One homeowner had received a debt-collection notice for $137,768.5
The hearings the reporting produced
Two Senate hearings in September 2025 built the record. On 16 September the Rules Committee heard SB 361, with about two dozen homeowners testifying about management-company incentives, payment portals that locked them out once fines were assessed, and improperly constituted boards. On 18 September the Urban Affairs Committee, chaired by Sen. Donzella James, took up SB 106, SB 107 and SB 108.
What the reporting actually changed in the statute
This is the part worth tracing, because it distinguishes influence from credit.
Fines excluded from the foreclosure threshold. The recurring pattern in the coverage was a modest dues delinquency inflated by violation fines and late charges until it cleared the statutory bar for foreclosure. The enacted § 44-3-232(c) now provides that “no specific assessment… or other fine or fee shall be included in the calculation of the amount of such lien” — and “specific assessments” is defined to include fines for covenant violations.6
Payments applied to dues first. Section 43-17A-8(a) requires funds remitted by an owner to be applied to regular assessments first and “other fees and fines” last — reversing the clause in most Georgia declarations, and dismantling the mechanism by which an owner who paid their dues stayed permanently delinquent on dues.
Associations must accept any payment. Section 43-17A-8(b)(1) forbids refusing “payment from an owner in any amount for any assessment” — a direct answer to the payment-portal lockouts homeowners described to the Senate.
Attorney's fees gated. Section 7 of the Act, in force since 1 July 2026, requires certified-mail notice, 30 days from receipt to pay, and an itemised list before an association may collect or be awarded fees — and requires a judge in a bench trial to enter an order finding the fees reasonable.
Each of those maps onto a specific pattern in the reporting. That is a stronger claim than “the series raised awareness.”
What the reporting did not change
Equally worth recording, because it is where Georgia homeowners will be disappointed.
- No cap on fines. The Act constrains what fines can be used for; it sets no ceiling on the fine itself. The $137,768 notice in Loganville and the $500 leaf fines reported in Dacula remain lawful sums to assess.
- No board elections requirement. Section 43-17A-7 requires an annual meeting. It does not require annual elections, one vote per lot, a minimum board size, or any way to contest a result. The bill that proposed all five, HB 62, never left committee.
- No independent review board. The Senate version created a five-member State Board for Review of Complaints. House Judiciary replaced it on 19 March 2026 with a single hearing officer inside the Secretary of State's office. Michael Shephard of The WATCH Project said at the time: “The bill looks great with one glaring exception: we do not have impartiality and we do not have a board.”
- No hardship relief. Nothing in Act 715 requires an association to abate assessments for disability, illness or an insolvent estate. Sen. James's SB 107 would have; it died.
What happens to the next Ayanna Fuller
The honest answer is: something, but not everything, and not yet.
From 1 January 2027, a Georgia resident in that position can file a complaint with the Secretary of State within 180 days, and the filing itself acts as an automatic stay prohibiting the association from collecting the disputed fines and fees while the matter is pending. That is a real remedy that did not exist in August 2025 — and it is available to any person residing in the development, not only to owners.
What it is not is a court order. The hearing officer's conclusions are not self-executing; if no settlement follows within 15 days, somebody has to bring an action to enforce them. And the Secretary of State's enforcement powers run to the association's registration, not to making it pay anybody.
Fuller's bill was ultimately paid by an anonymous television viewer. That is not a system.
What to watch next
Whether the coverage continues now that the bill has passed. Legislative reform is a story with an ending; implementation is not. The unwritten Secretary of State rules, the registration deadline, and whether the hearing-officer process can absorb complaint volume from a state where roughly one resident in four lives under an association are all questions that will be settled in 2027 with far less attention than the bill received.
Related Georgia HOA Topics
- “HOA Nightmares” investigation hub — Atlanta News First ↩
- “‘Something's going to pass’ — Georgia senators vow HOA reform” — Atlanta News First, 14 January 2026 ↩
- “Cancer patient receives help after HOA drains bank account” — Atlanta News First, 23 December 2025 ↩
- “HOA to pay Georgia homeowner $40K settlement after she sued them for a lien on her home” — Atlanta News First, 19 May 2025 ↩
- “Gwinnett homeowners facing thousands in fines oust HOA board” — Atlanta News First, 20 March 2025 ↩
- Senate Bill 406, as passed (26 LC 49 2879S) — signed copy, Office of the Governor ↩
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