2026-09-10 · Georgia · Legislation

What happened. There are two documents called “Senate Bill 406” in public circulation, they describe materially different statutes, and the one the Georgia General Assembly's own website still serves is not the one the Governor signed.

The consequence is that a good deal of Georgia guidance — including material aimed at association boards — describes an adjudicative body that the enacted law does not create.

The two documents

The version at legis.ga.gov, numbered 26 LC 44 3299ER, is an earlier draft.¹ Its caption promises “a State Board for Review of Complaints Regarding Property Owners' Associations,” provision “for referees,” and language “to prohibit bidding at foreclosure sales by property owners' associations and related individuals and entities.”

The version signed on 12 May 2026, numbered 26 LC 49 2879S and marked “AS PASSED,” is on the Governor's site.² Its caption promises registration of “owners' associations,” “an exception,” “a stay of collections of fines or fees,” and “priority of application of payments.”

Set the two side by side and the differences are not stylistic:

• The word “nonregistered” appears four times in the signed act and not once in the draft. The registration opt-out exists only in the enacted law.
• The phrase “State Board for Review” appears in the draft and not once in the signed act.
• O.C.G.A. § 44-7-50 — the dispossessory statute — is amended in the signed act and untouched in the draft.
• The draft's caption promises a ban on association bidding at foreclosure sales. The enacted § 44-3-232(c) expressly preserves the power to bid.

What the board would have been

In the draft, § 43-17A-5 created a State Board for Review of Complaints Regarding Property Owners' Associations: five members who had themselves to be association members, no two from the same association, six-year terms, three appointed by the Governor and one each by the President of the Senate and the Speaker of the House, with quarterly meetings made available to the public virtually, a 90-day investigation deadline, and a duty to notify the Attorney General and the county sheriff within seven days of a suspected criminal violation.

None of that survived.

What replaced it

On 19 March 2026 the House Judiciary Committee rewrote the bill, stripping the board and substituting a single hearing officer appointed by the Secretary of State — the model now at § 43-17A-5, whose conclusions the parties have 15 days to satisfy before somebody must go to court to enforce them. The substitute also added the three-years-of-financial-documents requirement and the Secretary of State's power to deny, suspend and revoke a registration.

Homeowner advocates objected at the time, and the objection was about impartiality rather than mechanics. Michael Shephard of The WATCH Project told Atlanta News First: “The bill looks great with one glaring exception: we do not have impartiality and we do not have a board.”³

The Senate agreed to the House substitute on 31 March 2026, the same day the House passed it, with no conference committee.⁴

1. Senate Bill 406, superseded draft (26 LC 44 3299ER) — Georgia General Assembly ↩
2. Senate Bill 406, as passed (26 LC 49 2879S) — signed copy, Office of the Governor ↩
3. “House makes major changes to proposed HOA oversight bill” — Atlanta News First, 19 March 2026 ↩
4. 2026 Composite Status Report, Session Final, Georgia House of Representatives (14 May 2026) ↩