SB 406 lets a Georgia association opt out of the register entirely
SB 406 lets a Georgia association opt out of the register entirely
2026-09-10 · Georgia · Legislation
What happened. The Georgia Property Owners' Bill of Rights Act is being described everywhere as making state registration mandatory for community associations. The first sentence of new O.C.G.A. § 43-17A-2(a)(1) says exactly that. It is not the whole provision.
The enacted text creates a defined escape route, and then — in the chapter's own definition section — lifts the associations that take it out of the chapter altogether.1
The election, verbatim
Section 43-17A-2(a)(2) opens with the penalty for not registering, but it opens conditionally: subparagraph (A) begins “Subject to subparagraph (B) of this paragraph…” Subparagraph (B) then reads:
“(i) An entity that would otherwise constitute an owners' association may by written notice to the Secretary of State elect not to register under this chapter as an owners' association or otherwise to comply with this chapter and thereby shall be deemed a nonregistered owners' association.
(ii) No nonregistered owners' association or its agent shall assess or collect fines or fees or accelerated assessments against any owner.”
The phrase “or otherwise to comply with this chapter” is doing a great deal of work. The election is not merely an election not to file. On its face it is an election not to comply with Chapter 17A.
The definition that completes the circuit
Chapter 17A operates almost entirely on the defined term “owners' association.” Section 43-17A-1(6) defines it — and closes with a proviso:
“provided, however, that such term shall not include nonregistered owners' associations.”
A matching definition appears at § 43-17A-1(4): a “nonregistered owners' association” is “an owners' association that elects not to register with the Secretary of State pursuant to subparagraph (a)(2)(B) of Code Section 43-17A-2.”
Because the records-retention duty, the examination power, the complaint and hearing process, the twelve owner rights in § 43-17A-7 and the payment-priority rules in § 43-17A-8 are all written against “owners' associations,” an association that elects out appears to fall outside every one of them.
Two penalties that are not the same penalty
Read the two consequences side by side, because the difference is the whole point.
Failing to register — § 43-17A-2(a)(2)(A): no association or its agent “shall collect fines or fees against any owner, or file or record liens or initiate foreclosure proceedings against any lot.”
Electing not to register — § 43-17A-2(a)(2)(B)(ii): no nonregistered association or its agent “shall assess or collect fines or fees or accelerated assessments against any owner.”
Clause (B)(ii) says nothing about liens or foreclosure. And clause (A), which does, is expressly made subject to (B) and is written against “owners' associations” — a term that excludes nonregistered ones.
What the gap appears to leave open
On the face of the statute, an association that affirmatively elects out gives up fines, fees and accelerated assessments — and the text does not, in terms, take away its ability to lien or foreclose for regular assessments.
We are describing what the enacted words say, not predicting how it will be applied. There is no Georgia case on Chapter 17A, no Secretary of State rule, and no Attorney General opinion on any community-association question in the entire published opinion series. Nothing authoritative exists to resolve it, and a board that treats the reading above as settled is taking a real risk.
But the tension is genuine and it is on the page:
- Clause (A) is the only place liens and foreclosure are mentioned, and it is expressly subordinated to clause (B).
- Clause (B)(ii) is a complete sentence listing three prohibited categories, and liens and foreclosure are not among them.
- Section 43-17A-1(6) then removes nonregistered associations from the defined term that clause (A) uses.
Whether that is a deliberate off-ramp for small, self-managed, dues-only communities or an artifact of the House rewrite, the words are the words.
Who might actually take the election
The trade is asymmetric, and for some associations it is not close.
A dues-only association that never fines. Plenty of Georgia neighbourhood associations collect an annual assessment, mow the entrance and do nothing else. For them, giving up fines costs nothing they use, and the election avoids a $100 annual fee, a ten-year records duty, a state examination power and exposure to a complaint process with an automatic collection stay.
An association with no records. Section 43-17A-2(g) demands ten years of assessment, fine, fee, lien and foreclosure records held at a Georgia office. An association that cannot produce them is filing into a regime that can examine what it does not have.
An association whose enforcement model is fines. For this one the election is close to fatal — and it is exactly the association the Act was aimed at.
Why nobody is writing about it
Two reasons, and both are worth knowing if you are reading Georgia guidance this autumn.
First, the opt-out is not in the version of SB 406 that legis.ga.gov still serves. That document, numbered 26 LC 44 3299ER, is an earlier draft: it contains no occurrence of the word “nonregistered,” and it creates a five-member State Board for Review of Complaints that does not exist in the law. The signed text, 26 LC 49 2879S, is on the Governor's site. Guidance built on the legislature's copy describes a statute Georgia did not enact.
Second, the election is structurally easy to miss. It sits in a subparagraph of a paragraph of a subsection, and the sentence that neutralises it — the proviso in § 43-17A-1(6) — is fourteen words at the end of a definition six pages earlier.
What to watch next
This is the single most likely subject of the Secretary of State's first rulemaking under § 43-17A-9, and the single most likely subject of a technical-corrections bill when the General Assembly convenes in January 2027 — ten days after the chapter takes effect. Watch for either. Until one arrives, the written notice described in § 43-17A-2(a)(2)(B)(i) has no prescribed form, no prescribed deadline and no prescribed content.
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