The drafting problem the Commission flagged

The Commission’s testimony identified a live defect: as drafted, proposed § 514B-C appeared to limit trust-fund support to evaluative mediation and binding arbitration, dropping facilitative mediation altogether. The Commission opposed that, and the Senate draft restored facilitative mediation to the title.

That is not a technicality. The two forms are treated very differently in Hawaii law. Under § 514B-161(c), “If evaluative mediation is requested in writing… the other party cannot choose to do facilitative mediation instead, and any attempt to do so shall be treated as a rejection to mediate.” A funding scheme that supports only one form pushes every dispute toward it.

Both drafts carried defective effective dates — July 1, 3000 on the Senate draft of HB 1897, July 1, 2050 on the House draft of SB 146 — the standard Hawaii tell that a bill was being steered into conference rather than actually postponed.

What stands as a result

The current statutory fees, unchanged:

• § 514B-161(g) — a trust-fund-supported mediation “shall include a fee of $375 to be paid by each party to the mediator,” with fund support capped at $3,000 total, and it “may include an evaluation by the mediator of any claims presented.”
• § 514B-162.5 — voluntary binding arbitration carries a fee of $175 per party, capped at $6,000 from the fund, available only after the parties have first attempted evaluative mediation.

And no statutory qualifications for the mediators and arbitrators the fund pays for. That gap is what the bill was aimed at, and it remains.

Why 2027 will probably not look like this bill

Because the Act 189 Condominium Property Regime Task Force spent its final months on the same subject and landed somewhere different. Its June 2026 recommendations centre on expanding RICO and Real Estate Commission enforcement authority through chapter 514B, plus a mandatory internal dispute-resolution procedure every association must adopt, maintain, annually distribute and follow — with failure to adopt or comply being itself non-compliance.

That is a different theory of the problem. HB 1897 treated Hawaii’s ADR machinery as underfunded and under-qualified. The task force treats it as unenforceable — rights on paper with no agency able to make anyone honour them.

A 2027 bill drawn from the task force text would leave the § 514B-161 fee structure alone and add an enforcement layer above it. That shape, not a fee reduction, is the realistic expectation.

What a board can do in the meantime

• Know the $375 and $175 figures and that the subsidy is available only to registered chapter 514B associations — planned communities pay full freight.
• Do not answer a written evaluative-mediation request with an offer of facilitative mediation. Under § 514B-161(c) that is a refusal to mediate, with fee consequences under § 514B-161(e) and in any later court proceeding.
• Consider adopting an internal dispute-resolution procedure now. If the task force package passes in some form, it will be required. If it does not, an association with a written procedure is still better positioned than one without.

What to watch

Introductions in January 2027, and specifically whether the fee reduction survives as a stand-alone measure or is absorbed into the task force package and lost.