Two of its three ideas are already law

This is the part that makes SB 253’s death less consequential than it looks, and it happened in the previous session.

Act 157 (2025) added to § 514B-148(a) the closing sentence: “The budget summary shall contain all required information without referring the reader to other portions of the budget.” That is SB 253’s first idea, enacted.

The same Act rewrote subsection (g) to read: “Any unit owner shall have standing to bring an action alleging a violation of this section against an association that the unit owner is a member of, and may seek an injunction to enforce compliance with this section by the association’s board.” That is SB 253’s standing point, enacted — and it replaced a prior text that routed enforcement through § 514B-157 procedures and put a burden of proof on a non-complying board.

What did not pass is the piece that would actually hurt: removing the good-faith defense, and shifting the burden of proving substantial compliance onto the association.

So where does that leave a Hawaii board

Exposed to an injunction, not to damages. An owner can sue and can compel compliance. The good-faith defense still stands between a board and liability for a reserve estimate that proves wrong.

That is a meaningful distinction and it is easy to over-read in either direction. The defense protects a good faith effort to calculate. It does not protect a board that never produced the summary, never commissioned the study, or produced a summary that sends the reader elsewhere for the required information — because on those facts there is no calculation to have made in good faith.

The summary contents, since the requirement is now unforgiving

Section 514B-148(a) requires the budget summary to carry, on its own face:

• estimated revenues and operating expenses, and whether cash or accrual;
• the estimated costs of fire safety equipment or installations meeting a county building fire and life safety evaluation, in counties over five hundred thousand population — Honolulu — with the reserve study permitted to forecast a loan or special assessment to fund them;
• the total replacement-reserves balance as of the budget date;
• the estimated replacement reserves assessments based on a reserve study, with the independent-review requirement;
• the computation explanation — the preparer’s identity, qualifications and potential conflicts; any omitted component and why; planned increases over the thirty-year plan; and whether last year’s actual assessments fell short of the study, by how much, and the effect on future assessments;
• the amount to be collected this fiscal year; and
• whether it was calculated on a per cent funded or cash flow plan basis — and the method “shall not circumvent the estimated replacement reserves assessments amount determined by the reserve study.”

The 2027 outlook

The Act 189 task force’s June 2026 recommendation is broader than SB 253 and points the same direction: amend chapter 514B “to make statutory rights enforceable through reviewable standards, practical enforcement mechanisms, and meaningful remedies… and promote personal accountability for knowing violations by responsible decision makers.”

“Personal accountability for knowing violations” is a considerably sharper instrument than removing a good-faith defense. A board that treats SB 253’s death as the end of the subject is reading one session, not the trend.

What to watch

Whether a 2027 bill pairs the task force’s enforcement language with a reserve-specific liability provision. Also worth noting: a 2026 measure that would have mandated depositing at least 10% of all revenues into replacement reserves, with Real Estate Commission enforcement, owner complaints, and personal liability plus a fine for non-complying board members, was referred in January and never heard.