2026-09-10 · Hawaii · Legislation · Did not pass

Hawaii boards keep a statutory shield: a good-faith attempt at the reserve calculation protects them if the estimate turns out wrong. A bill to take that shield away from boards that skip the budget summary reached conference in 2025 and again in 2026, and died both times.¹

SB 253, carried over from 2025, targeted HRS §§ 514B-144 and 514B-148.

The shield as it stands

Section 514B-148(d), as rewritten by Act 157 (2025): “No association or entity that, and no person who, makes a good faith effort to calculate the estimated replacement reserves assessments required by this section shall be liable in the event that the estimate subsequently proves incorrect.”

What SB 253 would have changed

Three things, per the House draft:

• Require the § 514B-148 detailed budget summary to contain all required information on its face, without cross-referencing other portions of the budget or the reserve study.
• Exclude the good-faith defense for associations whose boards adopt a budget omitting that summary.
• Clarify a unit owner’s standing, and place on the association the burden of proving substantial compliance.

How it died

House conferees were appointed on April 21, 2026 — Matayoshi and Tarnas as co-chairs with Pierick. No Senate conferees were ever appointed, and no conference meeting was scheduled. The 2025 conference had already been emptied out, with Senate conferees discharged March 20 and House conferees April 1, 2026.

1. SB 253 (2025, carried over to 2026), Hawaii State Legislature status feed ↩
2. HRS § 514B-148, Association fiscal matters; budgets and reserves (as amended by Act 157, SLH 2025) ↩
3. HB 2162 (2026), status feed — 10 percent reserve deposit mandate, never heard ↩