Hawaii Supreme Court: resale documents offered as downloads must be free
Hawaii Supreme Court: resale documents offered as downloads must be free
2026-09-10 · Hawaii · Courts
A Hawaii managing agent that puts resale documents on a website for download must hand them over at no cost. Not at a reduced cost, not at cost plus a processing fee — at no cost. The Hawaii Supreme Court said so in Caven, Jr. v. Certified Management, Inc., dba Associa Hawaii, No. SCWC-19-0000047, decided September 5, 2025.1
The decision is a summary disposition order and therefore unpublished, with Ginoza, J. dissenting. It remains the controlling word from Hawaii’s highest court on a fee that management companies across the state still charge.
The bill that produced the case
Frederick Caven co-owned a unit at Regency at Poipu Kai on Kauai. To close a 2016 sale he needed a Hawaii Association of REALTORS Project Information Form RR105c and a Statement of Account from each of two associations. His realtor ordered them as digital downloads through the manager’s “Community Archives” site.
The total was $1,447.91, built from a $360 processing fee for the resale package, a $165 processing fee for the planned-community documents, and $437.50 for each Statement of Account — itself a $195 processing fee, an $80 expedite fee, a $145 transfer fee, and tax.
The two arguments, and why both failed
“We create these documents on request, so they are not records.” The court read HRS § 514B-152, which requires records “sufficiently detailed to enable the association to comply with requests for information and disclosures related to resale of units,” together with § 514B-154.5(a), which reaches documents “whether maintained, kept, or required to be provided.” Conclusion: “these statutorily mandated disclosures are not limited to pre-existing documents.”
“The website is ours, not the association’s.” “It is immaterial for purposes of HRS § 514B-154.5(e) whether that internet site is maintained by the association or its managing agent. Because Associa made the Form RR105c and the SOA for Regency AOAO available to Caven to download through its internet site ‘Community Archives,’ it was required to do so ‘at no cost.’”
The two lawful options, and there is no third
After Caven, a Hawaii managing agent producing condominium resale documents has exactly two compliant routes:
Deliver them by download, free. No processing fee, no expedite fee, no transfer fee, no rush charge. The statute says at no cost and the court read that literally.
Or deliver paper, capped. Paper copies remain chargeable, but § 514B-154.5(f) caps the charge at $1 per page — the same cap that appears in § 514B-154(j), where a “reasonable fee” is defined to include administrative and duplicating costs and to not exceed a dollar a page.
What is not available is a download with a fee attached to it under any label. The expedite fee is the clearest casualty: there is nothing to expedite about a file that already exists on a server.
The 2025 amendment that reinforces it
Act 161 (2025) struck the phrase “and other administrative costs associated with handling the request” from § 514B-154.5(b), leaving an owner liable for “a reasonable fee for duplication, postage, and stationery” and nothing else. The same Act added § 514B-154.2, requiring an association to provide an electronic copy of its governing documents — declaration, bylaws, CC&Rs and house rules — to an owner or authorized agent on request at no cost, notwithstanding anything to the contrary in those documents.
So the statutory direction of travel and the judicial one point the same way, and a fee schedule built before mid-2025 is now wrong twice over.
The limit that matters: this is condominiums only
Caven’s parallel claims over the planned community association’s documents were dismissed below on the ground that a planned community association “is not a condominium association within the meaning of HRS chapter 514B,” and he did not challenge that on appeal.
Chapter 421J has no equivalent. It carries no $1-per-page cap, no no-cost download rule, and no 30-day production deadline — § 421J-7(e) gives a board sixty calendar days to authorise or refuse a document request, against thirty in the condominium chapter. A Hawaii planned community may lawfully charge for a downloaded resale package that a condominium may not.
What a board can do about its manager’s fee schedule
The fee is the manager’s revenue, not the association’s, which is precisely why boards tend not to look at it. Three questions worth asking at the next management-contract review:
- What does the contract say about resale fees, and who keeps them? The management contract is itself an owner-accessible record under § 514B-154.5(a)(15), along with the on-site personnel job description and compensation.
- Is the portal still charging? A schedule updated in 2016 and never revisited is the normal case.
- What is the paper alternative and is it priced at or under $1 a page? If the answer is that paper is not offered, then the download must be free.
What to watch
Whether the Real Estate Commission addresses resale fee practice in guidance — there is none as of this writing — and whether the 2027 session extends the no-cost and per-page rules to chapter 421J, which is the obvious remaining gap.
Related Hawaii HOA Topics
Stay on top of Hawaii HOA law
Every week: new Hawaii legislation, court rulings, and regulatory developments affecting condos, planned communities, and property managers. Free.
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.