The fining and appeals process, in detail

This is the most concrete thing the task force produced, adopted June 19, 2026 as a proposed addition to § 514B-104(a)(11):

• Written notice citing the specific provision violated and stating the right to appeal.
• On timely written appeal, the association must suspend collection until the appeal concludes, the violation repeats, or sixty days pass.
• An appeals committee of three unit owners, at least two of whom are not board members, issues a written report.
• The board issues a final written determination.
• The owner may seek Real Estate Commission review; if the Commission finds non-compliance, the fine is invalidated and uncollectable — the association may restart a compliant process, and the Commission’s determination is appealable to court.
• Associations must adopt, maintain, annually distribute and follow written internal dispute-resolution procedures; failure to adopt or comply is itself non-compliance.

Read against current law, this is a substantial change. Today § 514B-104(a)(11) requires only that fines be levied “in accordance with the bylaws” or, if the bylaws are silent, under a board resolution establishing a procedure that states the basis for the fine and allows an appeal to the board with notice and an opportunity to be heard. The appeal is to the board that levied the fine. The proposal inserts an owner-majority committee and an outside reviewer.

Registration and records

Governing documents with the biennial registration (June 19). Associations would file current governing documents at registration — all of them initially, only amended or restated ones thereafter — and the registration form would capture type of structure (building, townhouse, single family) and a property website address, with enforcement encouraged for failures to provide or update.

Records access (June 5, as amended). Amend chapter 514B to improve timely and affordable access by strengthening enforcement for timely production, ensuring charges are reasonable, removing technological and procedural barriers, reviewing affidavit requirements, assessing whether the current eight free hours of document examination is adequate, and evaluating a secure online platform.

That eight-hour figure is from § 514B-154(b): “Owners shall pay for administrative costs in excess of eight hours per year.”

What the task force considered and declined

An ombudsman. Debated on April 24, May 8 and May 22 and not recommended. The chair argued a stand-alone ombudsman would duplicate Real Estate Commission subpoena and cease-and-desist authority and raise jury-trial problems. That is why the adopted recommendation routes enforcement through RICO and the Commission instead — and it is why the six ombudsman bills introduced in 2026, none of which got a hearing, are unlikely to be the 2027 vehicle in their current form.

Specialty licensing for condominium managers. Discussed May 22; Real Estate Branch staff said the industry was unlikely to support it. The fallback was to ask the Real Estate Commission to add condominium content to mandatory continuing-education core courses — which the Commission can do without legislation.

One thing on the record that matters to boards

At the April 24, 2026 meeting, Honolulu Police Department Interim Chief Rade Vanic and Managing Director Michael Formby told the task force that HPD has full jurisdiction within condominiums and there is “no condominium exception” to criminal law, and that HPD will take reports of alleged white-collar crime involving associations — embezzlement, fraud — and refer them to the Criminal Investigation Division.

That answers a question owners ask constantly and are frequently told the wrong answer to.

A sourcing note

Everything above comes from DCCA’s own published meeting minutes. We could not read the final report itself — DCCA hosts it behind a viewer that does not serve the document to automated retrieval — so its transmittal date and final wording are unconfirmed, and the report may differ from the motions as minuted.

What happens next, and the timing problem

Nothing carries over. The 33rd Legislature ends with the November 2026 election, so every recommendation needs a brand-new bill in the 2027 session of the 34th Legislature.

Three placeholder bills existed in 2026 to carry whatever the task force produced — HB 1833, HB 1841 and SB 2302, each containing the single substantive line that the task force’s proposed changes “shall be implemented.” All three were referred in January and never heard. So when the recommendations arrived in June there was no vehicle left to put them in.

What to watch

Bill introductions in January 2027 from the task force’s legislative members, and whether the fining-and-appeals text survives contact with the industry associations that opposed similar measures in 2026.