Why a definitional bill mattered at all

Because of what the fund is and who decides how it is spent.

HRS § 514B-71(a) directs the Commission to use the Condominium Education Trust Fund for “educational purposes,” including financing or promoting: education and research in condominium management and real estate; “the improvement and more efficient administration of associations”; “expeditious and inexpensive procedures for resolving association disputes”; support for mediation; and support for voluntary binding arbitration under § 514B-162.5.

Every one of those categories can be aimed at boards and managers, or at owners. The statute does not say which. SB 2433 was an attempt to make owners a named constituency of a fund that owners pay for — the fee under § 514B-72(a) is levied on each project or association with more than five units, and the additional dedicated fee is $1.50 per unit annually, totalling $3 per unit until the Commission adopts rules.

Note also what § 514B-71(b) requires: the Commission may adjust the fee “to regulate the fund balance to an appropriate level to maintain a reasonable relation between the fees generated and the cost of services rendered,” reviewing five factors that include “unanticipated natural disasters or catastrophic weather events that may increase fund payments.” The balance is reviewed biennially.

The fund balance question that came up and was not answered

At the same February 2026 Commission meeting, the budget and finance report for the period ending December 31, 2025 was accepted — and the fund balance was not disclosed. The Chair said he would check whether it could be made public.

For a fund financed by a per-unit levy on every registered association in the state, that is a striking exchange, and it is on the minutes.

The House companion never got a hearing at all

HB 1806, carrying the same idea — education-fund use for owner education, owners as stakeholders in advisory committees and task forces — was referred to two committees on January 26, 2026 and never scheduled.

What a board can do without the bill

The practical content of what SB 2433 was reaching for is available now, and no legislation is needed for a board to use it:

• The subsidised mediation programme — up to $600 for qualified facilitative and $3,000 for qualified evaluative mediations, for registered associations, through three named providers. This is the fund at work, and it is the part owners most often do not know exists.
• The Hawaii Condominium Bulletin, published under HAR § 16-201-92 and financed by the fund, which is where the Commission has been putting condominium law updates and guidance.
• The new administrative rules, HAR chapters 16-119.1 through 16-119.8, published free as a PDF by the Real Estate Branch.

A board that circulates the mediation subsidy details to its owners has done, at zero cost, a version of what the bill was asking the Commission to be required to do.

What to watch

Whether the idea returns in 2027, and in what form. The Act 189 task force’s recommendations run in a related direction — enforceable owner rights and a mandatory internal dispute-resolution procedure — and a fund-use amendment is the kind of provision that gets absorbed into a larger package rather than passing alone.