Illinois bills would have capped association document fees at $375; both died
Illinois bills would have capped association document fees at $375; both died
2026-09-10 · Illinois · Legislation · Did not pass
What happened. Two Illinois bills targeting what associations may charge for documents died in committee in the 2026 session. Together they were the fee-side pincer on a revenue line that management companies rely on and owners resent.1
HB 2648 — the cap and the escalator
Assigned to the Judiciary–Civil Committee, it would have capped and structured what an association may charge for records:
- an additional rush fee of not more than $100 where records are demanded within 72 hours of the request;
- every fee accompanied by an itemized statement of its basis; and
- a $375 figure which, beginning one year after the effective date, would be indexed annually up or down by the percentage change in the consumer price index over the preceding 12 calendar months.
The CPI escalator is the detail worth noting, because it runs in both directions. This was not a freeze; it was a price with an inflation adjustment.
HB 5617 — the portal and the 25-cent page
Introduced February 6, 2026, it amended the Common Interest Community Association Act to specify which records must be provided on request and which may not be disclosed, and then added three mechanisms:
- the board must maintain a secure, owner-only website from which owners and their authorized agents can download association records electronically at no cost;
- the board must let an owner use a portable scanning or photographing device to make an electronic copy of official records at no cost, in lieu of the board supplying copies; and
- photocopying is capped at 25 cents per page for copies run on the association's photocopier where the request exceeds 25 pages.
The collision with what actually passed
This is the comparison that matters, and it is easy to miss because both involve a website.
HB 5449, which became law, requires a website by January 1, 2028 carrying meeting information and approved board minutes. That is it. HB 5617 would have required a full owner-accessible records portal with free downloads.
An owner who reads about the new Illinois website requirement and expects to find the association's contracts, budgets, ledgers and insurance policies on it will be disappointed. Illinois enacted the minutes page and rejected the document library, in the same session, by different votes.
Why the scanning provision was the radical one
The right to photograph records with your own phone, at no cost, in lieu of paid copies, would have collapsed the fee question entirely — not by capping the price but by removing the transaction. An owner exercising it pays nothing and the association incurs only supervision time.
It is also the provision most likely to return, because it is the cheapest to comply with and the hardest to argue against on cost grounds.
What the law currently is
Under 765 ILCS 605/19, a condominium association must produce specified records to an owner making a request with particularity and stating a proper purpose, subject to the exemptions at 19(g). What it may charge is governed by the statute's actual-cost framework and by the association's own practice — there is no statutory dollar cap.
On the disclosure side, 765 ILCS 605/22.1 governs the resale package, and the practical ceiling there is the one the amended statute sets rather than anything the 2026 bills would have added.
Two decided cases shape what owners can actually get: an omnibus “give me everything” demand fails the particularity requirement, and a seller's Consumer Fraud Act claim over excessive disclosure fees currently fails for want of a private right of action — though the Illinois Supreme Court has taken that question up.
Why these bills matter more than their failure suggests
Document and resale fees are a live revenue line for Illinois management companies, and the industry lobbied against both bills. That is a rational position and it is worth naming, because the same organization that opposed the fee caps is the one whose reserve-study bills died for lack of legislative support in the same session. Advocacy capital gets spent, and the record shows where it went.
A note on the record
ILGA's bill-status pages were unreachable throughout this research. We have the synopses and the committee assignment for HB 2648 and the introduction date for HB 5617, and CAI reports both died in committee. We are not printing last-action dates for either bill, because we could not verify them.
What to watch next
Whether a fee cap returns attached to a resale-disclosure bill rather than a records bill. The $375 figure was calibrated to the disclosure package, not to routine inspection, and that is where the political pressure comes from — sellers at closing, not owners in a dispute.
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