The companion rule that catches the workaround

An association reading a $50 ceiling on a “statement of unpaid assessments” might reasonably start itemising: a separate transfer fee, a document-retrieval charge, an account-research charge, a rush fee. HEA 1115 anticipated that. The same act added a new subsection to IC 32-25.5-3-3:

“Notwithstanding any other law, a homeowners association… may not charge a homeowner a fee associated with the production of a statement of account setting forth the amount of any unpaid assessments or other charges due and owing… An account statement must be maintained… and must be provided to a homeowner upon request.”

So there are two distinct instruments doing related work. The $50 ceiling governs the resale statement in the closing context. The account-statement rule makes an owner's own statement of what they owe free, on request, at any time — and requires the association to keep one maintained rather than assembling it on demand.

Both are in the group that binds every Indiana association regardless of when it was formed, because IC 32-25.5-3-3(o) falls inside the 3-3(e)-through-(o) range that HEA 1115 added to the always-applies list.

What a management company has to change

This is a revenue-line change, not a paperwork change, and it should be treated as one.

• Reprice the resale product to $50. Where a management agreement lets the manager retain the fee, the manager absorbs the reduction. Where the association retains it, the association's budget does. Either way, somebody's 2027 budget needs the line corrected now.
• Retire the unbundling. Separately-named charges — transfer fees, statement fees, account research, expedite charges — billed alongside a resale statement will be read against a statutory ceiling that speaks to the statement, and against the separate bar on charging for a service the assessment already covers.
• Make the free account statement a real product. The statute requires it to be maintained and produced on request. An owner asking what they owe gets an answer at no charge, and an association that cannot produce one promptly has a records problem as well as a compliance problem.
• Check the closing pipeline. Indiana title companies and closing agents order these routinely. If your order form still quotes a higher fee, it is generating an unlawful charge on every transaction, and the person who will notice is a real estate lawyer.

For sellers and buyers

If you sold an Indiana home in an association after 1 July 2026 and the closing statement shows more than $50 for the association's payoff or estoppel statement, that charge exceeded the cap. The first step is the association or manager and a copy of the statute; it is an arithmetic conversation, not a legal argument.

Watch for relabelling. A charge called a “transfer fee” or “document fee” that is in substance payment for producing the statement is the thing the cap exists to prevent, and the account-statement subsection closes the obvious alternative route.

A limit worth being honest about

The $50 cap lives in IC 32-21-5-8.5, in the seller-disclosure article, and reaches “a homeowners association or agent of a homeowners association.” It is not obviously drafted to reach a condominium association governed under Indiana's condominium law, which is a separate article. Indiana's 2026 activity was framed almost entirely around the HOA Act — no bill in either session used “condominium” in its short title. Which of the 2026 provisions reach a condominium board or its manager is a matter for advice rather than assumption.

What to watch

Whether any Indiana association tests the boundary between the capped statement fee and separately-named transaction charges. This is new law with no interpretive decisions behind it, and the line between a permitted charge for something else and a disguised charge for the statement has not been drawn by any court.