What actually governs an Indiana manager, absent licensure

Three things, and all three are contractual or general-law, not regulatory.

The management agreement. This is the primary instrument. In an unlicensed environment the contract is doing all the work that a licensing statute would otherwise do: defining scope, standard of care, handling of funds, records ownership, insurance, and termination. A thin management agreement in Indiana leaves an association with very little.

Agency law and fiduciary duty. A manager acting as the association's agent owes the ordinary duties of an agent. That is a real constraint but it is enforced by a lawsuit, after the fact.

Consumer-protection enforcement. The Attorney General's Homeowner Protection Unit can pursue deceptive practices, and it accepts HOA-related complaints. This is the closest thing to a regulator in the picture, and it is an enforcement body of general jurisdiction, not a supervisor of the profession.

The clauses that carry the weight

Since the contract is the regulation, an Indiana board negotiating or renewing a management agreement should treat these as non-negotiable:

• Funds held in the association's name. Association operating and reserve accounts titled to the association, at a named institution, with the board holding independent view access. Commingling is the failure mode that destroys associations, and no Indiana statute prevents it for you.
• Records are the association's property. Explicitly, including electronic records, the accounting file, owner contact data and vendor contracts — with a defined handover period and format on termination. Records disputes at the end of a management relationship are the most common and most damaging fight in this area.
• Fidelity bond or crime coverage naming the association, in an amount tied to funds under control, with evidence delivered annually.
• Disclosure of affiliated vendors and any compensation received from them, including insurance commissions and maintenance affiliates.
• A termination right that is real — a defined notice period without a penalty large enough to trap the association.
• Named compliance responsibility for the 2026 statutory duties. Since 1 July 2026 associations within IC 32-25.5's reach face express requirements on meeting notice, fee restrictions and fine procedure. The agreement should say, in terms, who is responsible for meeting each of them. In an unlicensed market, the manager who fails to give a statutory notice faces no regulator — only whatever the contract provides.

Verifying a manager without a licence to check

Boards accustomed to states with mandatory certification look for a licence number and find nothing. Reasonable substitutes:

1. Voluntary professional credentials. Trade-body designations are not licences and carry no state authority, but they evidence training and a complaints process.
2. The company's entity standing with the Indiana Secretary of State — active, and filing its reports.
3. Insurance certificates obtained from the carrier or broker, not from the manager.
4. References from associations of comparable size, and at least one from a client that terminated the relationship. That call is the informative one.
5. Indiana court records for the management company's litigation history.

What to watch

No successor to HB 1055 has been filed. The 2026 session produced none, and the Legislative Council assigned no property-management topic to any 2026 interim study committee. Pre-filing for 2027 opens around mid-November 2026.

Two things would make the subject live again: a significant Indiana misappropriation case, which is historically what moves licensure bills; or the accumulation of compliance duties from the 2026 amendments reaching a point where the legislature concludes someone ought to be accountable for meeting them.