2026-09-10 · Indiana · Legislation

What happened. Indiana has taken aim at the à la carte fee. Since 1 July 2026, an association may not send a member a bill for something the member's regular assessment already pays for.

House Enrolled Act 1152 introduced the principle in broad terms. House Enrolled Act 1115, signed nine days later, rewrote it into the version that actually governs — narrower in one respect, far more specific in another.

The rule, and the list

The operative subsection bars a fee for any service “included in the homeowner's association assessment,” and then names examples so that the scope is not arguable:

• common-area waste management
• common-area maintenance
• common-area landscaping
• common-amenity maintenance
• subdivision security
• administrative duties

The last item is the widest. “Administrative duties” covers a great deal of what management companies have historically itemised.

What is still chargeable

The statute expressly preserves charges for optional services a homeowner affirmatively opts into. That is the safe harbour, and it has a guard on it: an association may not reclassify a service that is already included as “optional” without membership approval at a properly convened meeting.

Without that guard the rule would have lasted about a fortnight. With it, moving landscaping from “covered by dues” to “optional extra” is a decision for the members, not the board.

Record searches are now free

The same rewrite scrapped a fee structure that HEA 1152 had created only days earlier. The March version allowed a search fee of $35 per hour after a free first hour, capped at $200. HEA 1115 removed it and substituted a flat prohibition: an association “may not charge a fee to search for a record in response to a written request.”

The $35-per-hour figure never took effect. Both acts commenced on the same day and the later one controls. Summaries published in early March 2026 that describe an hourly search fee are describing superseded text.

1. House Enrolled Act 1115 (2026), P.L. 155-2026 — amendments to IC 32-25.5-3-3, including subsections (n) and (o) ↩
2. House Enrolled Act 1152 (2026), P.L. 53-2026 — the superseded $35-per-hour record search fee structure ↩
3. Office of the Governor, 2026 Bill Watch — signing dates ↩