A Rhode Island condo budget passes even if nobody shows up

Section 34-36.1-3.03(c) ratifies a proposed budget unless a majority of ALL unit owners vote to reject it, “whether or not a quorum is present” — and a successful rejection continues last year's budget rather than forcing a new one.

Two Rhode Island deadlines land on September 30

The National Flood Insurance Program's authorization expires September 30, 2026, and Rhode Island's House short-term rental commission must report by the same date — with no public evidence it has met this year.

Rhode Island's $25 resale certificate update fee died in committee

H 7411 and S 2702 would have capped at $25 the fee for updating a resale certificate already issued. Both were held for further study and died, leaving the $125 cap, the ten-day deadline and the $100-to-$500 civil penalty unchanged.

Rhode Island's own statute website is serving superseded condominium law

Fifteen months after three condominium acts took effect, the General Assembly's codified General Laws pages for §§ 34-36.1-2.19, 3.08 and 3.13 still show the pre-2025 text — while other statutes enacted the same day are posted.

Solar, signs, flags, clotheslines: the rights Rhode Island never gave association members

Rhode Island has no solar-access statute against an association, no political-sign protection, no right to charge an EV, no clothesline law, and no state flag-display statute — the flag protection people cite is federal.

The bill to finish Rhode Island's condo deductible rules died in the House

S 2896 Substitute A would have made the unit owner's policy primary for the master-policy deductible gap, allocated losses unit by unit, and let boards direct insurance proceeds to repairs. It passed the Senate 37-0 and was never scheduled in House Corporations.

Rhode Island's high court: petitioning owners were entitled to the meeting they asked for

In Song v. Lemoine, decided May 19, 2025, the Rhode Island Supreme Court held unanimously that a condominium board cannot test the substantive validity of owner-petitioned agenda items as a precondition to calling the special meeting.

Small Rhode Island condominiums just got a project-review exemption

Freddie Mac Bulletin 2026-C expands Exempt from Review to projects of 2 to 10 units, retires the Streamlined Review type from August 3, 2026, and drops the 50% owner-occupancy test for investment loans in established projects.

In Rhode Island, six months of condo fees can erase a first mortgage

Twenty Eleven, LLC v. Botelho holds that foreclosing the six-month super-priority lien extinguishes a prior-recorded first mortgage if the lender does not redeem — a power Rhode Island associations exercise without a judge.

From January, Rhode Island shoreline rentals must disclose the public's right to the shore

Chapter 165 of the 2026 Public Laws adds two shoreline access disclosures — one for tenancies, one for short-term rentals — both naming the ten-foot line, and both taking effect January 1, 2027.

Rhode Island's reserve-study mandate passed the Senate 37-0 and then died

S 2692 Substitute A would have required a conditions survey of every condominium twenty years or older, a reserve study every five years, and reserves funded at 15% of the monthly assessment by January 1, 2027. It cleared the Senate unanimously and was never scheduled in the House.

Rhode Island's recovery-house law beats the town, not the deed

New § 45-24-33.1, enacted June 19, 2026, requires zoning and fire and building codes to treat a NARR-certified recovery residence as a residential use — and says nothing about a private covenant, where federal fair housing law already does the work.

Open condo board meetings died in Rhode Island — and the ombudsman was never written

S 2899 Substitute A would have opened executive board meetings to owners, listed the records an association must produce, and required a financial review every five years for associations over twenty units. It passed the Senate 37-0 and died.

Rhode Island's oldest condominiums get the lien but not the vote

The Condominium Act reaches back to pre-1982 condominiums for the assessment lien, fines, records and resale certificates — but not for quorum, proxies, board elections or the budget ratification vote.

No Rhode Island regulator has jurisdiction over your condo board

The Attorney General has never held a private Rhode Island association to be a “public body” under the open-records or open-meetings laws, and no state agency licenses or oversees association managers — while a chartered fire district next door is fully covered.

Rhode Island has no right to charge an EV — but it will pay 90% of your association's charger

A 2026 bill to stop condominium and homeowners associations banning EV charger installation died in committee. Meanwhile a state incentive names authorised HOA representatives and covers 90% of cost up to $100,000 a site.

Rhode Island told insurers they cannot drop a homeowner over a blurry roof photo

Insurance Bulletin 2025-3, issued August 18, 2025, sets a fifteen-month currency standard for aerial imagery, bars non-renewal on cosmetic roof streaking alone, and extends to third-party roof scores — but it speaks to homeowners insurers, not master policies.

From January, a Rhode Island judgment lien needs a certified letter within ten days

New § 9-21-14, effective January 1, 2027, requires a judgment creditor who records a lien on real property to send the owner a certified letter with four specified items inside ten business days.

Rhode Island repeals the ban on using home value to split private-road costs

Chapter 341 of the 2026 Public Laws strikes the 2018 clause that barred market value or assessed valuation from the calculation of benefit received under § 34-9.1-2, effective June 24, 2026.

Rhode Island voids grocery-store restrictive covenants

A new § 34-4-31, effective June 18, 2026, makes a covenant restricting land from being used to sell fresh food void and unenforceable, with a narrow relocation exception and no retroactive effect.

Rhode Island moved three- and four-unit buildings into the residential code

Chapter 377 of the 2026 Public Laws puts one- to four-family dwellings under the International Residential Code and reserves the commercial International Building Code for buildings of more than four residential units.

Rhode Island's first homeowners association act died in committee

H 8273 and S 3094 would have created a chapter 34-36.2 governing every Rhode Island HOA of ten or more parcels — fiduciary duties, open board meetings, recall, records, pre-suit mediation. Both were held for further study and died.

Rhode Island's new hurricane-hardening grants exclude condominiums by name

Chapter 294 of the 2026 Public Laws creates the “Strengthen Rhody Homes” retrofit grant programme and makes the grant available only to an owner-occupied single-family primary residence that “cannot be a condominium or mobile home.”

Rhode Island creates a 16-member commission to rewrite condominium law

A joint resolution signed June 19, 2026 seats sixteen members — including two condominium owners and one condominium attorney — to study Rhode Island's condominium law and report by December 31, 2027.

In Rhode Island an association's ADU ban is void — and its ADU short-term rental ban is state law

Section 45-24-73(b)(6) is the one Rhode Island statute that expressly voids condominium and homeowners association covenants. Newport's ordinance mirrors it — and separately bars ADUs from being rented through a hosting platform.

A silent lender now counts as a yes in Rhode Island condominium votes

Section 34-36.1-2.19(b), added June 24, 2025, deems a unit mortgagee to have approved an action if it does not send a written denial within sixty-five days of a properly mailed request — and it reaches pre-1982 condominiums.

Rhode Island makes developers budget reserves down to the mulch, then never again

Section 34-36.1-4.03(a)(5) requires a condominium developer's offering statement to itemise reserves for roof shingles, roadways, exterior wood, decks and mulch with life-spans and per-unit costs — and no Rhode Island statute requires an association to maintain any of it afterwards.

A Narragansett rental permit is no defence to your covenant — the town says so in writing

Narragansett's short-term rental ordinance makes every applicant certify that the permit does not allow them to violate private covenants — and the ordinance itself has been unenforceable since a 2024 injunction.

A $50,000 per-unit deductible ceiling arrives for Rhode Island condo master policies

Freddie Mac Bulletin 2026-C retires the 5%-per-unit deductible test and caps a per-unit master-policy deductible at $50,000, requires an HO-6 wherever one exists, and makes named-storm coverage mandatory — for applications from July 1, 2026.

A Rhode Island declaration that caps fines is void

Section 34-36.1-3.20(d) invalidates any condominium declaration, bylaw or rule purporting to set a maximum fine — so a document promising a $25 ceiling cannot be relied on, and the statutory $100-a-day limit governs instead.

A Rhode Island condominium gets double the erosion setback — and the same four-boat dock

The Coastal Resources Management Council's Red Book doubles the erosion setback multiplier for dwellings of more than four units, counts an association's adjoining lots as one for buffer purposes, and caps a condominium's residential dock at four boats.

Your township can count your basin without asking

Pennsylvania DEP guidance confirms a municipality may count a privately-owned stormwater facility toward its own permit obligation with no agreement in place — and that the facility must then be inspected and maintained to its operation plan.

You cannot sue over common areas alone

In Macias v. Southfield Crossing the Commonwealth Court held that owners challenging a deed transferring common areas between two phase associations had to join every affected owner as an indispensable party — because use of common ground is a constitutionally protected property interest.

Two years, and not one word of Title 68

The 2025-2026 session produced 111 general acts and amended none of Pennsylvania's condominium, cooperative or planned-community statutes — the last substantive change is still Act 115 of 2022.

Twenty-one days notice is the one CAI opposes

HB 1174 would more than double the minimum notice for a Pennsylvania association’s annual meeting, from ten days to 21. It is the only bill the industry’s Pennsylvania chapter lists as opposed, and it has not moved since April 2025.

Township ordinances now bind on day one

Act 3 of 2025 deleted the five-day grace period before a second-class-township ordinance takes effect — and most Pennsylvania planned communities sit in second-class townships.

Thirteen association bills died in one session

Every HOA, condominium and manufactured-housing bill of Pennsylvania’s 2023-2024 session died at sine die. Most have been reintroduced with new numbers, two of the most substantial have not, and the same deadline arrives again on 30 November.

The stormwater permit that expired in 2023

Pennsylvania’s municipal stormwater general permit expired in March 2023 and is still running on administrative extension. DEP now says it will not publish the replacement during 2026, and no new coverage can be authorised in the meantime.

The PUC blessed submetering for EV chargers

Pennsylvania’s Public Utility Commission adopted a final policy statement on electric-vehicle rate design that tells utilities to explore telematic submetering instead of additional revenue-grade meters — the cost that stops chargers going into shared garages.

The only solar law passed exempts your roof

Pennsylvania enacted one solar statute in the 2025-2026 session — a decommissioning-bond law for utility-scale lease sites that expressly excludes systems of two megawatts or less, which is every residential rooftop array an association ever argues about.

The new towing law stops at your parking lot

Pennsylvania criminalised predatory towing in Act 46 of 2026, but defined “tow” to mean removal at the scene of a motor vehicle accident — which leaves association parking-lot tows entirely outside the statute.

The investor bill writes you out of it

HB 2704 would regulate institutional investors buying single-family homes in Pennsylvania — and expressly exempts planned communities, condominiums and cooperatives whose residents own their units or share ownership of the real estate.

The FinCEN question is permanently closed

A final rule effective 14 August 2026 permanently exempts all US-formed entities from beneficial-ownership reporting, ending a two-year question for Pennsylvania association boards — by rule rather than by injunction or enforcement forbearance.

The CROWN Act reaches the housing title too

Act 54 of 2025 wrote hair texture, protective hairstyles and religious head coverings into the definitions section of the Pennsylvania Human Relations Act — the same act that governs housing discrimination by associations and their agents.

The clothesline bill has waited sixteen months

HB 67 would bar Pennsylvania associations from unreasonably prohibiting outdoor clothes-drying. It passed the House 128-75 in May 2025 and has sat in a Senate committee ever since, with the session ending 30 November.

The Attorney General registers only half of you

Pennsylvania requires planned communities to register with the Office of Attorney General and deposit financial security there. There is no parallel registration for condominiums — the Commonwealth’s only registration touchpoint reaches one statute and one moment.

The assistance animal act already names you

Pennsylvania’s Assistance and Service Animal Integrity Act of 2018 defines “association” to include condominium, cooperative and planned-community associations — and a pending bill would amend the documentation, immunity and misrepresentation provisions that bind them.

The annual report that dissolves you in 2027

Incorporated Pennsylvania associations have owed a free annual report to the Department of State since January 2025, and from the 2027 cycle a non-filer faces administrative dissolution six months after the due date.

The ADU bill leaves your covenant standing

Pennsylvania’s House passed statewide accessory dwelling units by right 139-62 — and wrote in an express carve-out preserving deed restrictions and planned-community documents. Municipalities would lose the power to ban ADUs; associations would keep it.

Streamlined review is gone for condo loans

Since 3 August 2026 established condominium projects can no longer be approved through the abbreviated review route — a change affecting most transactions that previously used it, and one that puts the association’s full documentation in front of a lender at every sale.

Residents would get 90 days to buy their park

SB 746 would require a manufactured-home community owner to notify residents before selling and give them 90 days to make a competing offer. It is the furthest-advanced association-adjacent bill in Pennsylvania, sitting in Senate Appropriations.

Philadelphia makes STR hosts tell the neighbours

A Philadelphia ordinance requires a short-term rental operator to give written notice to residents of every unit in the building and to every other unit owner in the condominium, planned unit development or cooperative.

Owners who list on Airbnb owe training by 2027

Act 31 of 2026 requires every short-term rental operator — including an individual condo owner listing one unit — to complete human-trafficking awareness training, with listing platforms obliged to verify it from 20 July 2027.

Nobody in Pennsylvania licenses your HOA manager

Pennsylvania has no licence class for community association managers, and the State Real Estate Commission's own exclusion list does not contain one either — even though the statute defines a broker as anyone who manages real estate.

No statewide inspection mandate anywhere

Pennsylvania has enacted no condominium structural-inspection or reserve-study requirement, and no bill proposing one exists in either of the last two sessions. The only inspection mandate reaching multi-storey residential buildings is a Philadelphia façade ordinance from 2010.

Never having said yes before is a defence

In Pauletta v. Riverview Manor the Superior Court affirmed summary judgment for a Harrisburg association that refused an owner permission to drill through an exterior wall, framing the abuse-of-design-control test as consistent past practice plus reasonable inquiry.

Name someone to catch the tax-sale notice

Act 27 of 2026 creates a form letting an owner designate a relative or agent to also receive delinquent property-tax notices before a county can sell the home, and confirms that tax duty on unseated land is a charge against the land only.

Multifamily gets a seat on the accessibility board

Act 16 of 2026 rebuilt how Pennsylvania adopts the accessibility provisions of its construction code, added a multifamily-housing representative to the Accessibility Advisory Board and doubled member terms to four years.

Master policy lines stayed in the filing net

Pennsylvania deregulated most property and casualty lines from rate and form filing in April 2026 — but commercial property, businessowners and commercial general liability, which is what an association master policy is written on, all stayed inside the regime.

HUD would drop the rule behind neutral covenants

A supplemental HUD rulemaking published 10 August 2026 continues the effort to remove disparate-impact liability provisions, with comments due 9 October. For Pennsylvania associations, the state’s own fair-housing law is unaffected.

DCED regulates the home, not the park

Pennsylvania’s housing agency sets standards for manufactured homes and directs every complaint about a manufactured-home community to a consumer hotline — and two pending measures would create the regulator that does not exist.

An association appealed too early and lost a year

Academy House Condominium Association appealed its assessment-foreclosure decision before the trial court had ruled on its own post-trial motion. The Commonwealth Court quashed the appeal as premature, vacated the judgment and sent the case back.

Act 29 puts your rented unit on a county list

From 18 September 2026 every Pennsylvania property that is not owner-occupied — including rented condo units and association-owned parcels — must register a reachable contact with the county within 30 days of purchase, on pain of a $500 fine.

A tax credit for the sprinkler fight

SB 1299 would create a Pennsylvania tax credit for retrofitting sprinklers in Philadelphia residential high-rises — the money side of a retrofit mandate that condominium associations fought when it was proposed without one.

A stormwater charge is a tax, says the court

In Borough of West Chester v. PASSHE the Pennsylvania Supreme Court held an impervious-surface stormwater charge is a tax rather than a fee — setting out the two-step test that governs every municipal charge landing on association common areas.

A resale bill would fine the association $15,000

HB 2746 would require full disclosure of infrastructure ownership and maintenance responsibility in every Pennsylvania association resale — with escalating penalties running against the association itself, not the seller.

A lot rent cap passed the House and stopped

HB 1250 would band manufactured-home lot rent increases to the regional consumer price index and protect resident associations. It passed the House 144-59 in June 2025 and has sat in a Senate committee for fifteen months.

A late filing cost these owners every argument

Homeowners who lost a collection trial to their association waived every issue on appeal by filing a late statement of errors, and the Commonwealth Court held counsel’s mis-calendaring was neither an extraordinary circumstance nor good cause.

A fifty thousand dollar deductible ceiling

Since 1 July 2026 a condominium master policy with a per-unit deductible above $50,000 makes the units unfinanceable — and where a per-unit deductible exists, every mortgaged owner’s individual policy must now cover the same perils.

A fifteen percent reserve floor lands in January

From 4 January 2027 a condominium project must budget at least 15% of annual assessment income to replacement reserves to remain conventionally financeable — up from 10%, and in a state whose own statutes require no reserve funding at all.

A complaint line is your only regulator

Pennsylvania’s answer to “who regulates my HOA” is a consumer-protection complaint route created by Act 17 of 2018, triggered by records and meeting failures and available only to an owner in good standing who has exhausted internal dispute resolution.

A bill would stop counting non-voters as no

HB 2655 would change the threshold for amending a Pennsylvania declaration from 67% of votes allocated to 67% of votes collected — removing the apathy problem that makes many declarations effectively unamendable.

A bill would put HOAs under Right-to-Know

SB 873 would add planned-community associations to the definition of “local agency” in Pennsylvania’s Right-to-Know Law, subjecting them to open-records officers, statutory deadlines and appeals to the Office of Open Records. It has not moved since June 2025.

A bill would make townships pay you back

SB 963 would require every Pennsylvania municipality to provide planned communities the same services it gives other homes — or reimburse the association for providing them — with compulsory arbitration where no agreement is reached.

A bill would ban requiring turf grass

HB 1878 would stop Pennsylvania covenants from prohibiting native conservation landscaping, and would deem unreasonable any restriction requiring turf grass or confining native planting to the back of a property.

An Oregon order froze master-policy cancellations — until this month

The Division of Financial Regulation's wildfire emergency order suspended cancellations and nonrenewals across all property and casualty lines in affected ZIP codes, and it runs out around September 29, 2026.

Pleading in contract no longer kills a builder's defect coverage

In Twigg v. Admiral Insurance, the Oregon Supreme Court held that whether damage was caused by an 'accident' under a CGL policy turns on whether there is a basis in fact for tort liability — not on how the underlying claim was pleaded.

Oregon's Supreme Court heard no association case in 20 months

Across 149 opinions from January 2025 to September 2026, no Oregon Supreme Court decision construes the Planned Community Act, the Condominium Act, a declaration or a set of CC&Rs.

The federal solar credit is gone, the 60-day HOA clock is not

Public Law 119-21 ended the residential clean energy credit for expenditures after December 31, 2025 and the EV charging credit for property placed in service after June 30, 2026 — but ORS 94.778 and ORS 94.762 are unchanged.

Oregon now polices solar and fire hardening by different rules

ORS 94.778 still lets an Oregon board impose reasonable aesthetic conditions on solar panels; SB 1551 gives fire-hardened materials a tighter test and a 90-day clock the solar statute never had.

Oregon repealed its wildfire map and voided every hazard rating

Senate Bill 83 took effect on signing in July 2025, repealing seven statutes, nulling every wildfire hazard zone assignment, and making the R327 building standards a local option for new construction only.

A bill to legalise hens and beehives in Oregon HOAs died quietly

Senate Bill 59 would have voided planned-community governing-document bans on gardening, hen-keeping and beekeeping. It got one hearing in February 2025 and was never voted on.

Oregon voided every CC&R that blocks fire hardening

Senate Bill 1551 took effect June 5, 2026, and it reaches declarations recorded before, on or after that date — no grandfathering, and not one no vote in either chamber.

Oregon condo boards got the fire-hardening rule without the clock

SB 1551 put its deemed-approval machinery in the Planned Community Act only, leaving condominium owners covered by the covenant override but with no 90-day deadline behind it.

Oregon's wildfire insurance transparency bill died in Rules

Senate Bill 1540 would have forced insurers to disclose wildfire risk-modeling methods to regulators and let the commissioner reject filings built on them. It cleared its policy committee unanimously and never reached the floor.

An Oregon HOA acted honestly and still lost the garage case

In Santoro v. Eagle Crest, the Court of Appeals held that an architectural committee's good-faith duty is measured objectively — and that design review cannot be used to make impossible a use the CC&Rs themselves contemplate.

Four Oregon jurisdictions have opted into the wildfire code

Ashland, Deschutes County, Grants Pass and Sisters have adopted Section R327 locally, with Bend following on May 15, 2026 — and in Central Oregon the new standards reach communities that had only a wood-shake roof ban.

Portland's rental fines reach $27,513 with no warning first

The city ombudsman found Portland issues no warnings before assessing short-term rental fines, that the maximum for five violations is at least 27 times higher than comparable cities, and that only 46% of complaints result in citations.

A long-term tenant can satisfy Hood River's rental residency rule

The Ninth Circuit affirmed Hood River's primary-residence condition on short-term rentals in July 2026, and the distinction that saved it is that the resident need not be the owner.

Oregon has no HOA regulator, and nobody asked for one

Across 3,770 bills in two sessions and 1,726 interim committee agenda items, no Oregon measure proposed licensing community association managers or creating an HOA ombudsman.

Limited Review is gone, and Oregon condos now face the full file

For applications received on or after August 3, 2026, Fannie Mae retired Limited Review and Freddie Mac retired Streamlined Review — so every conventional loan on an Oregon condo unit now triggers a full project review.

Institutional buyers lose the off-market route into Oregon HOAs

From January 1, 2027, House Bill 4128 bars covered entities from buying an Oregon single-family home unless it has been publicly listed for at least 90 consecutive days — with middle housing carved out.

HUD withdrew the assistance-animal guidance Oregon boards relied on

FHEO Notice 2020-01 and the 2013 service-animal notice were withdrawn effective September 17, 2025 — but the Fair Housing Act, Oregon's own fair housing law, and the two-year private right of action are all unchanged.

Oregon HOAs have nothing to file with FinCEN, and never will

A final rule published August 14, 2026 confirms the deletion of the entire domestic reporting company category — so an Oregon nonprofit HOA is outside beneficial-ownership reporting altogether.

Oregon's plug-in solar bill would have left HOAs two defenses

House Bill 4080 would have voided planned-community restrictions on portable solar devices retroactively, with carve-outs only for building codes and manufacturer safety guidelines. It died in committee without a vote.

Oregon's second try at county HOA dues died without a hearing

House Bill 4064 refiled the 2025 tax-foreclosure bill verbatim, added a $4.3 million appropriation to one named Oregon HOA, and got no hearing, no testimony and no vote.

Oregon quietly repealed a defect settlement privilege

Old ORS 701.580(6) made unaccepted right-to-repair offers and replies inadmissible in later proceedings. House Bill 3746 deleted the subsection outright, and almost nobody noticed.

Oregon cut association defect claims from 10 years to 7

House Bill 3746 shortened the construction-defect period for Oregon HOAs and condominium associations, and keyed the change to the date the declaration was first recorded — not the date of construction.

Oregon boards must warn owners before suing over defects

Three notices, a 90-day wait, a recorded board vote and a statutory warning about resale — ORS 94.662 and ORS 100.490 now set out exactly what an Oregon association must do before filing a construction-defect claim.

New Oregon condos must be inspected for moisture twice

ORS 100.417(8) now requires an independent moisture-intrusion inspection before the end of year two and again before the end of year six, paid for from the reserve account.

A bill to defer HOA dues on county land passed 48-4, then died

House Bill 3545 would have suspended collection of association assessments on tax-foreclosed property held by an Oregon county. It cleared the House, got one Senate hearing, and was never voted on again.

Oregon's manufactured-home covenant rule only binds new documents

ORS 94.776(3) voids a planned-community ban on manufactured dwellings and prefabricated structures — but only where the provision was adopted or amended on or after January 1, 2026.

Oregon's oldest CC&Rs lose their density shield in 2027

House Bill 2138 deletes the January 1, 2020 cutoff from ORS 94.776, so a declaration recorded in 1978 stops being outside the statute — but the text amendment does not become operative until January 1, 2027.

The flood insurance program expires in 15 days

NFIP authorization runs to September 30, 2026. It has already lapsed twice in the past year — once for 43 days — and an Oregon association with an October renewal is in the exposed population.

Oregon boards can now push $50,000 a unit onto owners

Conventional lenders raised the permitted master-policy per-unit deductible to $50,000 from July 1, 2026, and ORS 100.435 already lets an Oregon condominium board create exactly that exposure by resolution.

Oregon declarant rights transfer one way only, court holds

Eastside Bend v. Calaveras II is the Court of Appeals' first interpretation of several Planned Community Act provisions: ORS 94.623 is the exclusive route for transferring special declarant rights, and Oregon has no such thing as a joint declarant.

Drought orders have voided HOA watering rules in 21 counties

ORS 94.779 and ORS 100.023 void an Oregon association's irrigation requirements automatically while a drought declaration is in effect — no board vote, no amendment, no agency action needed.

Oregon's defensible space code bans the mulch HOAs require

The State Fire Marshal's model code, adopted April 29, 2026, requires a five-foot noncombustible zone around buildings that expressly excludes bark mulch — and thousands of Oregon association landscape standards specify exactly that.

Oregon condo reserves must hit 15% for January loan applications

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac raise the minimum reserve allocation from 10% to 15% of annual budgeted assessment income for applications received on or after January 4, 2027.

Cannon Beach would cap vacation rentals at 165, vote October 6

The city council has a proposed ordinance capping short-term rental licences below the current permit count, adding density limits and exclusion zones east of Highway 101. It returns to council on October 6, 2026.

A county can license short-term rentals without land use rules

Briggs v. Lincoln County upheld the county's short-term rental licensing program in full on August 12, 2026, and reversed the three provisions a trial court had struck as unconstitutionally vague.

App-only gates now make an Oregon HOA rental legally unfit

Since January 1, 2026, ORS 90.320 requires a landlord using phone-app access control to offer at least one physical alternative — which puts owner-landlords in app-only communities in breach of the habitability statute.

An Oregon owner moved a recorded easement by saying nothing

In Roxy Ann Heights v. Wilson, the Court of Appeals held that a servient owner who watches substantial association work proceed without objecting has implicitly agreed to relocate the easement.

A $25 Oregon condo filing can freeze the association's lawsuit

Under ORS 100.265, an opposing party who gives written notice can stop a delinquent Oregon condominium association from prosecuting or defending a case until its annual report is current.

Oregon forces counties to approve rebuilds, but not your HOA

Senate Bill 1561 strips local government discretion over restoring a dwelling destroyed by fire or other involuntary cause from January 1, 2027 — and says nothing at all about CC&Rs or architectural review.

An Oregon HOA billed one owner $1 million and got a receiver

In the Meritage litigation, a federal court found the man acting for an 18-unit Oregon coastal association had no authority to do so, appointed a receiver, and approved a settlement in November 2025.

One Oregon HOA owns a dam, a lake and a $4 million loan

Fishhawk Lake Reserve & Community runs its own water, sewer and road systems for 257 lots, and told the Legislature that a delay in collecting assessments could put it in default on its spillway loan.

A one-line fix restored Oregon's portable cooling device rule

ORS 94.779(6) voids a planned-community ban on portable cooling devices, but pointed at the wrong statute for the definition until House Bill 2464 corrected the citation.

A mislabelled lis pendens cost $265,000, at $5,000 a lot

Calaveras II v. Eastside Bend holds that statutory damages for an invalid claim of encumbrance run per individually titled lot, not per filing — the sharpest new financial risk in Oregon association practice.

Your transfer fee is safe only if the money stays home

A March 2026 FHFA amendment restored the grandfather exception for private transfer fee covenants retroactively to 2012 — but an association fee escapes the restriction only where the declaration limits the proceeds to the encumbered property.

Your roofer's assignment of benefits is void in Oklahoma, and has been since November

36 O.S. § 1230(B), effective November 1, 2025, makes any post-loss assignment of property insurance benefits null and void — and the ban expressly reaches commercial property policies, which is what an association master policy is.

Your roofer gets a new rulebook in January, and the association is the client now

HB 3800 rewrites the Oklahoma Roofing Contractor Registration Act effective January 1, 2027 — and because assignments of benefits are void, the association is the contracting and claiming party.

Oklahoma switched building codes yesterday, mid-way through your capital project

Seven 2024 International Codes took effect in Oklahoma on September 14, 2026, replacing the 2018 editions — so common-element work permitted from that date is scoped and priced against a different rulebook.

Your Oklahoma association files nothing with the state. Ever.

A domestic Oklahoma nonprofit pays $25 once to incorporate and then owes the Secretary of State no annual report, no annual certificate and no franchise tax — so nothing on file will ever show who runs the association.

Your association can now bill the city back for a year of property taxes

The Oklahoma Safe Neighborhoods Act of 2026, effective November 1, lets a property owner in a city over 130,000 claim compensation where the city declines to enforce laws on camping, loitering or public nuisance — and an association holding fee title to common areas qualifies.

Two sessions, 968 new laws, and not one changed how an Oklahoma HOA governs itself

A citation-by-citation sweep of the 60th Legislature's enacted measures finds no amendment to the Real Estate Development Act, and not a single bill even filed touching the condominium statute.

Two Oklahoma cities where an association can actually stop a short-term rental

Yukon requires a council-approved special use permit with a 600-foot abstractor notice list and a public hearing; Stillwater turns a single written objection within 30 days into a planning commission hearing.

Two things changed on assistance animals. Neither lets you enforce a no-pets rule

Oklahoma made service-animal misrepresentation a misdemeanour and HUD stopped charging cases over untrained emotional support animals — but the Fair Housing Act is unchanged and the private lawsuit is untouched.

Tulsa allows backyard units by right. Your covenant still does not

Tulsa amended its accessory dwelling unit rules in September 2025 and permits ADUs by right in many districts; Owasso permits them in every residential district and says plainly that it does not enforce private covenants.

Three solar bills, one veto, and Oklahoma still has no solar-access law

SB 1917 died without a hearing, HB 4060 passed the House and died in Senate committee, and SB 915 was vetoed — leaving Oklahoma with no statute limiting what an association may do about solar panels.

Reported: $3.1 million gone from a dozen OKC-metro HOA accounts, and none of it recovered

A police report says text-message approvals to one management company's owner led to wire transfers draining ten homeowners association accounts, with the FBI investigating and no funds recovered.

Three bills to rein in Oklahoma insurance rates never left committee

Senate Democratic Leader Julia Kirt filed measures to cap insurer profits, require advance justification of rate increases and ban credit-based rating; two failed to advance on February 20, 2026.

The state permit that names HOAs by name — and hands you the detention pond forever

Oklahoma's stormwater permit for small municipal systems directs cities to make HOAs responsible for long-term maintenance of detention ponds and other stormwater controls, and expressly excludes the individual homeowner.

Oklahoma's short-term-rental covenant question is now before the Supreme Court

Certiorari was granted on November 17, 2025 in SilverHawk HOA v. Tawose, putting the question of whether a residential-purposes covenant bars short-term rentals before the Oklahoma Supreme Court for the first time.

Oklahoma's roof grant became permanent — and the statute opens a door the form closes

HB 3796 removed the Strengthen Oklahoma Homes sunset and the statute expressly authorizes grants to nonprofit entities, but the program's published eligibility runs through the homestead exemption, which an association does not have.

Now the county clerk has to scrub the plat, not just the declaration

SB 2139, effective November 1, 2026, requires an Oklahoma county clerk to redact discriminatory language from the electronic plat on its own website once a municipality files a correction affidavit.

The petition to abolish homestead property tax is stalled at the Supreme Court

State Question 843 would phase out ad valorem tax on owner-occupied homes by 2029, but it has not gathered a single signature — a challenge argued in June 2026 is still undecided.

A rewrite of Oklahoma's HOA lien statute passed committee 10-0, then was never scheduled

HB 2264 would have barred any lien or foreclosure unless the owner was told in writing about the association when they joined, imposed a three-year wait before foreclosure, and made a winning homeowner's judgment an obligation of the association.

Oklahoma's HOA reform bill passed the House 73-14, then sat for two years without a hearing

HB 2800 would have capped association fees at $175, capped a good-standing letter at $50, and required 72-hour access to the CC&Rs. It never got a Senate committee hearing and died at sine die.

Oklahoma is formally asking whether its homeowners market is broken. The hearing slipped to October 26

A formal Insurance Department proceeding will decide whether Oklahoma's homeowners insurance market is noncompetitive — the statutory finding that unlocks rate authority. It was set for September 14 and has been continued.

The State Farm hail suit is an HOA balance-sheet story, and nobody is writing it that way

Oklahoma's Attorney General sued State Farm in June 2026 over an alleged “Hail Focus Initiative” that suppressed roof approvals — and in a condo or townhome regime a suppressed roof claim becomes a special assessment.

The 15% reserve rule everyone is quoting is not in force. Your budget meeting is where it lands

Fannie Mae's Selling Guide still requires 10% of the budget in replacement reserves today; the 15% minimum attaches to loan applications dated on or after January 4, 2027 — the budget boards adopt this autumn.

The fence that cannot go in the drainage easement, and the pond that is now a covenant

Edmond and Midwest City both convert drainage obligations into recorded covenants running with the land — and Edmond's code names the fences, pools and driveways that may not obstruct a platted drainage easement.

The Attorney General was barred from joining a homeowner's hail lawsuit

In State Farm v. Palumbo the Oklahoma Supreme Court issued a writ of prohibition against an order letting the Attorney General intervene in a private hailstorm coverage suit.

Oklahoma's rural broadband relay beats your no-antennas covenant

The FCC's over-the-air reception device rule reaches transmitting fixed-wireless hub and relay antennas, and puts the burden of proof on the association trying to enforce the restriction.

Suing your Oklahoma board now starts with a letter — and a wait

In Howard v. Barrington, the Oklahoma Supreme Court applied the business judgment rule and the pre-suit demand statute to an HOA board, and held three days was not long enough to wait before filing.

Owners got 60 days' warning of non-renewal. The condo board appears to still have 20

Oklahoma doubled the non-renewal notice period for homeowners and personal residential policies effective July 25, 2026 — but a condominium or HOA master policy is commercial property insurance, and on the face of the rule it is not covered.

Oklahoma sheriff's sales moved online, and the buyer's premium is banned

SB 747 took effect immediately on an emergency clause in 2025, letting sheriffs sell through an online auction marketplace — which is where an Oklahoma HOA assessment-lien foreclosure ends up.

Oklahoma sellers must now disclose unpaid HOA dues, by amount, on a state form

The Residential Property Condition Disclosure Statement effective January 1, 2026 asks whether dues or assessments are unpaid and how much — surfacing an association lien risk before a purchase offer is accepted.

Oklahoma insurers must file rates 30 days early — starting July 1, 2027

HB 3781 moves Oklahoma property and casualty rates from use-and-file to file-and-wait and requires the Insurance Department to publish homeowners and dwelling-fire increases on its website, but none of it takes effect until July 2027.

Quieting title after a forged deed is now free, and the clerk calls the DA

SB 2072, effective November 1, 2026, bars any filing fee for an order quieting title after a fraudulent conveyance and requires the county clerk to refer a notice of fraudulent conveyance to the district attorney.

One Oklahoma city mandates your HOA, vets its documents, and can seize its lien

Midwest City § 38-50 requires HOA formation for private streets and detention ponds, has the city attorney review the declaration, forbids developer-subsidised dues projections, vetoes covenant amendments and lets the city enforce the association's own lien.

Oklahoma's older condo buildings just got a shield against retroactive elevator rules

HB 4321, effective November 1, 2026, bars the Department of Labor from applying new elevator rules to existing structures unless it produces written findings of an obvious safety hazard.

Your Oklahoma HOA has nothing to file with FinCEN, and nothing to renew

A FinCEN final rule effective August 14, 2026 removed every domestically formed entity from beneficial-ownership reporting, so an invoice for annual BOI compliance is billing for an obligation that does not exist.

Tulsa's charter says no property is exempt. That includes your common areas

Tulsa's amended charter provides that no property of any kind in the city is exempt from special assessments for local improvements, and the Council's resolution is conclusive on whether the improvement benefits the property.

Oklahoma hail claimants no longer need a written proof of loss to recover fees

In Rowan v. State Farm the Oklahoma Supreme Court held that 36 O.S. § 3629(B) does not require a written proof of loss before an insured can recover attorney fees, reversing the denial of fees after a storm-damage verdict.

A bill making HOA board members live in the neighborhood died one floor vote short

HB 2588 would have required Oklahoma board members to own and physically reside in the development for at least ten months a year, with automatic resignation on failure; it passed the House 70-19 and expired on the Senate General Order.

Limited Review is gone, and your association's budget is no longer a private document

The lender review type that let a conventional condo loan skip the budget, the reserve math and the insurance review has been retired — every conventional condo loan now runs Full Review or a waiver.

Four more Oklahoma bills reached your gate, your mailbox and your rentals. All died

Measures to force gated communities to admit process servers, ban cluster mailboxes in new neighborhoods, require every co-owner's consent before a short-term listing, and let hosts demand guest ID all failed in 2025 or 2026.

Four Oklahoma cities have no short-term rental rule at all, and one killed its rental registry

Edmond, Bixby, Jenks and Bartlesville regulate short-term rentals not at all; Bartlesville registers every residential rental; and Midwest City repealed its general rental registration programme in 2014.

Four Oklahoma cities, four different answers on whether your covenant matters

Oklahoma City lets the Board of Adjustment deny a short-term rental over a recorded covenant; Tulsa's code never mentions covenants; Owasso writes the shrug into its ADU section; Edmond applies whichever restriction is stricter.

Fifteen days to bind your flood renewal before the program's authority dies

The National Flood Insurance Program's authorization expires at 11:59 p.m. on September 30, 2026; during a lapse FEMA cannot issue or renew a condominium association's RCBAP.

A proposal to de-annex East Norman would have left the covenants and removed the city

A Norman councilmember floated de-annexing property east of 60th Avenue; three legislators objected and the council declined to advance it — but the idea shows what happens to a subdivision when municipal authority leaves and private covenants stay.

Broken Arrow capped short-term rental owners at four, and told the platforms to delist

An ordinance adopted February 17, 2026 rewrote Broken Arrow's short-term rental rules end to end — a four-licence cap per person, beneficial-ownership disclosure, certified-mail neighbour notice and a three-day platform takedown duty.

Both Oklahoma bills to curb investor ownership of houses died

HB 1064 would have barred hedge funds from owning single-family homes and SB 2082 would have capped institutional investors at 25; neither reached a floor vote before sine die.

Anyone in Oklahoma can start managing your HOA tomorrow

Oklahoma issues no community association manager licence of any kind — the Real Estate Commission's licensing trigger reaches sales and rentals, and collecting assessments is neither.

An unauthorized charge on your association bill may be a consumer-protection claim

The Court of Civil Appeals revived a claim that a property owners association violated the Oklahoma Consumer Protection Act by billing charges the owner had not authorized in advance.

An Oklahoma association's fee award was cut by $10,670 for block billing

Grand Crest Owners Association won its covenant appeal and asked for $53,990 in appeal-related fees; the Court of Civil Appeals modified the award to $43,320, striking post-judgment collection time and block-billed entries.

Oklahoma just created an assessment lien that outranks the first mortgage

The BUILD Act, effective November 1, 2026, lets a master development district levy assessments carrying a lien equal to ad valorem taxes and senior to every other encumbrance — including the lender's.

Oklahoma votes November 3 on cutting the homestead valuation cap to 1.75%

State Question 847 would lower the annual cap on growth in taxable fair cash value from 3% to 1.75% for homesteads and from 5% to 4% for other property, effective tax year 2027.

A $50,000 per-unit deductible cap just met Oklahoma's percentage hail deductibles

Fannie Mae's master-policy rules now impose a $50,000 per-unit deductible ceiling on top of the 5% test — and a percentage wind-and-hail deductible on an Oklahoma condominium can blow through it.

A dues-increase fight in Oklahoma is a derivative action, not a lawsuit

Three members who sued over a $25 monthly dues increase used to subsidize a golf course lost because they never made a pre-suit demand on the board — their case was derivative in substance.

A buried propane tank cost an Oklahoma owner the case, the removal and the fees

An owner installed a 500-gallon propane tank after the association denied permission; the Court of Civil Appeals affirmed summary judgment for the association, the removal order and the fee award.

Oklahoma put a 180-day clock on every HOA board, and almost none of them know

HB 2171 took effect November 1, 2025: any member can demand removal of an unlawful restriction, the board has 90 days to decide and 90 more to record the amendment, and no member vote is required or permitted to stop it.

A $145,000 covenant judgment was vacated because a lawyer's office broke down

In Bjorkman v. Noble the Oklahoma Supreme Court vacated a $75,000 actual, $50,000 punitive and $20,000 fee award in a common-area dispute, holding unavoidable casualty or misfortune prevented the owner from defending.

Oklahoma approved 162 interim studies this year. None is about homeowners associations

Speaker Hilbert approved 92 House studies and Pro Tem Paxton 70 in the Senate; none addresses HOAs, condominiums, covenants, ADUs or short-term rentals, and all must conclude by October 30.

Your Ohio transfer fee is lawful only if you spend it right

FHFA reinstated the grandfather exceptions to its private transfer fee rule effective March 17, 2026 — and an association's own fee stays permissible only where the money provides a direct benefit to the burdened property.

Your Ohio transfer-approval clause probably does not reach a gift

The Tattershall One trilogy read a board-approval-of-purchaser bylaw strictly against the association — and still ended with $21,537.82 in fees against one unit owner across three appeals.

Ohio condo reserves must reach 15% in January — set it in this budget

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac raise the replacement-reserve minimum from 10% to 15% of annual budgeted assessment income for loan applications dated on or after January 4, 2027 — and Ohio law imposes no reserve mandate at all.

Your Ohio association has nothing to file with FinCEN

FinCEN's final rule of August 14, 2026 removes all domestic entities from the reporting-company definition, and it addressed homeowners associations by name — with one date left on the calendar.

Your Ohio insurer has 21 days to accept or deny the claim

Ohio's unfair claims practices rule sets hard clocks an association can hold a carrier to — 15 days to acknowledge, 15 to respond to a communication, 21 to decide, and status updates every 45 days.

Your Ohio city must report to the state if your basin is not maintained

Ohio EPA's stormwater permit requires municipalities to map private detention basins, hold the operation-and-maintenance agreement, inspect each one per permit term, and report enforcement actions for failure to maintain.

Your Ohio board can now appeal a building order in five days

Senate Bill 6 created an expedited appeal from a building official's order — commenced within one business day, heard within five, by video if needed, capped at $1,000 total.

Ohio court: you cannot ban short-term rentals by amending the bylaws

In Rudy v. Apple Valley the Fifth District reversed a $57,386.72 judgment against three owners, holding that a rental ban must go in the recorded declaration — and that short-term renting is residential, not commercial, use.

What Ohio's candidates for governor have said about your tax bill

Neither candidate has said anything on the record about HOAs or condominiums — but the Republican nominee's clearest statement points Ohio property-tax policy at the legislature convening in January 2027.

Ohio unit owners just won a jury right on condo damages claims

Porter v. Hammond North holds that a claim for breach of a condominium's governing documents carries a constitutional jury-trial right — because a declaration is more than a contract.

Thirteen Ohio counties reappraised in 2026 — and Cuyahoga is not one

Butler reports a 19% median residential increase and Summit about 18%, landing on January 2027 tax bills — while Cleveland-area owners are on the 2027 cycle, which makes 2026 a Columbus, Cincinnati, Dayton and Akron story.

"They let my neighbour do it" just got much harder to argue in Ohio

Whitney Woods v. Steagall holds that one similar violation elsewhere does not waive a covenant — and that an association's fee-recovery clause does not cover defending a fair-housing complaint.

Ohio's submetering bill passed both chambers and was vetoed

HB 173 would have regulated the resale of utility service and amended the landlord-obligations statute — it cleared the House and Senate in June 2026 and did not become law.

Ohio's Planned Community Law was not touched this General Assembly

A sweep of all 806 bills in the 136th General Assembly finds not one amending any section of chapter 5312, and only one touching chapter 5311 — the flag section.

Ohio's only HOA governing-document bill has sat still for 16 months

HB 16 would bar associations from banning political yard signs in the 30 days before an election and set a 12-by-18-inch floor — three hearings in spring 2025 and nothing since.

The Ohio Supreme Court decided no association case this term

Across 2025 and 2026 the state's high court produced no merit decision on covenants, condominium law or association governance — leaving twelve appellate districts to disagree, and one condominium case now pending.

The Ohio FAIR Plan just added condominium association language

FAIR Plan Bulletin #34 moved commercial business to new forms effective April 1, 2026, adding provisions specific to condominium associations and discontinuing coinsurance — while telling agents to move customers back to the standard market.

The flood program expires September 30, and Ohio floods

NFIP authorization runs out at 11:59 p.m. on September 30, 2026 with no enacted extension — and the association-level flood policy still carries an 80% coinsurance penalty measured at replacement cost when the loss happens.

On antennas, the burden is on your board — not the owner

The FCC's OTARD rule puts the burden of proving a restriction lawful on the association, requires enforcement to stop while a proceeding is pending, and since 2021 protects transmitting relay hubs.

That contractor's certificate of insurance protects your Ohio board from nothing

Blue Water Condominium v. Motorists confirms that additional-insured status on a contractor's CGL policy does not cover the contractor's own faulty workmanship — which is the loss an association actually suffers.

Small claims court stays open for Ohio HOA dues

Millbrook v. Wills reverses a municipal court that dismissed an association's collection suit for want of jurisdiction — chapter 5312 neither expands nor limits R.C. 1901.18(A), and collection costs and fees come with it.

Silence in the bylaws about buried pipes protects nobody

In Goebel v. Colonial Lane a jury found for flooded homeowners on R.C. 5312.08 and 5312.13 even though the association's bylaws never said whether the underground stormwater system was a common element.

Ohio's home insurance market is softening, not collapsing

Ohio homeowners combined ratios went from 115% in 2023 to 74% in 2025, surplus lines hold 0.1% of the market and Nationwide cut rates 18% in May — which makes most national coverage of Ohio insurance stress wrong.

Ohio may put ADUs in the residential code — comments closed today

A proposed new Section 330 of the Residential Code of Ohio would permit an accessory dwelling unit inside an existing single-family house or townhouse without a change of occupancy.

Ohio is not voting on property taxes this November

The campaign to abolish Ohio property taxes abandoned the 2026 ballot on June 5 and is now aimed at November 2027 — and no statewide property-tax or housing measure reaches voters this fall.

Ohio has no facade or structural inspection rule, and none is proposed

A full-text search of 544 pages of Ohio's proposed building and residential code rules returns zero hits for facade, structural inspection or periodic inspection — eleven months after a Cincinnati condominium balcony collapsed under ten people.

Ohio banned agreements that run with the land — and named associations as an exception

Senate Bill 101 voids "unfair service agreements" recorded against homes from June 16, 2026, with mandatory damages and fees — and carves out condominium declarations, planned-community declarations and association maintenance contracts by name.

Nobody in Ohio licenses the person managing your association

Ohio has no community association manager licence, registration, exam or bond. The real estate licence triggers only on renting buildings "to the public as tenants" — which is not what an HOA or condo manager does.

Nobody in Ohio is studying homeowners associations

No committee, task force, working group or study commission in either chamber is examining HOAs, condominiums or covenants — and Ohio appears in none of the national 2026 HOA legislation trend categories.

No Ohio agency regulates how your association governs itself

Ohio regulates a common-interest community's boiler, elevator, stormwater basin and corporate charter, and none of its government — chapters 5311 and 5312 name no administering agency and send every remedy to court.

Miss one Ohio filing and your association has two years left to exist

Senate Bill 98 put a hard two-year reinstatement window on a cancelled Ohio nonprofit charter effective October 24, 2024 — and the classic way an association loses its charter is a statutory agent nobody has updated in a decade.

In Summit County the county maintains your basin — and bills every lot forever

Assessed subdivisions in Summit County carry a permanent drainage maintenance assessment on the tax duplicate, statutorily presumed at 20% of the original construction cost — and many boards budget reserves for work their members already pay for.

HUD withdrew the assistance-animal guidance, not the duty

FHEO 2020-01 and FHEO 2013-01 were withdrawn effective September 17, 2025 — but the Fair Housing Act's accommodation duty, HUD's enforcement, and the homeowner's two-year private right of action are all untouched.

HB 652 would give an Ohio condo board 60 days' notice, not 30

House Bill 652 would extend insurance non-renewal notice from 30 to 60 days for commercial lines and homeowners policies — and a condominium master policy is a commercial-lines policy, which almost nobody is covering as an association story.

Five property tax bills signed in December reach every association household

Governor DeWine signed HB 124, 129, 186, 309 and 335 on December 19, 2025, claimed at more than $3 billion in relief — with the inflation cap starting June 2026 and the owner-occupancy credit expansion in January 2027.

FHA still enforces what Fannie and Freddie just retired

An Ohio condominium can now be conventionally financeable and FHA-ineligible at the same time — FHA keeps a 35% owner-occupancy floor, a 15% arrears ceiling and a 10% individual-owner limit.

Every Ohio homestead home splits $350 million — if it's on the list by November 1

HB 479 takes effect September 23 and divides $350,000,000 equally among Ohio homestead-exemption properties — a flat per-home credit, gated by the county auditor's November 1, 2026 certification.

Every big number in Ohio HOA litigation this year is a fee number

Across the 2025-2026 Ohio appellate record the damages are modest and the attorney fees are not — R.C. 5311.19(A), 5312.11(A)(3) and 5312.13 are doing more work than the covenants themselves.

Columbus short-term rental rules have not changed since 2019

Chapter 598 carries no 2025 or 2026 amendment: a Columbus permit is issued without any check against deed restrictions, the insurance floor is $300,000, and the saving clause defers to other law, not to your declaration.

Columbus rental registry opens October 1 and reaches leased condo units

New Columbus Chapter 4515 requires every leased residential unit to register between October 1 and December 31, 2026, with no exemption for condominiums — and it sweeps association-controlled common areas into the registered property.

Columbus legalised ADUs by right — and never mentioned covenants

Ordinance 2526-2025 allows an accessory dwelling unit by right on residential lots across Columbus with no added parking requirement, and the 41-page enrolled exhibit does not contain the words deed restriction, covenant or homeowner.

Cleveland makes short-term rentals a permitted use in one-family districts

Ordinance 561-2026 licenses Cleveland short-term rentals, adds them to the One-Family District permitted-use list, and repeals the limited-lodging section boards had been leaning on — without mentioning deed restrictions once.

Buying at an Ohio sheriff's sale does not erase the deed restrictions

Hitchcock v. Delta Trust kills two common owner defences — foreclosure wiped the covenants, and your bylaws were never recorded — while making the association prove the declaration sits in the buyer's chain of title.

An Ohio court can order an owner to let the contractors in

Three appeals in the Ragouzis litigation uphold a preliminary injunction giving a condominium association standing access on 24 hours' notice — plus a no-contact condition and contempt enforcement.

A $30,220 verdict carried $198,000 in fees against an Ohio condo board

In Rosen v. Cobblestone Lane the owner lost five of six claims and was still the prevailing party — and the Supreme Court of Ohio declined to review it on September 15, 2026 over two dissents.

Cleveland's 10% short-term rental cap counts a condo building as one block

Cleveland's new short-term rental density limit applies per block or per multi-unit building, which makes a condominium's unit count the divisor — and the variance test asks whether a majority of residents support the application.

An Ohio solar restriction survives only if the board built a record

Horne v. Adena Pointe is the first Ohio appellate construction of R.C. 5312.16 — and paragraph 30 is a checklist: board affidavits on aesthetic rationale, minutes showing the rule was discussed, property-value data.

Ohio's short-term rental preemption bill would not touch your covenant

SB 104 and HB 109 would strip cities of the power to ban an Airbnb while leaving an association's power completely intact — the word "covenant" appears nowhere in either bill.

An Ohio point-of-sale inspection can cite what the association owns

Nineteen Cuyahoga and Summit municipalities require a point-of-sale inspection, and in the interior-and-exterior cities the violations written up are often common elements the seller cannot repair and the buyer's escrow is holding money against.

A new line on every Ohio tax bill says "Inflation Cap Credit"

HB 186 replaced Ohio's old rollback structure with a partial exemption phasing from 5.70% to 15.38%, and requires the credit to be printed on the bill under that name.

A developer cannot dissolve your covenants by recording a release

Meeker v. Nolt holds a unilateral developer release ineffective and gives subsequent lot owners standing to enforce — but the covenants as written did not prohibit the use complained of.

HB 1500 lets a nonconforming home be rebuilt — zoning only

HB 1500 overrides any zoning ordinance blocking the rebuild of a damaged nonconforming residence — but it binds municipalities only, leaving declarations and architectural review untouched.

FHFA transfer fee rule: where the money goes decides

FHFA reinstated the grandfather exceptions to its private transfer fee rule in March 2026 — and the carve-out that keeps an association's fee lawful turns on who receives it and what it is used for.

A 2027 bill draft would rewrite the ND tax statement

The Tax Reform and Relief Advisory Committee received bill draft 27.0244.01000 on the required contents of a real estate tax statement, and meets again on September 29, 2026.

FinCEN final rule: North Dakota HOAs have nothing to file

FinCEN's final rule, effective August 14, 2026, makes the exemption for domestic entities permanent — and names homeowners associations in explaining why no separate carve-out was needed.

When North Dakota open records law reaches a private HOA

Two 2025 Attorney General opinions restate the test: a private nonprofit corporation is a public entity for open records and open meetings to the extent it is supported by or expends public funds.

West Fargo Ord. 1254: an STR licence is not a covenant defence

Ordinance 1254 took effect July 1, 2026, licensing short-term rentals including condominiums — and § 10-1603(3) puts the burden of private covenants entirely on the applicant.

A vote to terminate can make a condo project ineligible

Since September 30, 2025 a project that is terminating, deconverting or in insolvency proceedings is ineligible — and so is one that “has voted or is in the process of voting” on it.

Radon and HOA disclosure: two ND laws, one exit right

SB 2204's radon disclosure and SB 2229's association disclosure both took effect August 1, 2025 in chapter 47-10 — but only one creates a right to rescind.

SB 2229's seller safe harbor cites the definitions subsection

N.D.C.C. § 47-10-02.3(4) protects a seller for information disclosed “under subsection 1” — but subsection 1 is the definitions, and the disclosures are made under subsection 2.

NFIP authorization expires September 30, 2026

The National Flood Insurance Program's authorization runs to 11:59 p.m. on September 30, 2026. A lapse stops FEMA selling and renewing policies — as it did from October 1 to mid-November 2025.

North Dakota's 2025 landlord-tenant package died almost entirely

Rent payment ordering, late fees, eviction notice contents, landlord obligations, move-in inspections and background checks all failed in 2025 — leaving association-owned rentals under unchanged law.

The RCBAP coinsurance penalty that prorates a flood claim

The Residential Condominium Building Association Policy imposes a coinsurance penalty unless the building is insured at 80 percent of replacement cost — with building loss payments capped at $250,000 per unit.

No 2025 bill amended North Dakota's Condominium Act

The official Century Code Sections Affected table for the 2025 session contains zero entries for chapter 47-04.1 and zero for chapter 10-33 — and no bill in the whole assembly touched solar, ADUs, rentals, signs, reserves or covenants.

Baseline reserve funding no longer counts for condo loans

Since August 3, 2026, a lender relying on a reserve study must verify the budget includes the study's highest recommended reserve allocation — and the baseline funding method is no longer permitted.

SB 2222 on assistance-animal documentation failed 1-44

SB 2222 would have addressed certification and disability documentation for assistance animals in a rental dwelling. The Senate defeated it 44 to 1, leaving federal law as the only framework — and HUD has since withdrawn its guidance.

HB 1305 makes squatting a class C felony in North Dakota

HB 1305 added N.D.C.C. § 12.1-22-03(2), making unlawful occupation of a residential dwelling a class C felony on a first offence, and broadened the definition of “dwelling” that goes with it.

Small condo projects gain a project review waiver

Project review waivers now reach projects of ten or fewer units, and the 50 percent investor concentration and owner-occupancy requirements have been retired.

SB 2394, North Dakota's first HOA governance act, died 0-46

SB 2394 would have required reserve funds, quarterly board meetings, annual budgets and a 30-day answer to member inquiries. The Senate defeated it 46 to 0 on February 24, 2025.

SB 2385 rewrites North Dakota mobile home park rules

SB 2385 caps late fees at ten percent, requires ninety days' notice of a rent increase, gives residents three months to comply with new park rules, and lets a court refuse an eviction where the owner broke the statute.

North Dakota's first HOA duty: SB 2229 resale disclosure

SB 2229 created N.D.C.C. § 47-10-02.3, a fifteen-item resale disclosure package a North Dakota association must produce within ten days — and a purchase contract the buyer can void until it arrives.

Reported: SB 2405 died, and the official record is blank

SB 2405 passed the Senate 27-20 on September 3, 2026. Press reports say the House killed it the next day. The Legislature's own action history still shows no final House action.

OTARD protects transmitting fixed-wireless antennas too

The FCC's OTARD rule has not changed since 2023, but its 2021 expansion to hub and relay antennas that transmit fixed wireless signals still catches North Dakota boards out.

No North Dakota association case in the 2026 term

A case-by-case review of every North Dakota Supreme Court opinion from 2026 ND 1 through 2026 ND 161 returns no decision on covenants, assessments, condominium law or association governance.

North Dakota licenses no community association managers

Chapter 43-23, the Real Estate Commission's own credential list and all of Administrative Code title 70 contain no community association manager licence — and the broker definition explains why.

No HOA study in North Dakota's 2025-26 interim

The Legislative Management approved 20 required and 47 optional studies for the 2025-26 interim. None touches homeowners associations, condominiums, covenants, ADUs or short-term rentals — and none was even proposed.

Nine ND homeowner property tax bills died in 2025

From valuation caps to homestead credit rewrites to ending residential tax lien foreclosure, the 2025 session defeated every major homeowner property tax measure — including one that cleared the House 86-5.

New ND name-availability rules reach HOA incorporations

New N.D. Admin. Code ch. 72-03-02, effective January 1, 2026, sets a distinguishable-in-the-records standard for filings under chapter 10-33 and the Trade Names chapter — switched on by a certification that has not been confirmed.

Miss the nonprofit annual report and a North Dakota HOA dissolves

N.D.C.C. § 10-33-139 requires a nonprofit annual report before February 2 each year; a year late and the corporation “ceases to exist and is considered involuntarily dissolved by operation of law.”

Limited Review is retired for condominium loans

Fannie Mae retired Limited Review and Freddie Mac retired Streamlined Review for loan applications dated on or after August 3, 2026 — so established projects now face a Full Review or a waiver.

Minot: an approved stormwater plan is a covenant the City enforces

Minot's Land Development Ordinance makes an approved storm water management plan “a covenant running with the land,” enforceable by the City, by persons affected, or by the public generally.

Minot's City Attorney approves PUD association covenants

Minot's Land Development Ordinance requires PUD common open space to be conveyed to a homeowners association under covenants approved by the City Attorney — the strongest municipal control over association documents in North Dakota.

Fargo's draft code would bar ADUs in cluster developments

The Land Development Code draft would permit one attached ADU per single- or two-unit lot, cap it at 1,000 square feet, require matching architecture — and exclude cluster developments entirely.

Fargo has no STR ordinance, and a draft code would add one

North Dakota's largest city has no short-term rental ordinance, so the covenant is the only restriction — and the Land Development Code draft would add licensing and a 25 percent per-building cap.

Fargo assesses subdivisions 100% for street amenities

The city's 2026 Infrastructure Funding Policy, approved November 24, 2025, assesses street amenities beyond the standard paving package at 100 percent — and raises every cap five percent a year.

SB 2238 allows sealing of ND eviction records

SB 2238 created N.D.C.C. § 47-32-05, letting a person move to seal eviction records seven years after the order is satisfied — which changes what an association can find out.

Condo reserves must hit 15% for January 2027 loans

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac raised the replacement reserve minimum from 10 percent to 15 percent of annual budgeted assessment income, for loan applications dated on or after January 4, 2027.

SB 2336 puts condo elevators on an August 2026 clock

SB 2336 requires every association-owned elevator, chairlift, platform lift and dumbwaiter to be registered and to carry an annually renewed certificate of operation, with witnessed acceptance tests phasing in from August 1, 2026.

Carpenter v. Southbay HOA, 2025 ND 114 — waiver and metal roofs

The North Dakota Supreme Court held that defeating a covenant's no-waiver clause requires proof the association waived both the covenant and the no-waiver clause itself.

North Dakota bad-faith claims now need a judgment first

SB 2374 created N.D.C.C. § 26.1-39-29, requiring a final judgment that the property insurer breached the contract before a bad-faith action may proceed — and set rules for arbitration endorsements and managed repair programs.

Eighth Circuit: an HOA appraisal award is not reviewable

Jamestown Villas Homeowners Association v. State Farm holds that an appraisal panel's award necessarily decided the “like kind and quality” question and cannot be reviewed for adequacy of amount.

Tamm v. Gatzke, 2025 ND 141 — plat access easements

In Tamm v. Gatzke the Supreme Court assumed without deciding that recording a plat marked “Access Easement” can create an easement, and sent the question back for trial.

SB 2122: receivership law reaches 5-unit condo buildings

SB 2122 enacted the Uniform Commercial Real Estate Receivership Act, and its residential carve-out stops at four dwelling units — so a five-unit condominium building is fully inside it.

SB 2374 bars reopened property claims after one year

SB 2374 created N.D.C.C. § 26.1-39-30: a reopened claim is barred unless noticed within one year of the date of loss, and a supplemental claim within twelve months of the insurer's last payment.

A $50,000 per-unit deductible cap now applies to master policies

Since July 1, 2026 a condominium master policy's per-unit deductible may not exceed $50,000 — and any per-unit deductible forces every mortgaged owner to carry an HO-6.

Eighth Circuit revives RICO claims over a condo lien

The Eighth Circuit reversed dismissal of a unit owner's RICO claims against his condominium association, holding the district court failed to apply the separate-accrual rule.

North Dakota's property insurance numbers, and the missing line

The Insurance Department's 2024 statistical report gives homeowners premium and claims for the state — and issued no property bulletin in 2025 or 2026, and no hail loss statistic.

A New York HOA banned front-yard ice rinks through its architectural guidelines. A court voided the rule and the fines.

Because the declaration required a 67% owner vote to add a use restriction, a board amendment to the architectural guidelines was unauthorized — and an unauthorized rule gets no business judgment rule protection.

The cheapest New York City compliance item your board is probably still missing is due December 31

Every building with a parapet fronting a public right-of-way needs an annual observation, regardless of height. The rule expressly allows a bricklayer, superintendent or handyman to perform it, and nothing is filed with DOB.

That detention basin on your HOA’s common area is a recorded deed restriction, and the town can inspect your records

New York’s MS4 regime runs through town local laws drawn from a state model that requires the stormwater maintenance obligation to be recorded as a deed restriction binding every subsequent landowner.

A New York co-op had three months to enforce its no-pit-bull rule. It waited, and the rule was gone.

The First Department held that neither the business judgment rule nor a no-waiver clause overcomes the New York City Pet Law, and that the nuisance exception turns on the animal’s conduct, not its breed.

Your master policy deductible is now $250,000. Who pays it is genuinely unsettled.

New York boards are asking whether the owner who caused the water damage should pay the deductible instead of the whole building. There is no New York statute and no case law on the point.

New York has two mandatory reserve study bills, they are not companions, and they disagree on who gets the filings

S7600 files reserve studies with the Attorney General. A8945 files them with the State Comptroller. Both would force catch-up funding on a statutory timetable that overrides any bylaw cap.

Two January 1, 2027 deadlines are coming at New York City buildings, and one of them needs a permit

DOB issued a “FINAL REMINDER” in July 2026 on single-plunger elevator brakes. Separately, natural gas detectors are due in every dwelling unit — unless a determination that was due in July 2026 moved the date.

New York legalized plug-in balcony solar and said nothing about condo boards

The SUNNY Act passed both houses on May 28, 2026. A word-by-word search of the bill finds no reference to a condominium, cooperative, homeowners association, landlord or lease.

If anyone is still billing your New York board for beneficial ownership filings, stop paying

FinCEN’s final rule, effective August 14, 2026, permanently exempts every entity created in the United States — and the rule’s preamble names homeowners associations as a category it did not need to exempt separately.

New York broadened its common-area smoke alarm mandate by deleting the words “condominium or cooperative”

Chapter 21 of 2025 replaced a condo-and-co-op clause with a building-wide test: any residential building with common space shared between three or more dwelling units needs alarms audible in each common space, from December 31, 2025.

New York City’s sidewalk shed penalties went live in January, they reach $6,000 a month, and they stack

Local Laws 48, 50 and 51 of 2025 cut shed permits to 90 days, charge up to $200 per linear foot per month where no work is in progress, and add $5,000–$20,000 penalties for missing facade repair milestones.

An owner paid off her HOA arrears two years early. The association could not add its legal fees or hold the sale.

The First Department held that the payment agreement, not the bylaws, governed — and that unconditional tender of the full amount due before the sale waived the association’s right to proceed.

The biggest New York co-op governance bill in years contained one sentence letting New York City opt out

S8912 would let shareholders fire the managing agent and would make the annual budget subject to member approval. Section 139 lets any city over one million people exempt itself.

A condo disclosure bill passed the New York Senate 58–1, and the industry killed it in the Assembly

S7541 would send every engineering report to the municipal building department within 60 days and let the Attorney General void an offering plan for non-compliance. Two co-op groups called it a death sentence.

A New York bill would stop HOAs forcing pesticides on your lawn — and it got a bipartisan committee vote

S7432 cleared the Senate Judiciary Committee 14-2 with three reservations, reached third reading, then was parked in Rules on June 5, 2026. The opt-out, not the ban, is the disruptive half.

New York’s condo bill of rights passed the Senate twice and reaches almost nobody

S5089 cleared the Senate 60-0 and then 61-0 and has never reached an Assembly vote. Read its first sentence: it applies only to not-for-profit condominium associations managing 3,500 or more units.

New York’s closest thing to an HOA statute has never moved — and it mentions a court New York does not have

S1177 would impose statutory triggers for developer turnover of HOA control plus a 90-day, developer-funded, independently audited handover of twenty categories of records.

New York’s new short-term rental registry law can stop your town creating a registry — and never touches your covenant

Real Property Law Article 12-D requires counties to run STR registries and bars cities, towns and villages from creating new ones where a county does. It regulates the unit, not the association.

Every New York condo, co-op and HOA board has until June 2027 to strip unlawful covenants — and owners get no vote

Real Property Law § 327-a took effect June 3, 2026. It orders boards to delete or amend unlawful restrictions in their recorded documents within one year, expressly without the approval of property owners.

New York rewrote the neighbour-access statute your facade job depends on — first time since 1968

Chapter 601 of 2025 and Chapter 44 of 2026 overhauled RPAPL § 881. Two unanswered certified letters now count as a refusal, the board must compensate the neighbour, and the additional-insured requirement was traded away.

New York’s Real Estate Finance Bureau abolished wet-ink signatures and in-person notarization

From January 7, 2026 the Bureau accepts scans, DocuSign and remote online notarization, and requires cooperative policy statement applications to be filed through a new portal. The memo cites the HOA regulation by number.

A state-funded ADU records a ten-year covenant on a lot that may already be inside your HOA

New York’s Plus One ADU programme requires a recorded regulatory agreement of at least ten years. Neither the state programme page nor the participating counties mention homeowners association consent.

New York’s new pied-à-terre tax arrives through maintenance — which makes the co-op board the collection agent

Enacted as Part HH of the 2026-2027 state budget, the surcharge starts at a $1 million Department of Finance market value for condos and co-ops. Condo owners are billed directly; co-op boards are not.

One storey decides whether a Nassau County condo has an assessment cap or none at all

A three-storey condominium never converted from rental gets Class 1 treatment and the 6 percent and 20 percent caps. One storey more, or a conversion history, and the same units are valued as a hypothetical rental with no cap.

New York considered a co-op and condo ombudsperson funded by $6 per unit a year. Its own memo explains why.

A10286 would create a DHCR ombudsperson programme with election monitoring and mediation, paid for by a new Tax Law fee on every residential unit. It died in committee; CAI opposed it.

The flood insurance programme runs to December 11 — and FEMA’s own website will tell your board September 30

A law signed September 2, 2026 extended NFIP authorization to December 11, 2026. FEMA’s reauthorization page has not been updated since February and still shows the old date.

Unit owners removed an entire New York condo board by written consent — and left it unable to function

Owners holding 66% of common interests validly removed all four board members without a meeting. But they could not fill the seats they emptied: vacancies from removal belong to the remaining directors.

If your board missed the 2026 Local Law 97 deadline, DOB’s own notice describes a zero-penalty way out

Every 2026 emissions-reporting date has passed and penalties accrue at $0.50 per square foot per month. But a Notice of Deficiency for failure to file can be resolved at zero penalty within 60 days.

For the first time, New York City co-op boards are on a statutory clock to decide a purchase application

Local Law 58 of 2026 took effect July 28, 2026 after the City Council overrode a mayoral veto. Fifteen days to acknowledge receipt, forty-five to decide, and HPD enforces at OATH.

New York City’s facade inspection cycle changes on October 1, and most boards have not heard

Local Law 49 of 2025 replaces the fixed five-year FISP cycle with an interval set by DOB rule between six and twelve years, and moves a new building’s first examination from year five to year eight.

A New York condominium won at trial and lost the case — it had sued in its own name

Most New York condominiums are unincorporated associations with no separate legal existence. A proceeding must be brought by the president or treasurer. The Appellate Term dismissed a case that was not.

HUD stopped enforcing emotional support animal rules. For a New York board, almost nothing changed.

A May 2026 HUD memorandum permanently rescinded the 2020 assistance-animal guidance. It governs HUD’s own enforcement discretion — and New York State and City law are independent and stricter.

A New York bill would have given HOA heat-pump applications a 60-day deemed approval — and fee shifting

The Central Air Conditioner and Heat Pump Rights Act reached the Assembly third-reading calendar and was never called. It defined an unreasonable limitation by a 10 percent cost test.

The Local Law 97 credit for a heat-pump retrofit halves on January 1, 2027

The beneficial electrification coefficient in 1 RCNY § 103-14(d)(vii) is negative — it subtracts from reported emissions. Equipment operating before January 1, 2027 earns twice the credit of equipment that comes online after.

New York City’s gas piping rules now charge an all-electric building $480 to say it has no gas

Local Law 142 of 2025 and amendments to 1 RCNY § 103-10 added filing fees, a two-day advance notice requirement, and a per-cycle re-filing duty for buildings that no longer receive gas service.

February 15 is the only New York City deadline with no extension, no waiver and no appeal

Miss the prevailing-wage affidavit for the co-op and condo property tax abatement and the Department of Finance states the result plainly: loss of the abatement for the entire development, with no exception process.

Fannie Mae’s light-touch condo review is already gone, and no housing stock is more exposed than New York’s

Limited Review was retired for loan applications dated on or after August 3, 2026. Every established condo project over ten units now gets a Full Review of the association’s books — and the finding is project-wide.

New York already requires 90 days’ notice before an HOA forecloses — it has been law since October 2025

Chapter 433 of 2025 created RPAPL Article 20-A and amended RPL § 339-aa. It took effect immediately on October 16, 2025 and applies to any foreclosure action commenced since.

A 40-unit Brooklyn co-op allegedly lost $708,216.61 over six years to its own board president

The Brooklyn District Attorney indicted the former board president of a 40-unit Brooklyn Heights building for second-degree grand larceny. The allegations are the clearest available case for basic internal controls.

Four New York condo board members were sued personally. Neither the business judgment rule nor the exculpatory bylaw got them out.

The First Department reinstated direct tort claims against individual board members on June 18, 2026, where an animus-driven campaign of retaliation was pleaded non-conclusorily.

A mixed-use condo called itself commercial. Its common-charge lien lost to a 2016 mortgage anyway.

The First Department held on June 30, 2026 that the Real Property Law § 339-z priority exception is available only to exclusively non-residential condominiums, and that the test is actual use.

Albany spent 2026 debating whether to regulate your board, and dropped every single measure

An ombudsperson with a per-unit fee, mandatory 30-year reserve studies, shareholder power to fire the managing agent, and mandatory inspection disclosure. None of it passed. Here is the honest scorecard.

New York’s Attorney General has proposed cutting sponsor control of a converting condo board from five years to two

The first proposed rewrite of the co-op and condo conversion regulations since the 2019 HSTPA would cap sponsor voting control at two years and require an owner election within 30 days of it ending.

New York doubled the offering-plan filing fee cap and put a $750 floor on every amendment

Effective November 5, 2025, the Attorney General’s maximum offering-plan filing fee went from $30,000 to $60,000, and amendments, no-action applications and cooperative policy statements now cost $750 each.

New York bill on religious items at the door passed 141–0 and names HOAs, condos and co-ops

A9195-A would bar a condo board, co-op board or homeowners association from prohibiting religious items on an entry door or doorframe, leaving only four grounds to refuse.

New York bill would void HOA turf mandates — and Hochul vetoed it once already

A10102 passed both houses on June 3, 2026 and would make any covenant banning pollinator or rain gardens void as against public policy. Its predecessor was vetoed in October 2025.

A New York co-op amended its proprietary lease by supermajority vote. It could not take one shareholder’s roof rights.

The First Department reinstated a breach claim where the original lease required that shareholder’s express consent. Read with a second 2025 decision, the lesson is that a co-op can waive its own no-waiver clause.

A Queens co-op took Local Law 97 to New York’s highest court and lost. The law is now settled.

Glen Oaks Village Owners ran the sector’s own test case against the emissions law. The Court of Appeals held in May 2025 that the state Climate Act did not preempt it, and the matter is concluded.

Your association's master policy no longer has to replace the roof

Fannie Mae carved roofs out of the replacement-cost requirement and both agencies retired inflation guard entirely — two changes that shift rebuilding risk onto New Mexico associations with older roofs.

New Mexico's insurance regulator says it plainly: your condo fees do not insure your unit

OSI's consumer guidance sets out what a master policy covers, why every unit owner needs an HO-6, and why loss assessment coverage is the provision that responds when a board levies after an underpaid claim.

New Mexico's first elevator code makes your association the regulated party

A new NMAC Chapter 14.15 took effect September 12, 2025, and the Construction Industries Division required every commercial conveyance in New Mexico to be registered by January 1, 2026. The permit exemption covers single-family dwellings only.

New Mexico cities can now bill your association for rain

SB 7 lets any municipality create a storm water utility and charge each person owning or controlling real property. There is no exemption for community associations and no credit for the drainage they already maintain.

You cannot sue your HOA's lawyers for the HOA's alleged discrimination

A New Mexico federal magistrate recommended dismissing all claims against an association's defence firm with prejudice — while the Fair Housing Act and ADA claims against the association itself over park access remain live.

What a New Mexico board can still enforce against a home child care operator

The 2026 amendment to the Homeowner Association Act bars prohibition and bars fees, but the industry's own account of the negotiation says uniformly applied rules of general application were preserved.

New Mexico's wildfire insurance moratorium ended in March — one protection survives

The Superintendent of Insurance revoked the Salt and South Fork fire emergency orders effective around March 31, 2026. The surviving requirement is a minimum of twelve months to repay deferred insurance premiums.

New Mexico's veteran property tax exemption more than doubled — and now follows a home into a trust

Two enacted bills raised the veteran exemption from $4,000 to $10,000 with inflation indexing, made the disabled-veteran exemption proportional to disability rating, and extended eligibility to trust-held title.

New Mexico will fund starter homes smaller than many HOA covenants allow

The New Homes for New Mexico Program caps a starter home at 1,800 square feet on a lot of 5,000 square feet — dimensions that many older New Mexico minimum-size covenants exclude.

The reserve study your New Mexico association just paid for may no longer count

Since August 3, 2026 a lender may not rely on a reserve study funded on the baseline method, and the budget must carry the study's highest recommended allocation. Studies commissioned earlier this year may not qualify.

The only New Mexico Attorney General opinion on HOAs is about solar panels

AG Opinion 11-02 reads Section 3-18-32 to let an association regulate solar collectors but not price them out of reach. A survey of 2025 and 2026 opinions identified none concerning an association.

New Mexico's insurer of last resort now writes $2 million — and still cannot satisfy your declaration

FAIR Plan commercial limits doubled to $2 million in October 2025 and residential limits rose to $750,000. But the plan pays actual cash value and, in the regulator's own words, liability cannot be added.

The 80 percent rule inside your association's flood policy can cut the check

The federal condominium flood policy imposes a coinsurance penalty whenever building coverage falls below 80 percent of replacement cost, applied before the deductible — with FEMA's own worked example showing the shortfall.

New Mexico's casita bills were quietly amended to spare existing HOA covenants

Two sessions of accessory dwelling unit bills died in New Mexico — and a sponsor's amendment had already narrowed them so that every HOA covenant recorded before the effective date would have survived.

New Mexico bill would have put a dollar figure on solar covenant limits — it died

SB 98 would have made a covenant void if it raised the cost of installing a solar collector by more than ten percent or $1,500, or cut its efficiency by more than ten percent. It cleared one committee and died in Senate Judiciary.

New Mexico bill to let the Attorney General sue HOAs for owners died in committee

SB 239 would have let a lot owner complain to the Department of Justice and allowed the Attorney General to bring a civil action on that owner's behalf. It cleared one committee and was never heard in Senate Judiciary.

Santa Fe makes rental applicants swear your covenants allow it — then mails your HOA the permit

Santa Fe's short-term rental ordinance requires an applicant affirmation that no private covenant prohibits the use, mandates notice to the homeowners association within ten days, and says covenants may prohibit the rental outright.

Santa Fe County will certify your defensible space — then you must keep it that way forever

A county certification exists mainly so owners can obtain property insurance, and it binds the owner to a Fuel Modification Plan indefinitely — running straight into covenants that protect trees and screen propane tanks.

Santa Fe County capped rentals by community — then started filing criminal charges

A 2024 amendment caps non-owner-occupied short-term rentals at 3 or 7 percent of a community's housing stock. The county added three code officers in 2025 and owners have faced petty misdemeanour charges.

Ruidoso's fire rating was downgraded — and insurers had 90 days to warn policyholders

An OSI bulletin recorded Ruidoso moving from Public Protection Class 2 to Class 3 effective July 1, 2026, and required every residential insurer to send policyholders a prescribed premium-impact notice.

Ruidoso rewrote its rental rules twice since the fires. Neither version mentions your HOA.

Village of Ruidoso Ordinance 2025-01 was superseded by Ordinance 2026-10 in June 2026. Both regulate permits, occupancy and fire safety — and neither addresses private covenants or notifies associations.

Rio Rancho legalized short-term rentals — and its own FAQ says your HOA can still say no

Short-term rentals became lawful in Rio Rancho on July 1, 2025 under a new Chapter 123. The City's published guidance tells applicants that homeowners associations may still prohibit them.

Reported: a record 6,200 New Mexico homes lost their insurance last year

New Mexico's Superintendent of Insurance told the Legislative Finance Committee that non-renewals hit an all-time high in 2025, nearly triple the 2021 figure, concentrated in four northern counties.

New Mexico's new rental fee rules carry treble damages, not a $250 penalty

SB 267 routed rental application and tenancy fee violations into the Unfair Practices Act, and its definition of dwelling unit reaches a leased pad in a manufactured-home community.

New Mexico legalized remote association meetings — and the quorum number that matters is 10 percent

SB 72 added remote participation to the Condominium Act and the Nonprofit Corporation Act. Three different quorum rules apply, and the one governing most incorporated New Mexico HOAs is one-tenth of the votes.

New Mexico still has no way to strike racist covenants from a deed

HB 114 would have barred recording an instrument carrying a discriminatory restrictive covenant and required their removal. It cleared one committee in February 2025 and died in House Judiciary.

The antenna rule most New Mexico boards have never read puts the burden on the association

Under 47 CFR 1.4000 an association that restricts a covered antenna must prove its restriction does not impair installation or use — and since 2021 the rule reaches fixed-wireless hub and relay antennas.

One paragraph in a 158-section tax bill changed what can be recorded against a New Mexico home

HB 218 added state tax lien notices to the list of instruments recordable without acknowledgment. An association's own declarations, amendments and assessment liens still require notarization.

New Mexico licenses barbers and home inspectors. Not the person holding your HOA's reserves.

A full-text search of the Real Estate Commission's rulebook returns no reference to community associations, and none of the Regulation and Licensing Department's 28 boards licenses association managers.

New Mexico counts the homeowners its insurers dropped. It counts no associations at all.

Individual homeowner non-renewals are published and rising. Master-policy non-renewal, premium and availability figures for community associations are not collected anywhere in New Mexico.

New Mexico wrote hundreds of rules in two years. None of them says “homeowners association.”

A search of the state's official cumulative indexes of rulemaking for 2025 and 2026 returns no occurrence of homeowner, condominium or community association — the clearest available answer to who regulates a New Mexico HOA.

New Mexico's highest court has not touched an HOA dispute in two years

A review of every New Mexico Supreme Court opinion filed since January 2025, the pending-case docket and seven certiorari tables returns no association, covenant or condominium case — and none is in the pipeline.

No federal regulator watches your New Mexico HOA's collections

The CFPB's 2026 agenda reaches mortgage servicers, not associations, and the Justice Department's only 2025-26 ADA rulemaking binds state and local government. For a New Mexico owner, the applicable law is state law.

New Mexico created a solar fund in 2025. Your association cannot apply to it.

The Local Solar Access Fund is limited to counties, municipalities, school districts, land grants and tribes. Neither an association nor an individual homeowner is an eligible entity.

New Mexico now has a state wildfire-hardening standard. Your covenants predate it.

The Wildfire Prepared Act took effect on signature in April 2025, pins certification to insurance-industry standards, and expressly creates no new right against a covenant.

The condo lending shortcut disappeared in August — and the smallest New Mexico projects got a pass

Fannie Mae retired Limited Review and Freddie Mac retired Streamlined Review on August 3, 2026. Both expanded a no-review path for projects of ten units or fewer — unless the project sits under a master association.

Las Cruces short-term rentals had six months to register. Thirty-five did.

A Las Cruces registration ordinance took effect January 1, 2026 with enforcement from July 1, 2026 and a 500-foot neighbour notice requirement. Reporting put full compliance at about 35 of an estimated 725 rentals.

In thirty New Mexico subdivisions the HOA dues are not the whole bill

Public Improvement District special levies are collected with property taxes on top of association assessments, the board cannot reduce them, and the disclosure duty falls on the seller before an offer is accepted.

HUD deleted the assistance-animal playbook. The duty it explained is untouched.

HUD withdrew FHEO 2020-01 and FHEO Notice 2013-01 effective September 17, 2025, published April 6, 2026. The Fair Housing Act accommodation duty and the two-year private right of action are expressly preserved.

New Mexico bill to stop HOA foreclosures over fines died in its second committee

HB 440 would have barred a New Mexico association from foreclosing a lien under $5,000, under twelve months delinquent, or made up solely of fines. It passed one committee and was never heard in the next.

New Mexico bill to ban HOA fees on home sales died without a hearing

HB 232 would have added one sentence to the Homeowner Association Act prohibiting any association fee on the sale of a lot. It was referred to committee in January 2025 and never placed on an agenda.

New Mexico bill would have required owner-occupants on new condo boards — it died on referral

HB 122 would have required 55 percent owner-occupancy in condominiums created after July 1, 2025 and reserved 35 percent of board seats for owner-occupants. It was never heard in committee.

New Mexico lets a homeowner irrigate with gray water. Your covenant still governs the hardware.

The state exempts under 250 gallons a day of residential gray water from permitting, subject to eleven conditions — and expressly subordinates the use to local ordinances while saying nothing about private restrictions.

Four things your New Mexico HOA collects that are not tax-exempt

The gross receipts tax exemption for association dues is narrower than most boards assume. Non-member amenity fees, dues from non-owners, sales or leases of association property, and work billed to an individual lot all fall outside it.

Federal flood insurance runs out September 30 — it has already lapsed twice this year

The National Flood Insurance Program is authorized only through September 30, 2026. It lapsed from October 1 to November 12, 2025 and again from February 1 to 3, 2026. In-force policies run their term; new and renewal policies stop.

FinCEN's final rule names homeowners associations — yours files nothing

A FinCEN final rule effective August 14, 2026 makes the exemption of domestic entities permanent and addresses homeowners associations by name. A New Mexico nonprofit association has no beneficial-ownership report to file.

FHA did not follow Fannie and Freddie — two federal condo standards now disagree

Every 2026 FHA Mortgagee Letter was checked and none touches condominium project approval, reserves, owner-occupancy or master insurance. A New Mexico project can be FHA-approved and conventionally unfinanceable at the same time.

Every New Mexico HOA ruling of the past two years is one a judge is free to ignore

All 119 precedential Court of Appeals opinions from 2025 and 2026 were reviewed. None decides an association, covenant, assessment-lien or architectural-control question. Everything on those subjects came in memorandum opinions.

Albuquerque owes park residents 18 months' notice — and puts a 30-year clock on the park

Two provisions of the adopted 2025 zoning update require 18 months' written notice before a rezoning that ends resident occupancy, and cap a nonconforming mobile home development at 30 years.

New Mexico condo associations must budget 15% to reserves by January 4

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac raised the replacement-reserve minimum from 10 percent to 15 percent of annual budgeted assessment income for loan applications dated on or after January 4, 2027.

New Mexico bans HOA covenants that block child care homes

Section 4 of a 2026 child care bill amended the Homeowner Association Act so an association may not enforce any restriction that effectively prohibits the use of a lot as a child care home.

Build a casita in Santa Fe and the City records a covenant against your land

Santa Fe requires accessory dwelling unit owners to record a restrictive covenant in the City's favour that runs with the land, binds all successors, and may be amended by the City from time to time.

Rent your condo by the night in Bernalillo County and the Assessor now calls it a business

About 1,000 Bernalillo County properties were reclassified from residential to non-residential as short-term rentals after an analysis completed in 2025. The Protest Board sided with the Assessor in 80 percent of protests.

In New Mexico, asking your insurer a question can no longer be logged as a claim

SB 221 added a new unfair claims practice effective June 20, 2025: treating an insured's inquiry as a claim where the facts are not covered, nothing is paid and there is no deception.

An overstated collection letter put an association outside its own insurance

The Tenth Circuit held that knowledge-of-falsity exclusions defeated both defence and indemnity coverage for an owners association whose board circulated a collection letter members knew overstated the debt.

An Angel Fire HOA won on the homeowner's own deposition answers

The Court of Appeals affirmed summary judgment for an association that made its case using the homeowner's interrogatory answers and deposition testimony. Photographs attached to a complaint are not summary-judgment evidence.

Albuquerque wrote EV charging into its parking rules — and it lands on new condo and townhouse projects

The Integrated Development Ordinance requires EV-capable parking in new townhouse developments over six units and installed charging stations in multi-family developments over 100 units — a common-element cost from day one.

Albuquerque's zoning code says it out loud: your covenants are your problem

The Integrated Development Ordinance states the City has no obligation to enforce a private covenant — and separately bars subdivision approval on land whose covenants prohibit solar collectors.

Albuquerque rejected short-term rental limits a third time — your declaration is what is left

A proposed separation requirement was defeated 5–4 in February 2026, the third failed attempt in three years. Roughly 1,200 of an estimated 2,000 Albuquerque short-term rentals operate without a permit.

Albuquerque pays $3 a square foot to tear out your lawn. Does your declaration still require one?

A turf-removal rebate, an eight-hour daily spray-irrigation ban and a 10 percent cool-season grass cap all now point one way — and the water-waste ordinance binds the association for common-area irrigation.

Albuquerque now makes a neighborhood association collect signatures — and pay $1,000 if it loses

Three IDO changes raised the bar for a neighborhood association appeal: a majority petition within 660 feet for standing, $1,000 loser-pays on an approved application, and notice failures no longer a ground.

Albuquerque gave mobile home park residents a chance to buy. The state twice refused.

The Manufactured Home Community Stability and Empowerment Ordinance has been in the Albuquerque code since January 2025, requiring notice of an intent to sell and good-faith consideration of a resident offer.

Albuquerque declined to loosen its casita rules — and the code already picks the paint colour

The 2025 IDO Update reversed proposed accessory dwelling unit expansions. The citywide size limit is 750 square feet, not the 650 figure widely repeated, and the code dictates façade colour and siting.

Albuquerque caps cool-season grass at 10 percent. For a condo development it is 20.

Multi-family development in Albuquerque carries its own landscape standards in addition to the general ones — a 20 percent cool-season grass allowance, and a requirement that living plants cover 75 percent of the landscaped area.

New Mexico has a 30-year wildfire-hardening loan — and its lien outranks your association's

The Improvement Special Assessment Act finances fire-resistance work on multifamily property of five or more units for up to 30 years, with a lien senior to everything but ad valorem taxes.

A New Mexico water association argued it was not a public body. It paid $4 a day anyway.

The Court of Appeals affirmed findings that a mutual domestic water consumers association violated the Open Meetings Act and unreasonably denied a records request — while holding that a curative meeting is discretionary, not mandatory.

A $10 filing is all that stands between your HOA and losing its corporate existence

New Mexico nonprofit corporations file an annual report by the fifteenth day of the fifth month after their fiscal year ends. Failure exposes the association's certificate of incorporation to revocation.

A Taos HOA let its own lawsuit go quiet, lost it, and could not appeal its way back

An association's suit was dismissed for failure to prosecute without a hearing after its counsel did not respond. It missed the appeal deadline on both the dismissal and the reconsideration, and could not use Rule 1-060(B) as a substitute.

A rebate that would have paid for HOA re-roofs passed both chambers — and was vetoed

HB 153 would have rebated low-carbon construction materials including roofing, asphalt and concrete, with a project definition that covers association capital work. The Governor vetoed it in March 2026.

A judge turned an injunction hearing into the whole trial. The Court of Appeals reversed.

A permanent injunction in a New Mexico access dispute was thrown out because the district court consolidated the preliminary hearing with the merits without telling the parties — a due process failure that is reversible on its own.

Leaving one required sentence out of a lot lease is not a technicality, New Mexico holds

In the only precedential New Mexico opinion about a residential community in this period, the Court of Appeals held that omitting a mandatory Mobile Home Park Act disclosure is a non-de minimis violation with a private remedy.

Your master policy may now carry a $50,000 per-unit deductible — and your HO-6 has to cover it

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac replaced the 5 percent per-unit master-policy deductible test with a flat $50,000 ceiling, and required each owner's unit policy to carry a limit equal to that deductible.

A New Mexico covenant can die the moment one person owns every lot — permanently

The Court of Appeals affirmed that a subdivision restriction was extinguished by merger because one couple owned every burdened and benefited tract when it was recorded. Later severance does not revive it.

New Jersey court extends the ongoing storm rule to condo associations

In Weidlich v. 313-319 First Street Condo Association the Appellate Division affirmed summary judgment in a slip-and-fall on icy exterior stairs, applying the Pareja ongoing storm rule to an association, its manager and its contractor.

New Jersey court: an HOA cannot claim a unit it paid expenses on for 32 years

In Wedgewood Gardens Condominium Association v. Wedgewood Gardens Developers the Appellate Division held a master deed's building-personnel unit clause did not transfer title to the association, despite decades of payments.

New Jersey's only developer transition-timing bill died with no successor

A1367 would have revised when unit owners assume control from a developer. It died in January 2026 and nobody refiled it, leaving no pending bill that changes the transition trigger.

New Jersey's first condo structural-inspection deadline passed on January 8, 2026

Covered condominium and cooperative buildings with certificates of occupancy issued 15 or more years before January 2024 were required to complete a load-bearing inspection by January 8, 2026. The Legislature enacted no extension.

An Atlantic City condo association filed bankruptcy after a $34M reserve study

Skyline Tower Resort Vacation Condominium Association filed Subchapter V in November 2025 after a reserve study projected roughly $34 million in capital needs. Its 32-story tower drew an $18.2 million winning bid in April 2026.

New Jersey bill would let towns exempt duplexes from condo structural inspections

S4365 would widen the “excluded structure” definition so a municipality could exempt duplexes and townhouses in rows of three from the 2023 law's structural inspections — but only by local ordinance.

New Jersey bill would let homeowners vote to dissolve their HOA

S4104 would create a statutory dissolution procedure for common interest communities: a 25 percent petition, a board vote within 60 days, a two-thirds majority, and a $100-per-week personal penalty for directors who stall.

New Jersey bill would close the townhouse gap in HOA solar protection

S3562 would remove the ownership and roof-responsibility qualifiers from New Jersey's solar-collector protection, so associations could not prohibit panels on any single-family home or townhouse roof in a common interest community.

New Jersey bill would stop condo associations charging deductibles to owners

S3561 would amend the Condominium Act to bar an association from passing an insurance deductible to a unit owner or group of owners — just as Fannie Mae's new $50,000 deductible cap pushes premiums the other way.

New Jersey bill would let associations apply to DCA to lower reserve obligations

S3406 would allow a planned real estate development to petition the Department of Community Affairs to reduce its reserve fund obligation based on the development's risk-mitigating features — potentially including having no high-rise.

New Jersey court reverses condo injunction over a $40M facade project

In Rialto-Capital Condominium Association v. Coates the Appellate Division vacated a permanent injunction against a unit owner because the trial court granted it on an order-to-show-cause return date without a plenary hearing.

New Jersey's reserve law now lets balances hit zero — and 85% funding expires

P.L.2025, c.132 redefined adequate reserve funding as a 30-year plan that never falls below zero, deleted the old catch-up schedules, and created a five-year 85% funding option carrying a 20-point bold-font warning.

New Jersey capped rental application fees at $50. Does it reach HOA lease fees?

P.L.2025, c.405 caps residential rental application fees at $50, CPI-indexed, with penalties up to $1,000. Whether an association charging a lease-approval fee is an “agent” of the landlord is not addressed by the statute.

New Jersey's REAL rules changed the standards for HOA stormwater basins

NJDEP's Resilient Environment and Landscapes rules took effect January 20, 2026, amending the stormwater, flood hazard, coastal and wetlands chapters that govern association-owned infrastructure.

New Jersey court enforces an arbitration award of 45 parking spaces, indefinitely

In Hudson River Associates v. The Promenade at Edgewater Condominium Association the Appellate Division affirmed confirmation of an award requiring a developer to maintain 45 replacement parking spaces for a master association.

New Jersey readopted its PREDFDA association rules unchanged through 2032

DCA readopted all of N.J.A.C. 5:26, including the Radburn election regulations, without a single change — fourteen months after a new statute amended PREDFDA and thirteen months after a court reversed part of those rules.

Ocean County seniors told commissioners the reserve law was built for high-rises

An advocate told the Ocean County Board of Commissioners in October 2025 that senior communities were seeing $300 to $400 monthly increases under New Jersey's reserve statute, seven months before the story reached the daily papers.

Roughly 35 New Jersey HOA bills are pending. None has had a committee vote

Eight months into the 222nd Legislature, every community-association bill on the board shows the same single line of history: introduced, referred to committee. Most are reintroductions of bills that already died once.

New Jersey is not working on UCIOA, and has no condo-safety task force

The Law Revision Commission has no project on the Condominium Act, PREDFDA or common interest ownership, no UCIOA bill is pending, and no successor body to the 2023 condominium-safety work exists.

The NJ association open-meetings rule DCA still cites was repealed in 2020

N.J.A.C. 5:20 was repealed effective May 18, 2020 and its open-meeting requirements moved to N.J.A.C. 5:26-8.12 — but the Department of Community Affairs' own homeowner-facing pages still cite the repealed chapter.

New Jersey condos exempt from inspection still have to register — and apply

DCA guidance published in 2026 warns that condominiums, co-ops and townhouse communities exempt from the Hotel and Multiple Dwelling Law must still register with the Bureau of Housing Inspection and apply for the exemption.

Two New Jersey bills would put teeth in association minutes and conflict rules

S2743 would let DCA fine an association up to $2,000 per meeting for withholding minutes. A1572 would apply public conflict-of-interest principles to HOA boards, managers and their immediate families.

New Jersey rewrote manufactured-home purchase rights — and cut a PREDFDA hole

P.L.2025, c.362 replaced the homeowners association mechanism with an informal resident group, cut the approval threshold to 51 percent, stretched response windows, and exempted such sales from PREDFDA registration.

New Jersey's mansion tax moved to the seller, and it names co-op units

P.L.2025, c.69 shifted the additional realty transfer fee from buyer to seller and made it graduated up to 3.5 percent, with cooperative units expressly included in the covered classes.

New Jersey still does not license community managers. Two bills would change that

A1947 and S4158 would require DCA licensure of community management entities with a $4,000 penalty per unlicensed contract. Companion bills A1946 and S4157 would mandate three hours of board-member training.

New Jersey bills would stop HOAs charging a transfer fee for a living trust

A2832 and S791 would provide that placing a unit, or co-op shares and a proprietary lease, into a living revocable trust is not a title transfer for association fee purposes — leaving only actual administrative costs recoverable.

New Jersey court reads a fence covenant against the HOA

In Estates at Layton's Lakes Homeowners Association v. Watson the Appellate Division held a fence-specific covenant silent on setbacks controlled over a general 30-foot accessory-structure setback, and reaffirmed strict construction in the owner's favour.

HUD stopped enforcing ESA accommodations. New Jersey's law did not change

A May 22, 2026 HUD memorandum narrows federal enforcement to animals individually trained to perform disability-related tasks. The New Jersey Law Against Discrimination is unaffected and is enforced by a different agency.

New Jersey's housing agency dropped a rule capping HOA fees on affordable units

HMFA proposed tying condominium and HOA fees on affordable units to the common-interest percentage and barring increases that would make a unit unaffordable. After heavy comment, it declined to adopt the provision.

A Mays Landing condo fee went from $350 to $624.77, and Trenton noticed

NJ.com reported in May 2026 that owners at The Village at Hardings Run faced a 78 percent monthly fee increase blamed on New Jersey's reserve statutes. Two relief bills followed within a month.

New Jersey's new housing council does not mention condos or HOAs

Executive Order No. 17 created a Housing Governing Council with initial recommendations due around September 24, 2026. The order says nothing about condominiums, associations, covenants or ADUs, and its recommendations are OPRA-exempt.

A New Jersey condo association got a zoning ordinance invalidated over a newspaper notice

The Appellate Division invalidated Guttenberg's R-5 ordinance because the published notice carried no summary of its main provisions, and voided the site plan approval a developer had obtained under it.

New Jersey association boards no longer file beneficial ownership reports

A FinCEN final rule effective August 14, 2026 permanently removes US entities from Corporate Transparency Act reporting, ending the obligation New Jersey HOA and condo boards had been told to prepare for.

Fannie Mae bans the reserve method New Jersey law permits

From January 4, 2027 Fannie Mae requires 15 percent reserve funding or a reserve study funded at its highest recommended level — while New Jersey law lets associations fund at 85 percent of plan and lets balances reach zero.

New Jersey tightened EV make-ready parking math for condo and co-op buildings

P.L.2026, c.51 requires every fractional EV parking calculation to round up to the next full space and caps the two-for-one parking credit at a 10 percent reduction in required parking.

New Jersey fines drivers for blocking EV charging spaces — private lots unresolved

P.L.2025, c.155 makes it a parking violation to occupy a marked EV charging space with a non-electric vehicle or an electric one that is not actively charging. Whether it reaches an association's private lot is not settled by the text.

New Jersey's e-bike law creates real work for community associations

P.L.2025, c.285 reclassified e-bikes and added age, licensing, registration and insurance requirements, with a six-month grace period and an insurance section that takes effect January 1, 2027.

New Jersey's new disparate-impact rules reach association screening policies

The Division on Civil Rights adopted rules at N.J.A.C. 13:16 requiring that neutral policies causing disproportionate harm serve a legitimate purpose with no less discriminatory alternative. Associations are housing providers under the LAD.

New Jersey's DCA says it does not oversee association reserve compliance

In its own guidance the Department of Community Affairs states it has no statutory jurisdiction over owner-controlled association reserve decisions and that owners disputing them must bring civil litigation.

New Jersey court upholds one-space-per-unit parking and clarifies mandatory ADR

In Dands v. Madrid Condominium Association the Appellate Division affirmed summary judgment on a demand for a second parking space and rejected an ADR-denial claim, holding the owner had refused ADR himself.

New Jersey will require sellers to disclose a dam — including HOA-owned ones

P.L.2026, c.69 adds a Disclosure of Dam Ownership section to New Jersey's property condition disclosure statement. It applies 90 days after Consumer Affairs publishes the revised form — a date that does not yet exist.

New Jersey is still reintroducing HOA COVID immunity bills in 2026

Four bills granting planned real estate development associations immunity from COVID-19 claims were reintroduced in January 2026 — including one that would extend immunity only through December 31, 2022.

A Point Pleasant Beach petition against the reserve law has 2,467 signatures

A homeowner petition started in September 2024 asks the Legislature to revise the definition, process and timing of New Jersey's condominium reserve requirements while keeping the safety protections.

New Jersey court backs condo collection fees but vacates an interest-rate bump

In Haffert v. Bell Tower Condominium Association the Appellate Division affirmed $55,830 in counsel fees under N.J.S.A. 46:8B-21(a) and vacated the trial court's increase of a confirmed arbitration award's interest rate from 10 to 12 percent.

New Jersey HOA members can claim severance damages when a shared beach is condemned

In State (DEP) v. 2.150 Acres of Land the Appellate Division held individual homeowners with non-exclusive easements over an association-owned beach lot retain a beneficial ownership interest and may pursue severance damages before a jury.

New Jersey's Balcony Solar Act voids HOA bans on plug-in solar panels

P.L.2026, c.82, signed September 1, 2026, bars homeowners associations, condominium associations and co-ops from enforcing any governing-document provision prohibiting portable solar devices. It takes effect March 1, 2027.

Two New Jersey rulings close off common defenses to assessment judgments

Cedar Crossing v. Clark and 511 Willow Avenue v. Kiely rejected arguments that a non-functioning board deprives collection counsel of authority, that privity is lacking, and that a setoff or a 19-month delay excuses a default judgment.

New Jersey court: a chicken could be a support animal, but six were not proven

In Amherst Farms Homeowners Association v. D.M. and L.S., the Appellate Division affirmed removal of six backyard chickens kept as emotional support animals because the owners' medical letters were net opinions.

Two New Jersey bills on 55-plus resales point in opposite directions

A3466 would require age-restricted associations to let owners sell to buyers of any age. S1843 would lock resales to households that keep the community federally qualified. Both are pending in the same Legislature.

New Jersey's lead ADU bill dropped its HOA covenant-voiding clause

S1786 originally declared association covenants restricting accessory dwelling units void and unenforceable. A Senate committee amended that out on June 1, 2026 and replaced it with seven categories associations may still regulate.

New Jersey bill would give DCA subpoena power over community associations

A4212 would let the Department of Community Affairs hear complaints, impose sanctions, issue subpoenas and remove board members, and would create an ombudsman, an advisory council and a trust fund — for communities over 100 units.

A New Jersey bill would revisit an HOA task force report from 1998

A4210 would create a 13-member Common Interest Community Task Force. Its own statement says the 1998 Assembly task force's recommendations remain “generally unfulfilled” twenty-eight years later.

New Jersey bill would cap HOA dues increases at 10 percent, with personal liability

A3314 would bar association boards from raising dues more than 10 percent in a 12-month period, make directors jointly and severally liable, and add a $1,000 penalty per violation payable to the homeowner who sues.

New Jersey bill would limit condo inspections to buildings three stories or taller

A318 and S146 would narrow the 2023 structural-integrity law to buildings of three stories or more and double the reserve catch-up window from ten years to twenty. Neither has moved since January.

New Jersey bill would cap board terms at two years and run elections independently

A1138 would require association elections at two-year intervals run by an independent committee, cap board terms and board size, extend PREDFDA election rules to associations under 50 units, and mandate anonymous voting.

New Jersey bills would let associations stretch reserve funding to 35 years

A5306 and S4508 would add a 35-year capital reserve funding plan option and restart the clock on the 85% funding allowance. Both were introduced in late June 2026 after a wave of Atlantic County fee complaints.

New Jersey adopted the 2024 model codes — what associations pull permits under now

Effective August 17, 2026, New Jersey's Uniform Construction Code adopts the 2024 I-Codes and the 2023 NEC. A separate October 2025 adoption changed townhouse fire-sprinkler requirements.

Your town must allow an ADU. Your covenant need not.

RSA 674:72 requires municipalities to permit accessory dwelling units and bars separate condominium conveyance of one, but it binds towns rather than associations — and the 2026 session declined to resolve what happens when a covenant says no.

FinCEN permanently exempts US entities — your board has nothing to file

A FinCEN final rule effective August 14, 2026 permanently removes beneficial-ownership reporting for entities created in the United States, ending the Corporate Transparency Act question for New Hampshire association boards.

When your condominium was created decides whether it can replace its septic

New Hampshire readopted its subdivision and septic rules effective February 1, 2026, keeping carve-outs that turn a condominium's eligibility for septic approval on whether it was created before 1971, between 1971 and 1989, or later.

Two condo bills, and the House voted on neither

HB 1343 and HB 1432 were the only condominium-specific bills of the 2026 session, both came out of committee on 9-8 splits with Ought-to-Pass minority reports, and both evaporated when the House adjourned on March 12 with 74 bills unvoted.

Thirty-eight homeowners now own Albany Acres — and its failing septics

Residents of a Carroll County manufactured home community bought their park in June 2026 with New Hampshire Community Loan Fund financing, and expect lot rent to rise from $455 to about $600 to fund deferred capital work.

The stormwater rules moved three times in a year — and one version is not published

New Hampshire's Alteration of Terrain chapter was amended by interim rule in August 2025, fully readopted in January 2026 and amended again in August 2026, and the August filing had not been certified online when we checked.

The ROAD to Housing Act is law, not pending — the rulemaking is what is left

H.R. 6644 passed the Senate 85-5 and the House 358-32 in June 2026 and became law without the President's signature on July 11, but its operative terms will be settled in HUD and CFPB rulemaking that has not started.

The condominium registration exemption is now 25 units, by statute

Chapter 245, effective July 2, 2026, raised RSA 356-B:49's registration exemption to 25 units — the number the Attorney General's own rule has used since 2019 — and abbreviated registrations were repealed.

The private-road cost-sharing default died 13-0

HB 1057 would have supplied default maintenance cost-sharing, 30-day notice and a fee-shifting enforcement route for private roads where no active homeowners association exists — the House killed it on February 5, 2026.

The NFIP deadline moved to December 11 — FEMA's own page still says September 30

A continuing resolution reauthorized the National Flood Insurance Program through December 11, 2026, the 36th short-term extension since 2017, while FEMA's reauthorization page continues to show the superseded September 30 date.

Rochester revalued, and condominium assessments rose 94 percent

A Rochester revaluation produced average increases of 208 percent for manufactured homes and 94 percent for condominiums against 73 percent for single-family houses, on private streets the city does not plow.

Condo reserves must reach 15 percent on January 4

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac raise the minimum replacement-reserve allocation from 10 to 15 percent of budgeted assessment income on January 4, 2027, with a reserve-study exception — and New Hampshire has no state reserve requirement underneath it.

Plug-in solar was legalised with no word about condominium boards

SB 540, Chapter 262, deregulates portable solar devices up to 1,200 watts AC per meter from January 1, 2027 — and says nothing about covenants, associations or limited common area, where most of these panels would go.

FCC: an architectural-approval clause is itself an OTARD violation

A November 2025 FCC declaratory ruling and citation held that requiring prior committee approval for an antenna violates the OTARD rule on its own, and that filing a petition freezes an association's fines immediately.

One kind of New Hampshire community has a financial regulator — and it isn't yours

The Insurance Department readopted its continuing care community rules effective June 27, 2026, supervising the finances of a residential community operator — a form of oversight no New Hampshire condominium or homeowners association is subject to.

One manufactured-housing board rebuilt every rule it has; the other has filed none since 2013

New Hampshire's Installation Standards Board adopted six new rule chapters between January 2025 and January 2026, while the Board of Manufactured Housing — the state's only tribunal for a community-living dispute — has not filed a rule in thirteen years.

Not one Condominium Act case in two years of Supreme Court opinions

Across all 88 New Hampshire Supreme Court opinions issued between January 2025 and September 2026, none construes RSA 356-B — and none addresses assessment liens, fines, board fiduciary duty or assistance animals either.

Nobody in New Hampshire licenses your community association manager

New Hampshire has no community-association-manager credential and created none in 2025 or 2026 — but a manager who collects rents, rather than assessments, can land inside broker licensing.

No New Hampshire agency hears an HOA dispute — and none was created

The Attorney General's condominium authority stops at the developer's offering stage, New Hampshire has no planned-community statute at all, and nothing adopted in 2025 or 2026 changed either fact.

No 2026 bill on rentals, EV charging, flags, liens or managers

An exhaustive sweep of all 1,386 bill titles in New Hampshire's 2026 session found no measure at all on short-term rentals in associations, EV charging rights, owner flag or sign displays, reserve studies, property-manager licensing, assessment liens or association foreclosure.

Nine housing bills died, and one passed both chambers before vanishing

New Hampshire's 2025 and 2026 sessions killed an ADU repeal, an ADU rewrite, a voucher set-aside, two manufactured-housing mandates and more — and HB 685 passed the House and Senate before its conference committee never filed a report.

NHDES: small water systems run by associations will be hit hardest by PFAS limits

New Hampshire has drafted PFAS drinking-water rules and is deliberately holding them unfinalized while federal standards settle — and the state's own water official says homeowner-association systems are the exposed class.

New Hampshire is approving lots on roads nobody will ever plow

Two 2025 amendments to RSA 674:41 made it easier to build on private and Class VI roads — the Class VI route now requires only a recorded waiver acknowledging the town will never maintain the road or be liable for losses.

New Hampshire still has not adopted UCIOA, and nothing proposes that it should

The Uniform Common Interest Ownership Act has never been enacted in New Hampshire, no 2027 bill request references it, and a widely circulating article describing a UCIOA-modeled New Hampshire overhaul is from 2015.

Manchester rewrote its zoning for the first time since 2001

The Manchester Land Use Code, approved 11-2-1 on December 16, 2025 and effective March 1, 2026, consolidates zoning, subdivision and site plan regulations into one document — the city's fourth zoning ordinance since 1927.

Reported: lot rent nearly doubled at a Hopkinton park, and the AG is investigating

The Attorney General's Consumer Protection Bureau opened an investigation after residents of the Meadows of Hopkinton said a new out-of-state owner raised incoming-buyer lot rent from $680 to $1,285 and collapsed the resale market.

Limited Review is gone for New Hampshire condo loans

Since August 3, 2026 established condominium projects can no longer be financed through Limited Review, sending roughly 40 percent of project reviews into Full Review — where reserves, insurance and litigation all get examined.

HUD would strip its disparate-impact rules — comments close October 9

A supplemental proposed rule published August 10, 2026 continues HUD's effort to remove the regulations that let facially neutral housing rules be challenged without proof of intent, and the reopened comment period is still open.

HUD narrows assistance-animal enforcement to trained animals only

A May 22, 2026 HUD memorandum tells fair-housing investigators to find cause only where an animal is individually trained — but it binds HUD staff, not New Hampshire boards, and expressly leaves private lawsuits untouched.

New Hampshire HOAs get statutory records duties on January 1

Chapter 306, signed July 10, 2026, adds three new paragraphs to RSA 292:8-m requiring homeowners associations to keep eleven categories of records, produce them on 15 days' notice, cap copying fees, limit executive session and force recusal on conflicts.

HB 383 is not New Hampshire law and never was

A bill that would have made recorded condominium rules part of the condominium instruments and set a 51 percent threshold to amend a declaration was killed by voice vote on March 6, 2025 — but it keeps appearing on guide pages as enacted law.

Four Lake Sunapee towns now make you pump the septic on a clock

New London's ordinance took effect January 1, 2026 requiring every septic system to be pumped and inspected at least every three years, and Newbury became the fourth Lake Sunapee watershed town to adopt one.

Every 2026 bill you were tracking is dead, including the ones sent to study

The 169th General Court ended on August 19, 2026 and 2027 opens a new biennium, so nothing carries over — a bill referred to interim study in March is as dead as one killed outright.

Conway must reassess by 2027, and the tax board is still watching

The Board of Tax and Land Appeals found commercial properties assessed at a median ratio of 0.77 against 0.99 for revaluation sales, ordered a full measure and list and a reassessment no later than tax year 2027, and retained jurisdiction until it is done.

Condominium registration fees have not moved since 2019

New Hampshire's condominium registration rules, fees and forms are unchanged since October 2019 — $30 per unit within a $300 to $2,000 band, $200 for an exemption — and the Attorney General filed no rules at all in 2025 or 2026.

In New Hampshire, abstaining counts as a vote for the budget

RSA 356-B:40-c lets a board's proposed budget and special assessments take effect unless two-thirds of ALL unit owners reject them — not two-thirds of those voting — and the section has not been amended since 2018.

A Senate committee demanded six years of records from a New Hampshire park owner

Sen. Maggie Hassan's July 29, 2026 Joint Economic Committee letter to Sado Capital seeks ownership structures, rent-setting policies, resident complaints and settlement agreements going back to January 2020.

A seasonal park still owes eighteen months' notice

In Dobens v. Fagnant the New Hampshire Supreme Court held that RSA 205-A's 18-month change-of-use notice applies to seasonal manufactured housing parks, that a home left on the lot keeps its owner a tenant year-round, and that Consumer Protection Act remedies follow a violation.

A road you drew on a plan in 1987 is not yours to redesign in 2019

In Taylor Community v. City of Laconia the Supreme Court held that a developer who showed a road on a subdivision plan, told the planning board it would be deeded to the city, and sold lots off that plan could not later reconfigure it — even though title never transferred.

A rent increase after a sale is not fraud, a Belknap judge held

Belmont residents who said a buyer's assurances discouraged them from exercising their purchase rights lost on August 4, 2026 — the court found no material misrepresentation, and the ruling turned on ordinary fraud elements, not the opportunity-to-purchase statute.

A quiet title action without the claimant quiets nothing

In a non-precedential August 2026 order the New Hampshire Supreme Court affirmed that neighbors who obtained a quiet-title judgment without naming a known easement claimant did not extinguish her rights — and upheld a narrowed attorney's fee award against them.

A New Hampshire rule with no expiration date may still expire

The Division of Administrative Rules began printing expiration dates on source notes only for rules certified after April 28, 2025, and said it will not go back and add them to older rules.

New net metering rules: get a host number before you share solar credits

New Hampshire's Department of Energy adopted En 900 effective April 27, 2026, and it bars any customer-generator from acting as a group net metering host until the department issues a registration number.

A common scheme gets you the road, not the beach

In Martin v. Far Echo Harbor Club the New Hampshire Supreme Court held that a deed referencing a subdivision plan implies an easement in the roads shown on it — but that a common scheme of development creates no right to use an association's amenities.

A commission may question zoning itself, and its report is due November 1

RSA 674:23-a created a nine-member commission to study the historical evolution of New Hampshire's zoning enabling act and identify legislative alternatives — and the statute repeals the commission the day its final report is due.

A bill would let HUD insure the loan that pays your special assessment

H.R. 9569, introduced June 30, 2026 and referred to House Financial Services, would authorize FHA insurance for condominium association repair loans and for unit-owner loans taken out to pay special assessments.

A bill to let towns enforce your covenants went to study and died

SB 175 would have authorized New Hampshire municipalities to enforce private covenants — including those enacted by homeowners associations — and barred towns from requiring covenants as a condition of land use approval.

A $50,000 deductible cap now meets New Hampshire master policies

Since July 1, 2026 a condominium master property policy with a per-unit deductible above $50,000 makes the project ineligible for Fannie Mae financing, and the inflation-guard requirement is gone.

$293 million has bought twenty New Hampshire communities since 2016

Out-of-state investors have acquired 20 New Hampshire manufactured home communities holding more than 3,800 homes, while manufactured home sale prices rose 301 percent over the decade — against 128 percent for condominiums.

Nevada insurance regulator asks for flexibility after the Hawk Fire

Bulletin 26-003, issued August 26, 2026 after wildfires burned more than 150,000 acres in northern Nevada, asks insurers to relax premium timing and loss-of-use rules and flags burn-scar flooding.

Southern Nevada HOAs have until January 2027 to remove useless grass

From January 1, 2027, Colorado River water delivered by the Southern Nevada Water Authority may not irrigate nonfunctional turf on property not zoned exclusively for single-family residence — which puts HOA streetscapes squarely inside the mandate.

Three HOA bill drafts are already on file for Nevada's 2027 session

Senators Neal and Ohrenschall and Assemblymember Nadeem have each requested a bill draft on homeowners' associations or common-interest communities for the 84th Session. No text is public.

Nevada would more than triple training for temporary HOA managers

R091-25 would raise the instruction required to convert a temporary community-manager certificate to a full one from 18 hours to 60, and would write remote teaching into the administrative code for the first time.

Nevada condo buyers can now claim the 3 percent tax cap at closing

AB 377 requires the Nevada Tax Commission to add a section to the declaration of value where a property owner may claim the partial tax abatement — so a buyer no longer has to discover the form separately.

Nevada's HOA task force has met four times and voted on nothing

Reconstituted in November 2025 to recommend legislation to the Governor, the state's common-interest communities task force has held meetings in December, February, April and July — and taken no action on its central proposal.

Nevada downgraded a supervising HOA manager over check signatures

An April 2026 Commission order found that a supervising community manager repeatedly allowed association operating-account checks to be signed by a management-company employee who was neither a board member nor an officer.

Short-term renters beat Clark County but not their HOA

A December 2025 preliminary injunction bars Clark County from requiring short-term rental licenses, issuing daily fines or recording liens. It runs against the county's permit scheme, not against a recorded covenant.

Nevada caps HOA solar aesthetics at 3 percent of the install price

NRS 116.334 lets a Nevada owner refuse any solar rule whose compliance cost exceeds 3 percent of the cash cost of installation, proved by an independent estimate, and measures panel relocation against the federal PVWatts calculator.

Nevada HOAs without solar rules must approve in 15 days

NRS 116.333, in force since October 1, 2025, gives an association 35 days to decide a solar request if it has adopted rules — and if it has not, 15 days to approve, with no power to deny or add conditions.

Nevada's vetoed HOA bill would have given owners 36 months to landscape

SB 121 would have barred landscaping deadlines sooner than 36 months after escrow, limited late fees and credit reporting, restricted oil-stain enforcement and required notice when a management contract ends. It was vetoed on June 5, 2025.

Nevada's draft $10,000 HOA fine cap was deleted before adoption

The Real Estate Division's own November 2025 draft capped uncapped HOA fines at $10,000 and required a court order above it. Both provisions are absent from the text adopted on September 9, 2026.

Nevada would delete baseline funding from HOA reserve studies

R091-25 would strike baseline funding from the permitted reserve objectives, redefine adequately funded reserves so the projected balance may never reach zero, and restart the five-year study clock on adoption rather than inspection.

Nevada would raise its HOA mediation subsidy to $600

R091-25 would lift the Division's mediation subsidy from $500 to $600 per proceeding, require an intervention affidavit to name the law allegedly breached, create a remedial-measures off-ramp, and give any person a route to petition for rulemaking.

Nevada would make departing HOA managers sign a records inventory

R091-25 would require a community manager leaving an account to hand over records in any format, list by name the records that do not exist or cannot be found, and certify that list in writing.

Nevada commission adopts the HOA fine rule it owed since 2021

R091-25 would finally define the “imminent threat to health, safety or welfare” that lifts Nevada's $100 fine cap. The Commission adopted it on September 9, 2026; no adopted text has been filed.

A $9,000 Nevada HOA fine was not enough to get into court

In Piazza v. Spring Mountain Ranch Master Association, the Nevada Court of Appeals held that NRS 116.4117 requires actual, non-speculative damages even where a homeowner asks only for a declaration that she did not violate the CC&Rs.

Nevada protects HOA solar but still has no EV charging right

SB 152 would have let owners install electric-vehicle charging in exclusive-use and common areas without an association vote. It died in the 2025 session, leaving Nevada with a detailed solar statute and nothing for chargers.

Nevada's HOA mediation requirement is not jurisdictional

Kosor v. Southern Highlands holds that NRS 38.310's pre-suit ADR requirement is a claim-processing rule that must be raised in time — and cannot be used three years later to void a judgment.

Nevada signed one HOA bill and vetoed another on the same day

On June 5, 2025 Governor Lombardo approved SB 201, protecting religious and cultural displays in common-interest communities, and vetoed AB 185, which would have barred HOAs from prohibiting licensed child care.

Condo reserve minimum rises to 15 percent in January 2027

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are raising the minimum reserve contribution for project eligibility from 10 to 15 percent of the annual budget, with an exemption that requires a study updated within three years and funding above baseline.

Nevada's new easement law expressly excludes HOA declarations

AB 192 enacted the Uniform Easement Relocation Act, giving burdened owners a judicial route to move an easement over the holder's objection — and carved out easements created by a declaration under NRS chapter 116.

Nevada's HOA commission can now fine $5,000 per violation

AB 396 raised the Commission's administrative fine from $1,000 to $5,000 per violation effective July 1, 2026 — while NRS 116.785 continues to shift that liability from an unknowing board member onto the association itself.

Nineteen dollars decided a Nevada HOA foreclosure appeal

In Deutsche Bank v. Collegium Fund, the Nevada Supreme Court held that a homeowner's pre-sale payments satisfied the foreclosing HOA's superpriority lien as a matter of law, and that a second HOA's lien did not also have to be paid.

An arbitration clause in the CC&Rs took 50 Nevada homeowners out of court

A Clark County judge compelled arbitration in the Lake Las Vegas construction-defect case in May 2026, enforcing clauses in both the purchase agreements and the community's recorded declaration.

Nevada's ADU deadline for its biggest cities has passed

AB 396 required Clark and Washoe counties and Nevada's largest cities to adopt accessory dwelling unit ordinances by July 1, 2026 — and provided that if they did not, ADUs are authorized on any residentially zoned parcel without restriction.

Nevada is re-bidding its entire HOA dispute-resolution bench

The Real Estate Division has two open solicitations for the mediator panel and the referee/arbitrator panel that hear Nevada common-interest community disputes under NRS 38, both released in October 2025 with open submission deadlines.

Nevada voided HOA rules restricting summer construction hours

AB 478 struck the population threshold from NRS 116.347, extending the April–September construction-hours rule statewide, and declared void any governing-document provision more restrictive than the act.

Nevada condo terminations now need 80% of non-declarant votes

AB 396 rewrote NRS 116.2118 so that terminating a common-interest community requires 80 percent of all votes AND 80 percent of the votes allocated to units the declarant does not own — a floor no declaration can raise away.

Nevada resale packages must now prove the association's insurance

Since July 1, 2026, NRS 116.4109(1)(g) requires a resale package to include proof of the insurance policies an association must carry under NRS 116.3113 — arriving a year after the Legislature let master wildfire coverage stop at the common elements.

Nevada boards can now cap rentals by rule, not by vote

Since July 1, 2026, NRS 116.335 lets an association adopt rules restricting or prohibiting leasing where the restriction is reasonably related to lender or insurer underwriting requirements — and the old owner protections in that section are gone.

Nevada's grandfather clause no longer protects existing owners from lease limits

AB 396 added NRS 116.2117(9) and opened subsection 6 with “Except as otherwise provided in subsection 9” — so a lender- or insurer-justified leasing amendment can now be enforced against owners who bought before it was recorded.

Nevada let HOA master policies stop covering units for wildfire

AB 376 added NRS 116.3113(3), effective July 1, 2025, disapplying the walls-in requirement for wildfire where the association's policy coordinates with or subrogates owners' individual policies.

Nevada doubled its arbitration threshold, but not for HOA disputes

AB 3 raised court-annexed arbitration to $100,000 for civil actions filed on or after January 1, 2026. It does not touch NRS 38.300 to 38.360, the separate mandatory program that handles most association disputes.

Nevada HOAs now fight for tax-sale surplus in court, not a hearing

AB 133 removed the county treasurer's hearing as a way to resolve contested claims to excess proceeds from a tax sale, requiring an interpleader action in district court after unsuccessful mediation.

A Nevada county can now fix your HOA's water system and bill you for 20 years

AB 10 made repair of a common-interest community's water or sewer system a neighborhood improvement project — and switched off the dissolution right, the remonstrance protection and the annual assessment-roll notice that apply to every other kind.

Whitefish is using scenic resources to blunt a state 60-foot height allowance

After adopting Vision Whitefish 2045 in April 2026 and new zoning in May, Whitefish delayed its 60-foot allowance to October 1, 2026 and its planning commission moved in August to designate view corridors as scenic resources.

“Should take into consideration views” is binding — and a $417,000 HOA fee award fell

In Waddell v. Studer, 2025 MT 269, the Montana Supreme Court held a permissive-sounding architectural covenant requires genuine good-faith consideration of neighbouring impacts, reversed summary judgment, and vacated $417,608 in attorney fees.

Montana's UCIOA draft would sweep in existing associations unless they opt out by 2028

The February 2026 committee draft would apply to every Montana common interest community from October 1, 2028 unless more than 50 percent of an association's votes amend the declaration and record the opt-out first.

Montana panel would replace the 1965 condo act — vote set for September 17

A legislative committee draft would put every Montana association under a new Uniform Common Interest Ownership Act; the Local Government Interim Committee takes executive action on it September 17, 2026.

Twin Montana bills to stop covenants binding earlier buyers both died

House Bill 761 and Senate Bill 431 carried word-for-word identical text barring enforcement of more onerous covenants against owners who bought earlier; the Senate version was withdrawn the day after its hearing and the House version died at transmittal.

Montana's new trust-account rule governs the money your manager holds

The Board of Realty Regulation replaced its trust-account rule effective February 21, 2026: funds held for others must sit in an insured Montana institution, be reconciled monthly, never be swept or invested, and be deposited within three business days.

Waiver and laches failed against clear Montana covenants — and the enforcer got fees

In Sloway Cabin v. Extreme, 2025 MT 161, the Montana Supreme Court affirmed an injunction removing a towing and diesel-repair operation from a small subdivision, rejecting illusory-covenant, waiver and laches defences.

Montana counties must now allow ADUs by right — and private covenants still apply

Senate Bill 532, Chapter 619 of the 2025 Laws, created section 76-2-215 requiring county zoning to allow one accessory dwelling unit by right, while expressly preserving restrictive covenants on ADUs entered into between private parties.

Montana owner voting-rights bill passed the Senate, then died in House committee

Senate Bill 400 would have guaranteed Montana owners a vote on covenants, dues increases and association litigation, and the right to run for the board; it cleared the Senate and was tabled in House committee.

Montana zoning must treat manufactured homes like any other house — covenants excepted

Senate Bill 252, Chapter 376 of the 2025 Laws, requires city and county zoning to treat manufactured and factory-built housing the same as other residential property, while expressly preserving existing covenants and the power to write new ones.

Montana exempted HOA-owned EV chargers from its charging-station tax and meter rules

Senate Bill 228, Chapter 216 of the 2025 Laws, rewrote the definition of “charging station” to exclude equipment owned by an association of real property owners, removing the 3-cent-per-kilowatt-hour tax, the dedicated meter and the registration duty as of July 1, 2025.

Montana tightened emotional support animal documentation — for landlords, not HOAs

Senate Bill 149, Chapter 360 of the 2025 Laws, requires supporting information for an emotional support animal to come from a practitioner with personal knowledge and to carry a license number, and says a purchased registration is not sufficient by itself.

Montana cut the construction repose period to six years and the covenant clock to six

Senate Bill 143, Chapter 174 of the 2025 Laws, shortened the written-instrument limitation period from eight years to six and the construction statute of repose from ten years to six, effective October 1, 2025.

Montana has no standalone construction defect claim, its high court confirms

In Grosvold v. Neely, 2025 MT 99, the Montana Supreme Court held the residential construction defect statutes created a pre-litigation dispute resolution procedure, not an independent cause of action.

No HOA bill among Montana's 331 requested 2027 drafts — but two say “architectural review”

The Legislature's published 2027 bill draft request list contains no homeowners association, covenant or condominium entry; the closest are two requests to revise architectural review laws, and committee bills would not appear on the list at all.

Montana mobile home tenant unions won recognition and a 3 percent rent cap

Residents of two Missoula-area mobile home parks won formal recognition, two-year lease options and a reported 3 percent cap on future rent increases — concessions that come from a lease, because Montana has no rent-cap statute.

Missoula now allows two units on every parcel — and says covenants still govern

Missoula's Unified Development Code, adopted unanimously on February 2, 2026, permits a minimum of two units per parcel citywide and eliminates residential parking minimums, while the city states that private covenants add requirements it neither keeps nor enforces.

Montana's high court erased the ruling that covenants beat the 2023 housing laws

In Montanans Against Irresponsible Densification v. State, 2026 MT 53, the Montana Supreme Court upheld the 2023 duplex and ADU statutes and vacated, as an advisory opinion, the district court declaration that they cannot displace stricter private covenants.

Montana lien costs rose on October 1: recording fees up 2.5x, foreclosure fee up 5x

House Bill 192 raised county recording from $8 a page to $20 for the first page plus $10 per additional page, and Senate Bill 103 raised the fee for issuing an execution or order of sale on a lien foreclosure from $5 to $25, both effective October 1, 2025.

A motocross course is not a “residential” use, Montana Supreme Court holds

In Larsen v. Sayers, 2025 MT 24, the Montana Supreme Court reversed a bench-trial loss and held a freestyle motocross course breaches a residential-and-agricultural-purposes covenant, remanding to award the enforcing neighbours their fees.

HUD rescinded the 2020 assistance-animal guidance boards have used for six years

A May 22, 2026 HUD memorandum permanently rescinds FHEO-2020-01 and directs enforcement staff to use the ADA's training-based service-animal definition — but it binds HUD staff, not housing providers, and leaves Montana law untouched.

Montana's homestead rate leaves second homes and entity-owned units at 1.9 percent

House Bill 231 and Senate Bill 542 created a tiered homestead property tax rate starting at 0.76 percent for enrolled primary residences, while second homes, short-term rentals and property owned by an entity pay a flat 1.9 percent.

Montana's property insurance study report is due September 15

House Joint Resolution 61 ordered an interim study of Montana's property insurance market, and its legislative findings — second-highest catastrophic wildfire risk in the nation, 44.3 percent cumulative rate increases — are the record a 2027 bill would build on.

Montana studied property-manager licensing — and community managers were not on the list

House Joint Resolution 55 sent property management licensing to interim study; the committee briefing describes a licence built entirely around landlord-tenant duties, with community association management absent from it.

Montana insurers must now disclose a property's wildfire risk score on request

House Bill 533, Chapter 485 of the 2025 Laws, requires an admitted insurer using a wildfire risk score to disclose the score, the model's range, who built it, when, and the key adverse factors — within 30 days of a request.

Montana bill giving workforce-housing covenants statutory footing died in committee

House Bill 422 would have added income- and occupation-restricted affordability covenants to the list of covenants that run with the land under section 70-17-203; it was tabled ten days after its hearing and died.

A Montana HOA now needs permission before its agent walks onto your property

House Bill 416, Chapter 452 of the 2025 Laws, created Mont. Code Ann. § 70-16-110, requiring an association to obtain an owner's permission, propose a convenient time and specify the area before an agent enters — effective October 1, 2025.

Montana condo common-element percentages still need every owner's agreement

House Bill 362 would have let 75 percent of affected owners re-allocate undivided interests in condominium common elements; it was tabled, un-tabled and died, leaving the unanimity requirement in section 70-23-403 intact.

Montana broadened who can sue to enforce a covenant, effective October 2025

House Bill 325, Chapter 258 of the 2025 Laws, gave any owner of a burdened or benefited interest express standing to enforce covenants, alongside the association itself, effective October 1, 2025.

Montana bill requiring HOA budgets and capping dues rises died at the deadline

House Bill 232 would have made Montana associations mail annual budget and financial reports to every member and capped dues increases at 15 percent; it cleared second reading and then died at the general-bill transmittal deadline.

Montana now defines covenant “enforcement action” as two years of consistent enforcement

House Bill 147, Chapter 423 of the 2025 Laws, added a statutory definition to section 70-17-210 requiring that a covenant be equally and consistently enforced on all subject properties over at least two years.

FinCEN made the HOA exemption from beneficial ownership reporting permanent

A FinCEN final rule effective August 14, 2026 makes permanent the removal of beneficial ownership reporting for US entities, so a Montana HOA or condominium nonprofit corporation has no BOI filing obligation at all.

Fannie and Freddie raise the condo reserve floor to 15 percent for 2027

Lender Letter LL-2026-03 and Freddie Mac Bulletin 2026-C, both issued March 18, 2026, raise the minimum reserve allocation from 10 to 15 percent of annual budgeted assessment income for loan applications dated on or after January 4, 2027, and retire the Limited Review pathway.

Montana subdivision wells now need a Notice of Intent and a $400 fee