Latest Legal Updates
Latest Legal Updates
HOA and condominium association legislation, court rulings and regulatory changes across every state, the District of Columbia and federal law — newest first.
Showing 1,969–1,989 of 1,989 updates
Delaware pays $12,000 to move a displaced manufactured home — its own website says $9,500
Board minutes show relocation benefits approved at $12,000 and a working group convened on raising the cap, while the Authority's published policy page has not been updated since 2020.
Read the full updateDelaware is cataloguing 98 manufactured-home communities' septic systems
DNREC began field assessments in March 2026 of on-site wastewater systems in Delaware manufactured home communities — many predating the agency's records and outside any inspection program.
Read the full updateSussex County adopted new sediment and stormwater rules — after a six-month delay
Ordinance 4044 passed on March 3, 2026 with 16 amendments, increased buffers in critical development areas, and authority to cut the maximum land disturbance below the state's 20-acre limit.
Read the full updateTwo boards claimed to run a Delaware HOA. Chancery picked one and sent the rest elsewhere
After a member-run “special election” purported to remove the sitting board, the Court of Chancery denied a restraining order, entered a status quo order restoring the incumbents, and routed the validity question to a separate § 225 action.
Read the full updatea manufactured-home resident who is not the owner or leaseholder has no standing
Chancery dismissed retaliation and arbitrary-enforcement claims under Chapter 70 because the plaintiff held neither title to the home nor the lot lease — and confirmed the Landlord-Tenant Code displaces common-law quiet enjoyment.
Read the full updateDelaware's fire code redefined “condominium” — and says the HOA owns the structure
Effective January 1, 2026, the State Fire Prevention Commission replaced its definition with one stating a condominium is a form of ownership, not an occupancy — and advanced the manufactured-housing NFPA standards.
Read the full updateDelaware's manufactured-home relocation fund now collects nothing from its own assessment
From January 1, 2026 the entire $1.50 monthly per-lot assessment goes to the legal-aid Attorney Fund and the landlord portion is credited to zero — in the same year the trust fund's cap became discretionary.
Read the full updateWhat Delaware HOA owners actually complain about, from the state's own file
The Common Interest Community Ombudsperson's 2024 report logs 84 formal complaints, 456 research inquiries and 26,775 emails — and names records refusal as the top category, again.
Read the full updateDelaware cannot find its own HOAs, because the filings are scanned images
The state estimates more than 3,000 common interest communities and cannot identify them among 1.5 million corporate filings — because franchise-tax reports are stored as unsearchable image files.
Read the full updateDelaware court flags two unanswered questions in the condominium resale-disclosure statute
A buyer billed $160 a month for a special assessment she says she never knew about got her judgment reversed — and the Superior Court called the reach of 25 Del. C. § 2237 a matter of first impression.
Read the full updateDelaware Supreme Court: an outside group's liability waiver does not shield the association
A recreational association that let a charity event use its parking lot was held to be the organizer's agent and dismissed. The Supreme Court reversed — agency is a question of fact, and a license is not agency.
Read the full updateHOA governance disputes belong in Chancery, and nowhere else
A Sussex condominium owner's claims about assessments, meetings, elections and late fees were dismissed for want of jurisdiction — the Court of Common Pleas cannot hear equitable claims.
Read the full updatea non-waiver clause means an HOA must have “totally abandoned” enforcement to lose it
Owners who pointed to other violations in their community to defeat a four-foot fence restriction learned how high the bar is where the declaration says non-enforcement waives nothing.
Read the full updateSussex County files more than half of Delaware's manufactured-housing complaints
The Manufactured Housing Ombudsperson's latest report logs 50 complaints — 27 from Sussex — zero requests for formal mediation all year, and lot-boundary disputes the office says the law does not resolve.
Read the full updateDelaware's manufactured-home legal aid fund spent more than it took in
The fund closed the year at $56,447.95 after spending $99,984.45 — while its contractor worked 211 cases, including a tenant offered dismissal of an eviction in exchange for a 72% rent increase.
Read the full updateDelaware's September 2025 manufactured-housing package, one year on
Four bills signed the same day rewrote lot-lease transfers, made a pattern of violations consumer fraud, gave the Attorney General receivership power, and removed the relocation trust fund's statutory cap.
Read the full updateDelaware quietly stripped HOAs of their status as crime victims
11 Del. C. § 9419, which gave qualifying neighborhood and homeowners associations rights under the Victims' Bill of Rights since 1995, was repealed effective August 20, 2025.
Read the full updateNew Castle County's condo inspection deadline passed a year ago
Ordinance 23-094 required initial structural and façade inspection results at the Department of Land Use by July 31, 2025. The county page states no penalties, and no compliance figures have been published.
Read the full updateDelaware added a protected class — and a clause that adds future ones automatically
Military status became protected under the Delaware Fair Housing Act in July 2025. A month later, a catch-all was inserted into the landlord-tenant and manufactured-housing provisions that imports future additions without further amendment.
Read the full updateDelaware association keeps boat ramps its own deeds failed to convey
A 1985 settlement vested Swann Keys' common areas in the association, but the title documents omitted two boat ramps sitting on neighboring lots. Chancery quieted title by adverse possession; the Supreme Court affirmed.
Read the full updateA Delaware subcommittee proposed excluding new manufactured-home buyers from rent protections
A February 2025 draft report recommended grandfathering current homeowners and providing that new buyers “would not be subject to” rent control or rental assistance. No bill followed, and the legislature went the other way.
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