2026-09-12 · Maryland · Compliance

What happened. The most immediate date on Maryland's community-association calendar is not in a 2026 act. It is in a 2025 one. By 1 October 2026 — nineteen days from now — every Maryland county and municipality must have adopted a local law permitting accessory dwelling units on single-family lots.

The requirement comes from Chapter 197 of the Acts of 2025 (House Bill 1466) and its cross-file Chapter 196 (Senate Bill 891), signed on 22 April 2025 and effective 1 October 2025. The local-adoption deadline was set a year out, and it is now arriving.¹

The part that binds associations

The same act reached governing documents directly. It amended Real Property §§ 2-126, 11B-101, 11B-111.11 and 11B-117, alongside the Land Use Article framework, and the effect is that a homeowners association may not impose unreasonable limitations on an owner's ability to develop or rent an ADU.¹

Three details that decide most cases:

• An ADU may be an interior conversion or a separate structure, attached or detached.
• An association may treat an ADU as a separate lot for voting and assessment purposes — a meaningful concession, since it lets an association charge for the additional unit rather than absorb it.
• The standard is “unreasonable limitation,” not preemption. Maryland did not void ADU restrictions outright the way some states have; it made unreasonable ones unenforceable and left reasonable, non-prohibitive rules intact.

Two boundaries are equally important. Section 2-126 does not reach historic property, and it does not limit short-term-rental restrictions — so a declaration can still bar an owner from letting the ADU on a nightly basis, and in a historic district the declaration continues to control.

1. House Bill 1466 (2025), Land Use and Real Property – Accessory Dwelling Units – Requirements and Prohibitions — Chapter 197, signed 22 April 2025, effective 1 October 2025; the 1 October 2026 local-adoption deadline; House 138-1, Senate 47-0 (cross-file SB 891, Chapter 196) ↩
2. Cowie Law Group, Maryland community association law: key legislative updates affecting condos, HOAs and co-ops — the statutory sections amended, the separate-lot voting and assessment provision, and the reconciliation task facing boards ↩
3. House Bill 1236 (2026), Real Property – Prohibition on Restrictions of Accessory Dwelling Units – Historic District Exemption — heard 13 March 2026, died in House Economic Matters without a report ↩