It is not theoretical — there is already an order

On 3 December 2025, two months after the new authority took effect, the Consumer Protection Division announced a Final Order against a community-association management company and two of its principals over late fees charged above what governing documents and Maryland law permit.²

The numbers are not small for this sector:

• $1.3 million in civil penalties
• $179,000 in costs
• Restitution of the overcharged late fees to Maryland owners
• Restoration of more than $25,000 withdrawn from an association's own bank account without authorisation
• An injunction against charging illegal late fees on delinquent assessments

The respondents challenged the order in the Circuit Court for Anne Arundel County and sought a stay pending appeal; the court declined to stay the injunctive and payment provisions. We found no 2026 update on the appeal, so treat its current posture as unresolved. The total restitution figure has not been published, and the docket number does not appear in the Division's release.

The statutory backdrop is worth knowing because it is the measure the order applied: Maryland's HOA Act permits a late charge of the greater of $15 or 10 percent of the delinquent installment, once per delinquency, and only after 15 calendar days.²

The second half: a new definition of “abusive”

Separately, and on its own track, the Consumer Protection Division adopted a brand-new COMAR chapter — 02.01.11 — effective 6 July 2026, defining what counts as an “abusive” practice under the Consumer Protection Act.³

Read the third limb with a community association in mind. An abusive practice includes one that takes unreasonable advantage of:

“(a) A lack of understanding on the part of the consumer of the material risks, costs, or conditions…; (b) The inability of the consumer to protect the interests of the consumer…; or (c) The reasonable reliance by the consumer on a person to act in the interests of the consumer.”³

“Reasonable reliance on a person to act in the interests of the consumer” is, functionally, a description of the relationship between a unit owner and a board or managing agent. The chapter was not written for associations — it implements Chapters 731 and 732 of 2018 and reaches all merchants — but after Chapter 512 the two instruments meet, and the overlap has not been tested.

There is a third piece of the same apparatus: the Division's consumer arbitration regulations, COMAR 02.01.06, were amended effective 27 April 2026. That programme covers disputes involving consumer goods, services, credit or realty, at no cost to either party, though punitive damages and attorney's fees may not be arbitrated.³ For an owner with a fee dispute too small to litigate, a free state forum is a material fact.

What has not happened

No regulations have been adopted under § 11-130(d) or § 11B-115(d). That is the live space, and it is worth being precise about why it matters: a regulation adopted under those subsections would bind every Maryland association without a bill, a floor vote, or a session. It would go through the ordinary Maryland Register proposal-and-comment process instead.

We also found no 2025 or 2026 Opinion of the Attorney General on condominiums, homeowners associations, cooperatives or community managers, and no pending opinion request on the subject.⁴

Why this reframes the 2026 session

The conventional reading of Maryland 2026 is that HOA reform failed. The more accurate reading is that a new institution failed while an existing institution was already equipped.

The two are not equivalent, and the differences cut in both directions. HB 402 would have created a complaint intake, hearing panels, a public document database, and a court-postponement mechanism — an accessible, association-specific forum. What Chapter 512 provides instead is prosecutorial: enforcement by a division with a litigating arm, on cases it chooses, plus rulemaking. An owner cannot file a complaint with the Consumer Protection Division and obtain a hearing-panel decision about their architectural denial. A management company charging unlawful late fees across dozens of communities, though, is now a straightforward target — as the December order demonstrates.

What to watch next

Three specific things.

A regulation under § 11B-115(d). Any proposal would appear in the Maryland Register with a comment period. Nothing has been published.

A second enforcement action. One order establishes capability; a pattern would establish policy. The late-fee theory in the December order — charges above the statutory formula, applied across many associations by a single manager — is replicable, and a 2023 private class action against a different management group advanced a comparable theory over a per-transaction convenience fee.

The appeal. The Circuit Court for Anne Arundel County declined a stay, but the merits of the challenge remain, and an adverse ruling on the Division's authority would matter more than anything the legislature did this year.