Why an uncontested election is the awkward case

Consider a 40-unit condominium with three seats up and three candidates, which is the ordinary state of affairs in most Maryland associations most years. Nobody is running against anybody. There is nothing to certify beyond the fact that three people were willing to serve.

Under Chapter 512 as written, that election still requires an independent party to collect and count the ballots and certify the result. The managing agent cannot do it. A candidate cannot do it. So the board must find a non-candidate owner willing to take it on — who then has to avoid electioneering and remain unobjected-to by a quarter of the membership — or engage counsel or an election vendor, at cost, to administer a race with no contest in it.

That is the friction the cleanup bill was aimed at, and it is not a hypothetical objection: it is the reason the law's own Senate sponsor filed the amendment.

What else CAI wanted, and did not get

The bills as filed carried only the contested-election limit. The community-association industry's list was longer. CAI's Maryland Legislative Action Committee supported HB 955 and SB 955 and reports that it also sought:⁵

• a clearer statutory definition of “independent party”;
• an exemption for small associations;
• and repairs to the proxy-holder provisions.

None of it was enacted, because no version of the bill moved at all.

The committee's end-of-session report is unusually direct about what happens next, and it names names: “We encourage you to continue to communicate with the sponsors, Delegate Holmes and Senator Kagan, to let them know that amendments are still needed to correct the unintended consequences of the 2025 law.”⁵

Of the twenty-odd Maryland community-association bills that died this session, this is the only one an organised interest has publicly queued for a refile.

Two committees, two different ways of not acting

The bills died for different procedural reasons, and the distinction predicts their prospects.

HB 955 went to House Economic Matters, the standing committee for this subject, which noticed a hearing and then reported nothing. Economic Matters was busy: it also killed the owners' bill of rights, manager licensing, reserve-study exemptions, the common-area alteration vote and the online-resale-disclosure bill this session, while reporting out the oversight division, the recording mandate, the fee cap and statewide board training.

SB 955 went to Senate Rules, which is where Maryland routes bills introduced after the chamber's introduction deadline. Most die there without a hearing, and this one did — the same fate as SB 981, the oversight cross-file, first-read in Rules a week later. A bill in Rules has a process problem before it has a policy problem, and filing earlier is the fix.

What an association has to live with meanwhile

Chapter 512 is in force and has been through one full election cycle. Its other provisions are unchanged too, and they travel with the election rule:

• No fee may be charged for in-person examination or electronic transmission of financial statements. Copying and delivery charges for other records remain permissible.
• Condominiums must provide reasonable common-area access for owner organising and campaigning, and boards may not retaliate against owners exercising governance rights. Conflicting governing-document provisions are unenforceable.
• Full-membership condominiums — where all owners constitute the governing body — are exempt from the independent-party requirement. That is the only exemption in the statute, and it is not the small-association exemption CAI asked for.

One citation caution. Some 2025 roundups present the law as “HB 1534/SB 758.” HB 1534 did not pass — it stalled after second reading with amendments in April 2025. Chapter 512 came through the Senate bill alone.⁶

What to watch next

The pre-file window. Drafting requests are due 20 November 2026 and pre-file approval 10 December 2026, and the 2027 session convenes 13 January 2027. A pre-filed Senate bill avoids the Rules routing that killed SB 955; that single procedural choice is the most reliable signal of whether the fix is being pursued seriously.

Both named sponsors must also return. The 2027 session is the first of a new four-year term following the 3 November general election.