Maryland nearly required every HOA over 100 lots to run a document portal. The bill never got a vote
Maryland nearly required every HOA over 100 lots to run a document portal. The bill never got a vote
2026-09-12 · Maryland · Legislation · Did not pass
What happened. A transparency package for Maryland's larger homeowners associations — mandatory online document portals, electronic meeting notice, and a new power to borrow against reserve obligations — failed in both chambers without a committee vote.
SB 919 got a first reading in Senate Judicial Proceedings on 6 February 2026 and a hearing on 11 March; that is the last recorded action. Its cross-file HB 1600 was first-read in House Rules and Executive Nominations on 16 February and was never referred to a standing committee at all — no hearing, no fiscal note. Both died at sine die on 13 April 2026.12
What it would have required
From the fiscal note and the bills' synopses:3
The portal, for associations of at least 100 lots. Specified documents would have had to be posted on the association's website, portal or app within 30 days of creation or receipt. An association without one would have had to develop one, on a statutory compliance timeline. The documents: the declaration and all amendments; the bylaws and all amendments; the articles of incorporation or other formation documents and each amendment; the association's policies, rules and regulations; and the approved minutes of all open board meetings.
Borrowing for reserves. The governing body could have secured a line of credit to fund statutorily required reserves, on a vote of at least 51 percent of lot owners in good standing.
Electronic notice. Meeting notice or information could have been delivered by electronic transmission where conditions were met — the House synopsis specifying 14 days before the meeting.
Recordings as records. Recordings of meetings held by telephone, video conference or similar means would have been kept as an official record of the association.
The Department of Legislative Services found no state or local fiscal effect and no small-business effect.
The borrowing provision is the one that mattered
The portal requirement is what the bill was named for. The credit line is what would have changed Maryland association finance.
Since 1 October 2025, Maryland associations must fund reserves to the level their reserve study recommends and deposit the contribution by the end of each fiscal year. For an association whose study identifies a large near-term component — a roof, a private road, a pipe run — that is a cash-flow problem with two conventional answers: raise assessments sharply, or levy a special assessment.
A line of credit is the third answer, and it spreads the cost over time rather than over a single budget year. The 2025 act already gives boards authority to raise assessments to meet reserve funding notwithstanding any cap in the governing documents, and permits reserves to be used outside the funding plan if repaid within five years. What it does not clearly provide is authority to borrow.
SB 919 would have clarified it, at a 51 percent owner threshold — deliberately low. Compare the other reserve-related votes floating around the 2026 session: a two-thirds vote for the existing financial-hardship deviation, a two-thirds vote in the failed emergency-spending bill, an 80 percent vote in the failed opt-out bill. A simple majority to borrow is the least demanding threshold anyone proposed all year.
It is also the provision most likely to attract the objection that it lets a bare majority put the community into debt.
The 100-lot line, and why it is the right shape
Most Maryland transparency proposals apply to everyone, and that is what makes them expensive: requiring a twelve-home association with no website and no manager to build a document portal is a real burden for no real benefit, because in a community that size the documents are a phone call away.
Drawing the line at 100 lots targets the associations that actually have professional management, a budget for software, and enough owners that informal access breaks down. It is the same instinct behind the small-association exemption CAI unsuccessfully sought for the 2025 election law, and behind the failed reserve bill's carve-out for HOAs of 50 or fewer homes.
No fiscal note was published for HB 1600 and the Senate note found no small-business effect, so nobody costed the portal-building requirement for the associations that would have had to build one.
Died in Rules, which is a process failure not a policy one
HB 1600's fate is worth separating out. It was first-read in House Rules and Executive Nominations and stayed there.
Maryland routes bills introduced after a chamber's introduction deadline to Rules, and most die there without a hearing. That is what happened to SB 955, the election-law cleanup, and to SB 981, the oversight cross-file. A bill in Rules has a timing problem before it has a substantive one, and the remedy is pre-filing rather than redrafting.
Both SB 919 and HB 1600 were first filings — no prior-session version exists under this title.1
What Maryland law requires instead
No online posting. The obligation is to make books and records available on request, and under Maryland's HOA Act that must happen within 15 days of the request. Chapter 512 of 2025 strengthened the position on cost by barring any fee for in-person examination or electronic transmission of financial statements, while leaving copying and delivery charges for other records permissible.
Two counties went further on their own. Prince George's County's rules, effective 17 March 2026, require an owners-only online portal holding the declaration, bylaws, formation documents, rules and resolutions plus executed vendor contracts, with contracts emailed annually on 1 January and new contracts circulated within 30 days — backed by fines of up to $5,000 and a copying cap of ten cents a page. That is SB 919's portal requirement, imposed by county resolution on every association in the county regardless of size.4
Which is the pattern of the whole session: what the General Assembly declined to require statewide, Prince George's County required locally.
What to watch next
Whether the credit-line provision gets separated out. It is one sentence, it has no fiscal cost, and it answers a problem every Maryland board with a large reserve obligation now has. Bundled with a portal mandate it carries the portal's opposition; standing alone it is a technical fix of exactly the kind Maryland has passed before — the 2025 act itself extended the reserve attainment window from three years to five.
Pre-filing is the test. Drafting requests are due 20 November 2026; a bill pre-filed in the Senate avoids the Rules routing that killed the House version outright.
Related Maryland HOA Topics
- Senate Bill 919 (2026), Homeowners Associations – Reserve Funding, Meeting Notices, Voting, and Records — first reading in Senate Judicial Proceedings 6 February 2026, hearing 11 March, no committee report, died at sine die ↩
- House Bill 1600 (2026) — the cross-file; first reading in House Rules and Executive Nominations 16 February 2026, never referred to a standing committee, no hearing, no fiscal note ↩
- Department of Legislative Services fiscal and policy note, SB 919 (2026) — the 100-lot threshold, the 30-day posting requirement, the enumerated documents, the 51 percent vote for a reserve line of credit, and the electronic-notice provision ↩
- Prince George's County Council Resolution CR-005-2026 — Common Ownership Communities Program rules and regulations, adopted and effective 17 March 2026: owners-only portal, annual contract circulation, ten-cents-per-page copying cap, and fines up to $5,000 ↩
Stay on top of Maryland HOA law
Every week: new Maryland legislation, court rulings, and regulatory developments affecting condos, planned communities, and property managers. Free.
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.