Massachusetts HOA Governing Statute
1. Overview — How HOAs are governed in Massachusetts
Massachusetts operates a hybrid framework: comprehensive statutory coverage for condominiums under Mass. Gen. Laws Chapter 183A, enacted June 27, 1963 and among the earliest U.S. condominium statutes, paired with no comprehensive statute for non-condo planned communities.1 Chapter 183A, sections 1 through 24, sets the rules for creation, governance, finance, and dissolution of every condominium in the Commonwealth, and applies regardless of whether the project is residential, commercial, or mixed-use.
Non-condo homeowners associations operate under their recorded covenants, conditions, and restrictions and the Massachusetts Nonprofit Corporations Law at MGL Chapter 180, which makes Massachusetts functionally CC&R-primary for the planned community segment.
Trial-level disputes can land in Superior Court, District Court, Housing Court, or the Land Court, which holds exclusive original jurisdiction over registered-land matters and concurrent jurisdiction over equity claims involving title to real property, including recorded restrictive covenants; appeals run to the Massachusetts Appeals Court and, on further review, to the Supreme Judicial Court, which is the Commonwealth's highest court and one of the oldest appellate courts in the United States (the term “Supreme Court” is not used).
Massachusetts is not a Uniform Common Interest Ownership Act jurisdiction, and the Supreme Judicial Court has expressly noted that the Commonwealth has adopted neither the Uniform Condominium Act nor UCIOA. The result is a regulatory environment in which condo boards and managers work from a single, codified rulebook while planned community boards work primarily from private contract law, corporate law, and the common law of real property.
2. The statutory framework
The Massachusetts Condominium Act is codified at Mass. Gen. Laws Chapter 183A and was passed by the Legislature on June 27, 1963, predating the Uniform Condominium Act of 1980 and the later Uniform Common Interest Ownership Act. The statute is bespoke: it was drafted in the early years of the condominium form in the United States and reflects a New England conveyancing tradition built around the master deed, the unit deed, and the recorded declaration of trust or association by-laws. Practitioners and the Supreme Judicial Court describe it as an enabling statute, meaning that it sets a statutory floor and otherwise gives developers, declarants, and unit owners broad flexibility to structure governance and finances through recorded documents.
Scope is limited to condominiums. Under Section 2, a property becomes a condominium only by submission to the chapter through a recorded master deed, and under Section 3 each unit, together with its undivided interest in the common areas, is treated as an individual parcel of real estate that may be conveyed, mortgaged, devised, or encumbered. Section 1 defines the core vocabulary: condominium, unit, master deed, by-laws, common areas and facilities, common expenses, common funds, organization of unit owners, and, since the 2017 amendments, manager and replacement reserve fund.2 Section 8 governs the master deed; Section 9 governs unit deeds; Section 10 governs the corporation, trust, or unincorporated association that the unit owners use to manage the property;3 Sections 11 and 12 set mandatory and permissive by-law provisions; Section 13 confines claims involving the common areas and facilities to the organization of unit owners; and Section 14 treats each unit, with its share of common areas, as the taxable parcel.
Historically distinctive features include the unit deed mechanism, under which each unit is conveyed by a separately recorded deed that incorporates the master deed by reference, and the use of either a Massachusetts business trust, a nonprofit corporation, or an unincorporated association as the governing entity. Section 6 creates the lien for unpaid common expenses, and the Massachusetts “super-lien” gives the association priority over a first mortgage to the extent of six months of regular common expense assessments plus reasonable attorneys' fees and costs, provided the procedural notice requirements are satisfied. Section 6(d) creates the resale and refinance disclosure mechanism universally known in Massachusetts practice as the “6(d) certificate,” which must be furnished within ten business days of a written request and, when recorded, discharges the unit from any lien for other sums then unpaid.4
Key amendments include the 2000 governance and reserve provisions (St. 2000, c. 203), the 2017 amendments expanding records, reporting, and fidelity insurance requirements (St. 2017, c. 110), and two 2024 enactments that take effect in 2025: Sections 84 through 86 of Chapter 239 of the Acts of 2024 (the clean energy law signed November 20, 2024, effective February 18, 2025), which amended Sections 6 and 10 and added a new Section 10A on electric vehicle supply equipment, and Sections 46 and 47 of Chapter 150 of the Acts of 2024 (the Affordable Homes Act signed August 6, 2024), which added a new Section 24 on meeting procedures.
Massachusetts has no comprehensive planned community or common interest ownership statute. There is no Massachusetts equivalent to California's Davis-Stirling Act, Florida's Chapter 720, Virginia's Property Owners' Association Act, or the Uniform Planned Community Act adopted in Kentucky and Louisiana. For a single-family subdivision, townhome project, or master-planned community that is not submitted to Chapter 183A as a condominium, the recorded declaration of covenants, conditions, and restrictions is the primary governing document. Its enforceability turns on common law principles of equitable servitudes and real covenants, on Chapter 184, Section 27 (the thirty-year limit on most post-1961 restrictions absent a qualifying common scheme and proper extension),5 and on the recording acts.
Most Massachusetts planned community associations are incorporated as nonprofit corporations under MGL Chapter 180,6 which supplies the corporate framework: incorporators and articles of organization (Sections 3 through 4), corporate powers and indemnification (Section 6), by-laws (Section 6A), the fiduciary standard for directors and officers (Section 6C), member voting and meetings (Sections 6B and 17), and annual filings with the Secretary of the Commonwealth. The order of precedence for a Massachusetts non-condo HOA therefore runs: applicable state law of limited reach (Chapter 180 corporate formalities; Chapter 184 covenant rules; Chapter 254 lien procedures only if a covenant or contract supports a lien) > the recorded declaration of CC&Rs > the recorded or adopted by-laws > the rules and regulations adopted by the board. Common law contract and property doctrines fill the gaps that the CC&Rs do not address, and Massachusetts courts construe ambiguous restrictions on use of one's own property in favor of the property owner.
The operational implication is direct: a property manager or board for a non-condo planned community in Massachusetts cannot point to a statute that authorizes assessments, fines, board elections, records access, or hearing procedures. Every such authority must be traced to the recorded declaration, to the by-laws of the Chapter 180 corporation, or to ordinary contract law.
Massachusetts has a four-department trial court of general jurisdiction. The Superior Court Department hears civil actions over $50,000 and most condominium and HOA disputes that turn on money damages. The District Court Department and the Boston Municipal Court Department hear smaller civil cases, including small claims. The Housing Court Department hears residential landlord-tenant matters and certain condominium-related housing code claims. The Land Court Department, established in 1898 and unique among state trial courts in confining its subject-matter jurisdiction to real property, has exclusive original jurisdiction under MGL Chapter 185 over registration of title to real property and all matters concerning registered land titles, exclusive original jurisdiction over the foreclosure and redemption of real estate tax liens, and concurrent jurisdiction with the Superior Court and the Supreme Judicial Court over all cases in equity in which any right, title, or interest in land is involved, including actions for specific performance of real estate contracts.7
That concurrent equity jurisdiction is the channel through which a meaningful share of HOA disputes involving recorded restrictions, master deed interpretation, declarations of trust, or boundary and easement questions enter the Land Court. Permit-session zoning appeals, partition actions, and quiet title actions also routinely sit in the Land Court alongside the Superior Court.8 Choice of forum carries practical consequences, because Land Court judges hear real property cases exclusively and the Land Court has its own standing orders, including Standing Order 2-21 governing recorded racially restrictive covenants.
Appeals from any trial court department proceed to the Massachusetts Appeals Court, the intermediate appellate court, and from there, on further appellate review, to the Supreme Judicial Court. The Supreme Judicial Court traces its lineage to the colonial Superior Court of Judicature established in 1692 and is the highest court of the Commonwealth. Common law contract and property doctrine remain central in Massachusetts HOA jurisprudence: the Supreme Judicial Court has held in Drummer Boy Homes Ass'n v. Britton, 474 Mass. 17 (2016), that the Uniform Condominium Act and UCIOA may serve as a guide to reasonableness but cannot override existing Massachusetts statutory and decisional law.9
3. Compliance obligations created by the statutory framework
What an association owes its owners depends on whether the community is a condominium under Chapter 183A or a non-condo planned community running on its CC&Rs. Here is how governance, financial, disclosure, and dispute-resolution duties divide between the two.
Governance obligations
For condominiums, Chapter 183A puts management in the hands of the organization of unit owners — a corporation, trust, or unincorporated association. Section 10 lets that organization adopt by-laws, hold meetings, levy assessments, and hire managers. Section 11 spells out what the by-laws must cover: how the association pays for necessary work, how it collects common expenses, and how it elects trustees, directors, or officers. Section 12 lets the association add by-laws for restrictions, the use of common areas, and other rules, so long as they do not conflict with the chapter or the master deed. The 2024 Affordable Homes Act added Section 24, which lets the governing body hold its regular and special meetings by remote means. The basic structure is mandatory, but the master deed and by-laws can vary the operational detail.
The Supreme Judicial Court has also drawn a line that developers cannot cross. In Trustees of the Cambridge Point Condominium Trust v. Cambridge Point, LLC, the court struck down a by-law that required the consent of a supermajority of owners before the association could sue the developer, holding it void because it frustrated the purpose of Chapter 183A.10
For non-condo planned communities, governance obligations are not statutory in any HOA-specific sense. They are contractual, drawn from the recorded CC&Rs, and corporate, drawn from Chapter 180 — board composition, meeting notice, voting standards, the fiduciary duties of Section 6C, and recordkeeping.
Financial obligations
Section 6 of Chapter 183A allocates common expenses among the units by the percentage interest set in the master deed. It also creates the automatic lien for unpaid assessments and gives the association a six-month priority over a first mortgage, provided the association follows the required notice procedure. Section 6(a)(ii), as amended in 2024, addresses metered utility assessments. Section 7 makes the duty to pay common expenses non-waivable and bars any set-off or deduction; in Trustees of the Prince Condominium Trust v. Prosser, 412 Mass. 723 (1992), the Supreme Judicial Court held that an owner cannot simply refuse to pay assessments — the owner must pay under protest and then seek review in court.11
Section 10(i) requires every condominium to keep an “adequate replacement reserve fund” in an account separate from operating money. The statute stops there. It prescribes no percentage of the budget, no study cadence, and no funding target, which leaves Massachusetts well behind California, Florida, and Oregon on reserve specifics. California requires a reserve study with a physical site inspection every three years and an annual board review; Florida requires a Structural Integrity Reserve Study every ten years for condominiums and cooperatives of three or more stories, with no funding waiver allowed for structural items in budgets adopted on or after December 31, 2024; and Oregon requires the declarant to commission an initial reserve study and the association to review it each year.12 In practice, what drives reserve funding in Massachusetts is the secondary mortgage market, not the statute: Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac currently require associations to allocate at least 10 percent of annual budgeted assessment income to reserves, a figure that rises to 15 percent on January 4, 2027.13
These obligations are mandatory for condominiums, though the master deed or by-laws can modify them in the limited ways Section 10(m) allows. For non-condo planned communities, financial obligations exist only where the CC&Rs create the power to assess and a lien to enforce it. Massachusetts has no statutory lien for non-condo HOA assessments.
Disclosure obligations
Section 6(d) of Chapter 183A is the central condominium disclosure mechanism in Massachusetts. On written request, and for a reasonable fee, the organization of unit owners must produce — within ten business days — a statement of the unpaid common expenses and other sums charged against a unit. Once recorded, that statement discharges the unit from any lien for other sums then unpaid, and it binds the organization. In practice, every condominium resale and refinance in Massachusetts needs this “6(d) certificate.” Sections 10(c) and 10(d) require the organization to keep specified records — the master deed, by-laws, minutes, financials, and bank records — and to prepare an annual financial report within 120 days after the fiscal year ends, including a balance sheet, an income and expense statement, and a statement of the reserve fund. These obligations are mandatory for condominiums. For non-condo planned communities, there is no statutory resale certificate; whatever disclosure exists comes from the CC&Rs, the by-laws, and the Chapter 180 corporate annual report, along with members' inspection rights under Chapter 180, Section 18.
Dispute resolution obligations
Chapter 183A does not hand condominium associations a single, uniform process for resolving disputes. For fines and rule enforcement, due process comes from Section 10(b)(5), which allows “reasonable” fines, and from court decisions that require notice and an opportunity to be heard. Associations enforce liens under MGL Chapter 254, Sections 5 and 5A, by filing a civil action in the Superior Court or District Court and recording the priority statement in the registry of deeds or the Land Court registry district within thirty days.14 Disputes that turn on title to real estate, on the construction of recorded restrictions, or on the master deed itself can also be filed in or moved to the Land Court under Chapter 185. These rules are largely procedural and mandatory in form, but choosing between the Superior Court and the Land Court is a strategic decision about venue, not something the statute dictates for HOA disputes. For non-condo planned communities, the authority to resolve disputes has to come from the CC&Rs or the Chapter 180 by-laws; without those procedures, the parties default to civil litigation in the appropriate trial court department.
4. Massachusetts's recent legislative and judicial activity
Recent bills
Massachusetts spent 2024 folding new priorities into its condominium law — clean energy access and more flexible meetings — rather than rewriting the statute wholesale.
Ch. 239 · §§ 84–86 · Acts of 2024
Governor Maura Healey signed this law on November 20, 2024. It amended Section 6(a)(ii) and Section 10(b)(6) on the installation of energy-efficiency and greenhouse-gas-reduction devices, and it added a new Section 10A that gives unit owners a statutory right to install electric vehicle supply equipment in their dedicated parking spaces — subject to a board application, a sixty-day review, a licensed installer, the owner's own expense, and disclosure when the unit sells.[15][16]
| Property managers | Update your board application packages and tracking systems for EV-charging requests, and watch the sixty-day shot clock that turns inaction into automatic approval. |
| HOA board members | Adopt an EV installation policy — covering insurance, indemnification, metering, and removal — before requests arrive; energy-efficiency device approvals now run primarily through Section 10. |
| Community association attorneys | Review master deeds and trust amendments for conflicts with Section 10A's preemption language, and counsel boards on the resale-disclosure mechanics. |
| Homeowners | You can install EV supply equipment in a dedicated parking space at your own expense, subject to reasonable conditions; the association cannot prohibit it outright. |
Ch. 150 · §§ 46–47 · Acts of 2024
Governor Healey signed the Affordable Homes Act on August 6, 2024. It added a new Section 24 to Chapter 183A, which lets condominium associations hold both their regularly scheduled and their special meetings of the governing body by remote or hybrid means.[17]
| Property managers | Pandemic-era remote board meetings are now codified for condominiums; standardize your notice, technology-access, and recording protocols. |
| HOA board members | Confirm your meeting format conforms to Section 24, and amend by-laws that still restrict remote participation. |
| Community association attorneys | Audit existing by-laws for conflict with the new authorization and advise boards on hybrid-meeting record retention. |
| Homeowners | You may now have an expanded ability to attend board and association meetings remotely. |
Recent court rulings
Massachusetts appellate courts have spent the past two years drawing sharp lines — on who pays for disability modifications, and on how far a board can push a fine.
Geezil v. White Cliffs Condominium Four Association
The Appeals Court held that a condominium unit owners' association is not the “owner” of common areas for purposes of the cost-shifting provision in the Massachusetts antidiscrimination statute, MGL Chapter 151B, Section 4(7A), and so is not required to pay for reasonable disability-related modifications to common areas — here, a patio subject to an exclusive-use easement. The decision rejected the 2010 MCAD ruling in Kacavich and aligned Massachusetts law with the federal Fair Housing Act, which puts the cost of a modification on the owner who requests it.[18]
| Property managers | Process disability-modification requests on the basis that the requesting owner ordinarily bears the cost, and document the interactive process and reasonableness review. |
| HOA board members | Revisit prior policies that assumed association cost-shifting under the old MCAD framework, and adjust budgets and disclosures accordingly. |
| Community association attorneys | Cite Geezil for the limit on Chapter 151B cost-shifting, while recognizing the holding turns on ownership definitions that require fact-specific analysis. |
| Homeowners | A disabled owner generally pays for modifications to common areas they exclusively use, but the association still must permit reasonable modifications without discrimination or retaliation. |
Trustees of the 10 Porter Street Condominium Trust v. Cerda
In a summary decision under Appeals Court Rule 23.0, the court applied Section 10(b)(5)'s “reasonable” fine standard to both the imposition and the amount of a fine. It affirmed the trial court's decision to cut a $50-per-day fine to $10 per day for unauthorized common-area surveillance cameras, reinforcing the trial judge's discretion to police excessive fines. The ruling builds on the court's earlier 2021 holding that the “pay under protest” rule does not extend to fines and late fees.[19]
| Property managers | Document the rationale and proportionality of every fine, and preserve due-process records — notice, hearing opportunity, and prior warnings. |
| HOA board members | Calibrate fine schedules to the violation, not to a punitive maximum, and measure your policies against Section 10(b)(5)'s reasonableness floor. |
| Community association attorneys | Use Cerda as persuasive authority on a court's willingness to reduce unreasonable fines and on the limits of the pay-under-protest doctrine. |
| Homeowners | You may challenge an unreasonable fine amount, but assessments and special assessments still must be paid first and challenged after. |
Active legislative debates
Two bills now moving through the Legislature would hand condominium owners new statutory rights and a place to take their complaints.
S. 980 · Condominium Owners' Rights Act
Senate Bill 980, the Condominium Owners' Rights Act, would build a statutory framework for unit-owner rights, transparency, and dispute resolution directly into Chapter 183A. The Joint Committee on Housing reported it favorably in October 2025. It had not passed as of May 25, 2026.[20]
| Property managers | Prepare for new transparency and records-access requirements, and tighten your meeting and disclosure recordkeeping now. |
| HOA board members | Expect codified owner rights that may override informal board practices; review your governing documents ahead of any vote. |
| Community association attorneys | Track the dispute-resolution provisions and advise boards on how a statutory rights framework would interact with existing by-laws. |
| Homeowners | You would gain statutory rights to transparency and a clearer path to resolve disputes within Chapter 183A. |
H. 1523 · Condominium Ombudsman
House Bill 1523 would establish a state-level condominium ombudsman office — a place for owners and associations to bring disputes outside the courtroom. It had not passed as of May 25, 2026.[21]
| Property managers | A state ombudsman could become a new venue for owner complaints; document how you respond to owner inquiries. |
| HOA board members | Be ready to respond to inquiries or referrals from a state ombudsman office. |
| Community association attorneys | Watch for the office's authority and procedures, and advise on how ombudsman involvement would fit existing dispute paths. |
| Homeowners | You would gain a state office to turn to with complaints, outside of filing a lawsuit. |
5. National positioning and related coverage
Massachusetts belongs to a small group of states that cover condominiums comprehensively but leave planned communities to their CC&Rs — a group that includes Hawaii and other jurisdictions that have declined to adopt UCIOA or a Uniform Planned Community Act analogue. Only nine states have adopted UCIOA in either its 1982 or 2008 form, and only Kentucky and Louisiana have adopted the Uniform Planned Community Act, according to the Community Associations Institute. Chapter 183A is one of the country's earliest condominium statutes: it dates to 1963 and predates both the 1980 Uniform Condominium Act and UCIOA. The Supreme Judicial Court, which traces its line to the Superior Court of Judicature established in 1692, ranks among the oldest appellate courts in the nation — and it has expressly declined to import UCIOA features into the Commonwealth's condominium law. The Land Court adds another distinctive feature: its exclusive jurisdiction over registered-land titles and its concurrent jurisdiction over recorded restrictions make Massachusetts one of the few states where a specialized real property bench routinely decides master deed and CC&R disputes. For operators who work across state lines, the takeaway is straightforward — a Massachusetts condominium portfolio runs on a codified, well-developed statute, while a Massachusetts non-condo HOA portfolio demands a document-by-document look at the recorded CC&Rs and the Chapter 180 corporate posture.
6. Closing note
HOA Weekly's Massachusetts Governing Statute coverage updates quarterly. We track new laws that amend Chapter 183A, new decisions from the Appeals Court and the Supreme Judicial Court, and shifts in Land Court practice. Federal frameworks apply alongside the Massachusetts rules — among them the Fair Housing Act, the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act, the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, and the IRS rules for associations — and we address those in HOA Weekly's federal coverage.
Footnotes
- Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 183A (Massachusetts Condominium Act) ↩
- Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 183A, § 1 (definitions) ↩
- Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 183A, § 10 (organization of unit owners; replacement reserve fund, § 10(i)) ↩
- Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 183A, § 6 (common expenses, lien, and 6(d) certificate) ↩
- Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 184, § 27 (limitation on restrictions) ↩
- Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 180 (corporations for charitable and certain other purposes) ↩
- Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 185, § 1 (Land Court jurisdiction) ↩
- Massachusetts Land Court, Jurisdiction of the Land Court ↩
- Drummer Boy Homes Ass'n v. Britton, 474 Mass. 17 (2016) ↩
- Trs. of the Cambridge Point Condo. Tr. v. Cambridge Point, LLC, 478 Mass. 697 (2018) ↩
- Trs. of the Prince Condo. Tr. v. Prosser, 412 Mass. 723 (1992) ↩
- Cmty. Ass'ns Inst., Summary of State Reserve Fund Laws (Oct. 2023); see Cal. Civ. Code § 5550; Fla. Stat. § 718.112(2)(g); Or. Rev. Stat. § 94.595 ↩
- Cmty. Ass'ns Inst. Advocacy Blog, Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac Reserve Requirements (Lender Letter LL-2026-03, Mar. 18, 2026) ↩
- Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 254 (mechanics' and condominium liens) ↩
- An Act Promoting a Clean Energy Grid, Advancing Equity and Protecting Ratepayers, 2024 Mass. Acts ch. 239 ↩
- Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 183A, § 10A (electric vehicle supply equipment), added by 2024 Mass. Acts ch. 239, § 86 ↩
- Affordable Homes Act, 2024 Mass. Acts ch. 150 ↩
- Geezil v. White Cliffs Condo. Four Ass'n, 105 Mass. App. Ct. 103 (2024) ↩
- Trs. of the 10 Porter St. Condo. Tr. v. Cerda, No. 22-P-605 (Mass. App. Ct. May 16, 2023) (Rule 23.0 summary decision) ↩
- S. 980, 194th Gen. Court (Mass. 2025) (Condominium Owners' Rights Act) ↩
- H. 1523, 194th Gen. Court (Mass. 2025) (condominium ombudsman) ↩