The deadlines in the bill have already expired

This is the clearest evidence of how far behind its own schedule the bill has fallen. Sections 9 and 10 set compliance dates:

• Managers licensed by 30 June 2027
• Board members appointed before 1 July 2026 to satisfy the education requirement by 30 June 2027

The second date has passed. The first is unreachable: no commission exists, no curriculum exists, no exam exists, and no licensing infrastructure exists. Any refile would need those dates rewritten.

Why this bill exists now

The timing is not coincidental. In June 2026 the trustees of a South End condominium sued their former property manager, alleging that more than $805,000 in insurance proceeds had been moved out of association accounts through 64 separate unauthorised wire transfers into four previously undisclosed bank accounts.²

The management firm has since made an assignment for the benefit of creditors, and it managed an estimated 200 Massachusetts condominium associations.

Massachusetts does not license community association managers. There is no bond requirement, no minimum insurance, no trust-account rule, and no regulator to complain to. Whatever one thinks of H.5516's particular design, that is the gap it is addressing.

Who is opposed, and why

The Community Associations Institute's Massachusetts Legislative Action Committee opposes the bill. The industry objections to licensing schemes of this shape are consistent across states and worth stating fairly:

• A $250,000 E&O floor and a $300 licence fee are absorbed easily by a large management company and less easily by a one-person manager serving small self-managed buildings — which describes much of the Massachusetts market.
• Board member training with a suspension penalty is the more contentious half. Massachusetts condominium trustees are unpaid volunteers, frequently hard to recruit, and a rule that suspends a trustee for missing an hour of continuing education can leave a small board without a quorum.
• A five-member commission inside the Governor's office is a new agency, and Ways and Means treats new agencies as budget items.

Against that: an E&O policy is not a fidelity bond and would not have prevented the wire transfers described above. A licensing regime aimed at competence does not, by itself, address custody of association funds — which is the failure that produced the current attention.

What a board can do without waiting for legislation

All of this is available today, and none of it requires a statute:

• Require a fidelity bond or crime policy naming the association, in an amount covering the maximum funds the manager can access — including insurance proceeds after a loss. Lender project standards already require fidelity coverage; check the amount against the actual exposure, not the minimum.
• Keep association funds in accounts in the association's name, with the association as the customer of record and at least one trustee holding independent view access.
• Require dual authorisation above a threshold for outbound transfers, and never delegate the threshold to the manager.
• Reconcile against the bank, not against the management report. The South End case turned on a management report showing roughly $800,000 available when the actual balance was about $25,000. That gap is visible to anyone who opens the bank statement.
• Verify credentials. PCAM, CMCA and AMS designations are real and checkable, and in a state with no licensing they are the only credential there is.

What to watch next

Written testimony filed today will show who is lining up for and against manager licensing in the wake of the management failure — and that record is the raw material for a 2027 refile. The 195th General Court convenes in January 2027.

The more interesting question is whether the next version targets custody of funds rather than competence. A bond and trust-account statute is a narrower ask than a licensing commission, addresses the failure that is actually in the news, and would face different opposition.