Massachusetts removed the registered-land shortcut from the condominium submission statute
Massachusetts removed the registered-land shortcut from the condominium submission statute
2026-09-10 · Massachusetts · Legislation
What happened. A one-sentence deletion in the Affordable Homes Act changed how a Massachusetts condominium is created on land that is part registered and part recorded. Section 46 of Chapter 150 of the Acts of 2024 struck M.G.L. c. 183A §16 and replaced it, effective 2 February 2025 under the act's section 143 delay.1
The new section, in full
“The owners of any land may submit the land under this chapter by the recording in the registry of deeds of a master deed or, if the title to the land is registered under chapter 185, by filing the master deed under said chapter 185.”
That is the whole of it.
What was deleted
The prior version carried a second sentence:
“If a portion of the land desired to be submitted to the provisions of this chapter is registered land under said chapter one hundred and eighty-five, such recording of a master deed of the whole shall be a sufficient ground for withdrawal of the registered land from the provisions of said chapter one hundred and eighty-five.”2
Recording a master deed over a mixed parcel is no longer, by itself, statutory grounds to deregister the registered portion.
Why it went
Not as a restriction. Section 46 travels with the same act's broader Chapter 185 reform, which allows voluntary withdrawal from registration for any reason, sets an expedited Land Court timeline for deregistration petitions, and removes the need for a court order to correct clerical errors on certificates of title.3
A general deregistration route replaced a condominium-specific shortcut. The shortcut became redundant, and it was removed.
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