What happens next: the Massachusetts condo refile queue, and the dates that are actually published
What happens next: the Massachusetts condo refile queue, and the dates that are actually published
2026-09-10 · Massachusetts · Legislation · Pending — not yet law
Pending. Massachusetts passed no condominium-specific legislation in the 194th General Court. Every governance bill filed died, was sent to study, or stalled in Ways and Means. Here is what is actually scheduled, and what is only inferred.
The dates that are published
- 4 November 2026, 5:00 PM — agency filings due for consideration in the 195th General Court. This is the deadline for executive agencies, not for legislators or citizen petitions.1
- 5 January 2027 — last day of the 194th General Court. Anything not enacted by then must be refiled from scratch.
The dates that are NOT published
- The 195th General Court's convening date. The constitutional first-Wednesday-of-January rule would put it at 6 January 2027, consistent with the 194th ending on the 5th. That is inferred, not confirmed.
- The member and citizen petition filing deadline. The comparable 194th deadline was 17 January 2025, so mid-January 2027 is the historical pattern. Do not treat any 2027 date as fact until the Clerks post it.
What can still move before January
Under joint rules adopted in June 2025, bills sent to a conference committee formed on or before 31 July 2026 can still be finished in formal sessions through 5 January 2027. Everything else moves only by unanimous consent in informal session, where one objection stops a bill.
No condominium bill reached conference. The economic development bill did, and remains genuinely alive.
Two condominium-adjacent bills are technically still in play in informal session: H.2644 on sprinkler standards for rehabilitated buildings, engrossed in the House on 23 July 2026 and needing only Senate action, and H.5314 on court-ordered conversion of co-owned two-unit buildings, reported favorably in August 2026.
The refile queue
Every one of these can be refiled in the 195th. None has a published sponsor commitment to do so — frame any expectation as inference from filing history, not as announced intent.
| Bill | Subject | How it died |
|---|---|---|
| S.980 / H.4826 | Condominium owners' rights — records clock, reserve mandate, ombudsman, open meetings | Ways and Means; Judiciary hearing, no report |
| H.1523 | Condominium ombudsman, funded by a $50 sale fee | Reported favorably, died in House Ways and Means |
| H.1538 | Special commission to study condominium law | Reported favorably, died in House Ways and Means — third consecutive session |
| H.1522 | Electronic meetings and voting | Study order H.5352, 13 April 2026 |
| H.1539 | Condominium elections — proxy ban, no quorum | Study order H.5352 |
| H.1555 | United States flag display | Study order H.5352 |
| H.3496 | Solar energy access | Study order H.5323, 6 April 2026 |
| H.2586 | Sprinklers in pre-1975 high rises | Study order H.5254, 19 March 2026 |
| H.1534 | Emotional support animal commission | Reported favorably, stuck in House Rules |
| S.1254 / H.4371 | Service animal misrepresentation commission | Ways and Means and House Rules |
| S.985 | 40B condominium unit reimbursement | Study order S.2765, 4 December 2025 |
| H.5516 | Manager licensing and condominium commission | Hearing 10 September 2026, written testimony only |
The Community Associations Institute reports tracking nearly 200 Massachusetts bills this session.
What the pattern tells you
Three of the most substantial bills — the ombudsman, the study commission and the owners' rights package — were reported favorably by their policy committees and then died in Ways and Means. That is a different failure from a study order, and it points somewhere specific: in Massachusetts, condominium governance reform does not fail on the merits in committee. It fails at the money stage, or for want of a leadership priority.
A sponsor drawing the obvious conclusion would file narrower, cheaper bills next time. A records-access deadline costs the Commonwealth nothing. An ombudsman office with a new dedicated fee is a budget item.
What did NOT get filed, which is also a story
Verified absences from the 194th General Court:
- No bill on the condominium super-lien. The six-month priority in c. 183A §6 was last touched by St. 2024 c. 239, and no one moved to expand, shorten or clarify it.
- No standalone reserve study or structural inspection bill. The only reserve mandate travelled inside S.980 and H.4826.
- No bill on master policy deductible allocation, the question Fannie Mae's $50,000 per-unit cap has now made a financing issue.
- No bill on association fines, collections or foreclosure procedure.
- No bill on ADUs versus restrictive covenants — the gap left by a 2024 ADU law that reaches municipal zoning and not private documents.
- No UCIOA adoption bill and no standalone omnibus rewrite of c. 183A.
What is driving Massachusetts condominium law instead
With the Legislature producing nothing condominium-specific, the rules that actually changed for Massachusetts associations came from four other places: the Affordable Homes Act of 2024 (electronic meetings at c. 183A §24, the conversion expansion, ADUs, the §16 rewrite); the 2024 climate act (the EV right to charge, and solar routed to the §18 supermajority); Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (reserves, Limited Review, deductibles); and the courts.
A board reading only bills labelled “condominium” would conclude that nothing happened this year. Rather a lot did.
What to watch next
The Clerks' offices posting the 195th General Court's convening date and filing deadline — expected in the coming weeks — and whether the reform bills return whole or broken into pieces. On the evidence of three sessions, the eight-section package is not the version that passes.
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