The only 2026 bill to touch Mississippi's condominium law rode in on a hair-discrimination bill
The only 2026 bill to touch Mississippi's condominium law rode in on a hair-discrimination bill
2026-09-15 · Mississippi · Legislation · Did not pass
Exactly one bill in Mississippi's 2026 regular session would have amended the Mississippi Condominium Law, and it was a CROWN Act. House Bill 44, filed by Representative Omeria Scott, was mostly a hair-discrimination measure — but its Section 5 reached into Miss. Code Ann. § 89-9-19, the provision governing restrictions and covenants on the sale or lease of condominium units. It died in committee on February 3, 2026.1
HB 44 did not become law. Section 89-9-19 reads today exactly as it did before the session.
What Section 89-9-19 says now
The existing statute provides that covenants restricting the sale or lease of condominium units “shall be valid, except discriminatory restrictions based on race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, handicap.” It is one of the few places in Mississippi law where the legislature has told condominium declarants what they may not write into a covenant.
HB 44 would have added four words to that list: “or natural hairstyle.”
What else the bill carried
The condominium amendment was Section 5 of a broader instrument. HB 44 also amended § 73-35-21 to make discriminatory practices grounds for revoking a real estate broker or salesperson licence, amended § 25-9-149 on state employment discrimination policy, and authorised counties and municipalities to adopt conforming anti-discrimination policies.
How it died, and what that says about the session
The action history is two entries. Referred to House Judiciary A and Business and Commerce on January 7; died in committee on February 3, the twenty-ninth day and the deadline for committees to report general bills originating in their own house. Double-referral to two committees is itself a structural disadvantage — a bill must clear both.
February 3, 2026 was a mass extinction for community-association legislation in Mississippi. Every HOA and COA bill filed that session died on that date or three weeks later at the appropriations deadline. Across the full session, 1,878 House measures and 1,235 Senate measures died in committee; 368 were approved by the Governor.2
Verified: no other 2026 bill reached the Condominium Law
This is a checkable negative rather than an impression. The Legislature's bill-status system publishes a code-section index in which a file exists only if some measure in that session referenced that section. Probing every section of Title 89, Chapter 9 — § 89-9-1 through § 89-9-45 — returns exactly one hit, § 89-9-19, pointing at HB 44. Every other section returns nothing.3
The same sweep across Title 89, Chapter 1 (§ 89-1-1 through § 89-1-99) returns zero hits, meaning no 2026 measure touched § 89-1-69, Mississippi's transfer-fee provision. Title 89, Chapter 19, the time-share chapter, likewise had no measures.
What this means for a condominium board
The restriction on discriminatory sale and lease covenants is statutory, and it is short. Race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age and handicap. That list has not changed, and it sits alongside — not instead of — federal fair housing law, which reaches association conduct independently of what § 89-9-19 says.
Mississippi's Condominium Law is largely static. An association reading its declaration against the statute is reading against a text the legislature has not revisited in either of the last two sessions. That stability is convenient, and it is also why so much of Mississippi condominium practice turns on the declaration rather than the code.
What to watch next
Representative Scott has filed CROWN Act measures across multiple sessions. Whether the § 89-9-19 amendment returns attached to the same vehicle is the thing to watch, because it is currently the only live proposal to change Mississippi's condominium statute at all — and its fate depends entirely on a bill whose subject has nothing to do with condominiums.
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