2026-09-12 · Missouri · Legislation

What happened. Missouri enacted the Uniform Mortgage Modification Act, effective 28 August 2026. It lets a mortgage lender modify a loan — extend the term, change the rate, add advances — and keep its recorded priority without recording the modification at all. And it contains a definitional carve-out that puts community-association assessment liens outside those protections, in so many words.¹

The Act passed twice, in identical form, in two bills: Senate Bill 834 (Senator Sandy Crawford) and House Bill 2636. Both were signed on 9 July 2026 and both took effect on 28 August 2026. The Act is codified at sections 443.920 to 443.925, RSMo.

The carve-out, verbatim

Section 443.921(4) defines “mortgage”:

“(4) 'Mortgage':

(a) An agreement that creates a consensual interest in real property to secure payment or performance of an obligation, regardless of: a. How the agreement is denominated, including a mortgage, deed of trust, trust deed, security deed, indenture, and deed to secure debt; and b. Whether the agreement also creates a security interest in personal property; and

(b) Does not include an agreement that creates a consensual interest to secure a liability owed by a unit owner to a condominium association, owners' association, or cooperative housing association for association dues, fees, or assessments;”

A small fact with an outsized meaning

That subparagraph is, so far as we can establish, the only place in two full sessions of Missouri enactments where the words “condominium association” or “owners' association” appear in operative statutory text. Across the 2025 and 2026 regular sessions, 128 non-appropriation bills were truly agreed and finally passed. Community associations appear in one definitional exclusion.

It is not a grant of anything. It is a sentence saying the new protections do not apply to you.

What the Act does for a mortgage

“443.920. Sections 443.920 to 443.925 shall be known and may be cited as the 'Uniform Mortgage Modification Act'.”

For any “mortgage modification,” per sections 443.922 to 443.923 and the official bill summaries: the mortgage continues to secure the obligation as modified; the priority of the mortgage is not affected by the modification; the mortgage retains its priority regardless of whether a record of the mortgage modification is recorded in the public land records; and the modification is not considered a novation.

The two consequences for an association

First, and narrowly: if a board and a delinquent owner rework a payment plan that alters a recorded assessment lien, the association cannot rely on sections 443.922 to 443.923 to say the lien keeps its original priority without re-recording. Its priority still turns on the declaration and on ordinary Missouri recording law. Whatever the recording practice was before 28 August 2026, it is unchanged.

Second, and much more practically: a first mortgagee in a Missouri association can now modify its loan and keep its recorded priority without recording anything. Which means the senior lien's actual dollar amount may no longer be readable off the land records.

1. SS SB 834 (2026), truly agreed and finally passed text — §§ 443.920–443.925, RSMo (Uniform Mortgage Modification Act) ↩
2. SS HB 2636 (2026), truly agreed text — the identical Uniform Mortgage Modification Act provisions ↩
3. Missouri Senate, Governor's Action on Truly Agreed Bills, 2026 Regular Session (both bills signed July 9, 2026) ↩