What this means for an association with a defect

The § 70-19-427 notice-of-claim process is a mandatory-process and damages-limiting overlay, not a claim to plead. Relief has to rest on contract, warranty or negligence theories — and those are the theories an association's counsel will be building, whatever the engineer's report calls the problem.

That is a pleading point rather than a practical barrier. The practical barrier is the clock, and it moved.

The repose period is now six years, and it is substantive immunity

Senate Bill 143, Chapter 174 of the 2025 Laws, effective October 1, 2025, cut § 27-2-208's construction statute of repose from ten years to six, with one extra year where the injury occurs during the sixth year. “Completion” means the degree of completion at which the owner can use the improvement, or when a completion certificate is executed, whichever is earlier.³

And in Atkinson v. City of Livingston, 2026 MT 21, decided February 10, 2026, the Court described repose as

“a substantive grant of immunity that extinguishes liability once the repose period expires”

citing, among other authority, Association of Unit Owners of Deer Lodge Condominium v. Big Sky of Montana, Inc., 245 Mont. 64, 798 P.2d 1018 (1990) — which confirms the rule applies squarely in the condominium-association context.²

Atkinson also closed the re-pleading route. The court looks to “the gravamen of the claim rather than the label attached”: “Claims styled as negligence and negligent misrepresentation do not avoid the repose when they arise out of construction-related governmental functions.” Combine that with Grosvold and the position is coherent — there is no separate defect claim to plead, and relabelling the claims you do have will not extend the period.

The facts of Atkinson, because they are the association's nightmare

Livingston approved the Ridgeview Trails Major Subdivision in 2005 and 2006. A March 2006 geotechnical report prepared for the developer identified expansive and collapsible soils. It was not prepared for the city, not incorporated into the approval conditions, and never given to the homeowners. Building permit November 16, 2012; Statement of Substantial Completion June 21, 2013; suit filed April 2024 — well beyond the period.

A defect that was known to someone in 2006, invisible to the owners, and time-barred before they could act on it. That is the fact pattern the repose period produces, and shortening it to six years makes it more likely rather than less.

What a board can actually do about a clock that runs from completion

• Establish the completion date now — certificate or first beneficial use, whichever is earlier — for every building the association is responsible for. It is a records task, not a legal one, and it is much harder after the developer is gone.
• Move the transition or building-envelope review earlier. A reserve study prices what needs replacing; a transition review establishes whether anyone else is liable for it. Only the second one has a deadline.
• Ask for the geotechnical and design file at turnover, and notice if it does not arrive. In Atkinson the decisive document existed from the start and nobody who needed it had seen it.
• Do not sit on a known defect. Six years from completion, not from discovery — and a board's decision to watch a problem for another budget cycle is a decision with a statutory cost.

One genuinely open question: whether the shortened repose reaches claims that accrued before October 1, 2025 is not resolved by the statute's text. SB 143's applicability section speaks to actions on a written instrument — and § 27-2-208(1) expressly excludes actions on a written instrument from its own scope. We found no Montana decision construing the interaction. That is a reason to establish your dates rather than to assume which version applies.