The two rights Montana owners still do not have

Most of SB 400's list describes things most declarations already provide in some form. Two items on it do not exist in most Montana documents, and their absence is where owner conflict concentrates:

1. No statutory right to vote on a dues increase. Montana caps nothing and requires no vote. A board with budget authority under its declaration can raise assessments as far as the documents permit. The companion bill that would have capped increases at 15 percent — House Bill 232 — also died.

2. No statutory right to vote before the association sues. This is the sharper one. An association can commit to litigation funded by assessments the objecting owners pay, without their consent, where the documents allow it. Given what Montana covenant litigation costs — the fee awards in reported 2025 and 2026 cases run from six figures upward — that is a live exposure for every member, not a theoretical one.

Both remain purely matters of the declaration and bylaws. Where the documents grant discretion, boards keep it; where they are silent, owners have no floor to fall back on.

What the bill's structure tells a board to check

SB 400's design was a minimum, not a ceiling — associations could demand more consent and give more notice, never less. That framing points at the diligence question worth answering now, whatever happens in 2027:

• Does the declaration say who may run for the board, and does it condition candidacy on being current in assessments? “Good standing” appears in SB 400 and in many Montana documents, usually undefined.
• Does anything in the documents require owner approval before litigation? If not, that is a decision the board is making alone, and one the minutes record as such.
• Is there a procedure for amending the declaration at all? SB 400 devoted a whole mechanism to documents that require unanimity or supply no procedure — because plenty of Montana declarations are in exactly that position. An association in that category cannot amend anything, which is its own problem regardless of statute.
• Are vote results shared with members? Two of SB 400's seven rights were about viewing the results. That an owner-protection bill needed to say so twice is informative.

Where this subject goes next

All of it is on the table in the interim. The committee draft of a Uniform Common Interest Ownership Act in front of the Local Government Interim Committee covers association organisation, powers and duties, meeting and voting procedure, and record creation and retention. The draft also contains provisions SB 400 did not — among them a right for owners to peacefully assemble on the common elements, subject to time, place and manner rules.

The committee takes executive action on that draft on September 17, 2026. Until something passes, a Montana owner's governance rights are whatever their documents give them, and a Montana board's discretion is whatever its documents do not take away.²