Nebraska's HOA lien overhaul died on General File without a debate
Nebraska's HOA lien overhaul died on General File without a debate
2026-09-12 · Nebraska · Legislation · Did not pass
The most consequential Nebraska HOA bill in years cleared its committee unanimously, drew no opposition of any kind, and then died without ever being called for debate. LB 1251 was indefinitely postponed on April 17, 2026, along with every other bill left undisposed when the Legislature adjourned sine die.1
What it would have done
The bill amended the two association lien statutes in parallel: Neb. Rev. Stat. § 52-2001, which is the only general homeowners association statute Nebraska has, and § 76-874, the unit owners association lien section of the Nebraska Condominium Act.2
The central change was time. Both statutes currently extinguish a lien for unpaid assessments unless enforcement proceedings begin “within three years after the full amount of the assessments becomes due.”3 LB 1251 would have made that five years, and added a renewal: “a lien for unpaid assessments may be continued for up to five years by the homeowners' association filing a continuation statement in the office where mortgages or deeds of trust are recorded.”2 Five years, renewable once, is ten.
It also widened what the lien secures. The current text covers “fees, charges, late charges, and interest charged.” The bill would have read “fees, expenses, charges, attorney's fees, court costs, late charges, and interest charged.”2
Who asked for it
Senator Robert Dover of District 19 introduced it on January 21, 2026 at the request of the Nebraska State Bar Association's Real Estate, Probate and Trust Practice Section. His framing at the hearing was the economics of small debts: “assessments for HOAs are typically relevantly small amounts, often in the $100 to $200 per, per year range. This means that when they go unpaid, the effort and cost of foreclosing such small amounts makes it difficult to justify collection, leaving the burden of unpaid amounts to fall on the paying homeowners.”4
The fee provision, and the word that was being struck
The second half of the bill rewrote what a court must award. The proposed text: “A judgment or decree in any action brought under this section must include costs, to include late fees and interest, and reasonable attorney's fees for the prevailing party. When awarding such costs and attorney's fees, the court shall only consider the time and labor required and the costs and attorney's fees actually incurred by the prevailing party. The prevailing party's costs and attorney's fees are recoverable upon a voluntary payment to the prevailing party after the action is filed but before judgment, or upon a judgment in favor of the prevailing party.”2
That last sentence is the one that matters to an owner. It makes the association's fees recoverable when the owner pays up after suit is filed — the ordinary way these disputes end.
There was also a fight about the word “reasonable.” Senator Hallstrom put it to the Bar Association's lobbyist at the February 17 hearing: “You're, you're striking reasonable attorney's fees, so are we suggesting that the new standard can allow for unreasonable attorney fees?” Tim Hruza's answer was that “you would not be surprised to learn that lawyers debated whether that strike was an appropriate thing to do or not… I facilitated multiple conversations.”4 The strikethrough formatting is not recoverable from the bill PDF's text layer, so that exchange, rather than the bill text, is where the point is documented.
How a bill with no opponents dies
The procedural record is unusually stark. On January 22, 2026 — one day after introduction, weeks before the hearing — Senator Kauth filed FA911, an amendment whose entire text is “Strike the enacting clause.”5 That is a kill amendment, filed pre-emptively.
The hearing on February 17 produced no opponent testifiers, no neutral testifiers and no opponent letters. The Banking, Commerce and Insurance Committee advanced the bill 7-0. It was placed on General File on March 17, 2026, read into the record with one other bill, and never debated. Thirty-one days later the session's omnibus disposition motion swept it away with 161 other bills stranded at the same stage.1
The single written proponent comment came from the Nebraska Realtors Association. The Community Associations Institute, which lobbies for association management interests, recorded LB 1251 in its 2026 end-of-session report as a bill it supported and which “Unsuccessfully DIED in legislature.”6
What this leaves in place
Three years, not five. Sections 52-2001 and 76-874 still extinguish an assessment lien unless proceedings begin within three years of the full amount coming due, with no continuation mechanism. An association carrying an aging receivable is working against the same clock it was working against before the session.
The existing fee language. Whatever a court currently does with attorney's fees in a Nebraska assessment action, it keeps doing. Nothing about mid-litigation payoffs changed.
A statute last amended in 2013. Section 52-2001 was last touched by Laws 2013, LB 442. It is now fourteen years old and unamended.
What to watch next
Watch for reintroduction in January 2027, and understand that it starts from zero. Nebraska's two-year biennium ended with the 2026 session, so no work product from the 109th Legislature survives — not the committee vote, not the hearing record, not the General File placement. Senator Dover would have to introduce the bill again, get it referred again, hold a hearing again and advance it again, inside a 90-day session, before it could reach the floor position it already occupied and lost.
Related Nebraska HOA Topics
- LB 1251 bill history, Nebraska Legislature (109th, Second Session) ↩
- LB 1251 as introduced, Nebraska Legislature ↩
- Neb. Rev. Stat. § 52-2001, homeowners' association lien (current text) ↩
- Banking, Commerce and Insurance Committee hearing transcript, February 17, 2026 ↩
- FA911 (Kauth), filed January 22, 2026 — “Strike the enacting clause” ↩
- CAI 2026 Nebraska End of Legislative Session Report, Community Associations Institute ↩
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