What it restrains, and what it does not

The single most important limit: this act binds public agencies. It does not bind the association.

It says nothing about whether an association must give a member the roster, and it does not override G.S. 47F-3-118 or 47C-3-118, the records-inspection provisions of the Planned Community and Condominium Acts. An owner's statutory right to inspect association records is unaffected. A board that refuses a records request citing this statute has misread it.

What it plausibly restrains is the other direction: a state or local government body requiring an association to hand over a membership list, or releasing such a list it already holds in response to a public-records request.

Where might a public agency hold one?

• Filed with a local government in connection with a development approval, a stormwater permit, or a road-maintenance arrangement.
• Produced to a state agency in a disaster-recovery or grant process — a live scenario in western North Carolina, where associations are applying for private road and bridge assistance that requires identifying benefited owners.
• Obtained by a municipality administering an ordinance that applies to association communities.

In those settings, an association or an owner objecting to disclosure now has a statute to point at that did not exist before December 2025.

The honest uncertainty

We should be plain about the limits of this analysis, because this is a statute being read against a use its drafters were not considering.

The act's evident purpose is donor privacy — protecting the supporters and contributors of advocacy and charitable organisations from compelled disclosure. That is the political context in which it was passed, vetoed, and overridden.

Whether a court would apply it to a homeowners association membership roster is untested. No North Carolina decision has construed Article 18 in any context, let alone this one. The argument for application rests on the plain text: the definition of nonprofit organization expressly reaches not-for-profit entities recognised under State law rather than only tax-exempt ones, and the definition of personal information expressly reaches a “roster… that directly or indirectly identifies a person as a member.” An association roster satisfies both readings on their face.

The argument against is purposive, and it is not weak. We are reporting the text and the open question, not predicting how it comes out.

Where an association might actually use it

Two realistic scenarios, offered as things to raise with counsel rather than as settled positions:

A public-records request to a local government that would disclose a membership list the government holds. The association is not the respondent, but it is the party with an interest, and Article 18 gives it something to say to the agency before disclosure rather than after.

An agency demand for the roster as a condition of a permit or programme participation. The act bars public agencies from requiring such information, which is a stronger position than arguing about proportionality.

What it is not is a shield against ordinary association obligations: members' inspection rights, discovery in litigation, or a subpoena.

The wider point about where NC HOA law now comes from

This act is the third change in the 2025–2026 biennium to reach North Carolina associations through Chapter 55A rather than Chapter 47C or 47F. The others are the annual Secretary of State report and the three-director board minimum, both in Session Law 2026-52.

Meanwhile the community-association chapters themselves were amended exactly twice in two years — once for flag display and once for a Revisor's spelling change.

The practical lesson for anyone tracking North Carolina HOA law is that watching Chapters 47C and 47F is no longer sufficient. The Nonprofit Corporation Act is now the more productive place to look, and nothing in it is labelled as affecting homeowners associations.

What to watch next

Any judicial construction of Article 18, in any context. The first decision defining “nonprofit organization” under G.S. 55A-18-03 will largely settle whether associations are inside or outside it.

Also worth watching: whether the annual report beginning in 2027 creates friction with this act. That report requires principal officers' names and business addresses, filed with a public agency and published. Officers are excluded from the “supporter” and “volunteer” categories, so the two are probably reconcilable — but they are two 2025–2026 statutes in the same chapter pointing in opposite directions on how public an association's people should be.