What the statute actually requires, precisely

Read the words. The landlord must offer “at least one alternative means of access,” and the statute lists four acceptable forms: an access code, a fob, a key card, or another tangible key.

Three observations follow.

An access code counts. The cheapest compliance route for a board is a keypad code rather than hardware. Where a gate or door controller supports codes, the system may already satisfy the statute without new equipment.

One alternative is enough. The association does not have to abandon its app. It has to make sure a non-app route exists.

The requirement attaches to the tenant, not the unit. The landlord must offer the alternative to the tenant. An association policy that issues fobs only to owners of record, and refuses to issue them to tenants, is the specific pattern that creates the problem.

What a board can do

Audit every access point the association controls, and for each one establish whether a non-app credential is available and whether a tenant can obtain it.

Then fix the policy, not just the hardware. The common failure is an association that has fobs in a drawer but a rule saying they go to owners only, or that charges a fee per fob high enough to be a practical refusal, or that requires an owner to appear in person to collect one for a tenant who has already moved in.

There is also what this implies for the direction of travel. App-only access has been sold to associations as a security and administration benefit — instant revocation, audit logs, no lost fobs. Those benefits are real. The Legislature has decided they do not justify leaving a tenant without a physical way into their own home, and Oregon is unlikely to reverse that.

The wider pattern in 2026

This is one of three Oregon measures in two sessions pushing back on digital-only systems in housing.

Senate Bill 1523, effective June 5, 2026, reaches tenant portals. A landlord using a portal to accept applications must post a printable copy on its website or provide one within seven days of a written request, and must process applications received outside the portal. A landlord may not require the portal as the sole means to verify identification, review and sign addenda, or submit documents, where the applicant or tenant requests an alternative in writing. And on payment:

“(1) A landlord shall allow a tenant to make payments by check or other commercially reasonable methods. (2) A landlord may not require a tenant to make payments by debit card, credit card, electronic check, tenant portal or any other form of electronic payment. (3) A landlord may not charge a late fee or terminate a tenancy based on nonpayment of rent or other charge if a landlord refuses to allow a payment offered by the tenant.”³

Statutory damages are actual damages or $100, whichever is greater.

Be careful with the read-across, though. Senate Bill 1523 binds landlords. It does not, on its face, require an Oregon association to accept a cheque for assessments. Portal-only billing is now ubiquitous in association management, and this is the Legislature's first statement in Oregon that electronic-only payment cannot be compelled in residential housing — but it is a directional signal, not a rule that binds associations. It should not be overstated.

Our Oregon records inspection page covers what an association must make available to owners, which is the adjacent question about association-held information.

What to watch next

Whether the 2027 session extends the payment-alternatives rule to community associations. The policy logic that produced Senate Bill 1523 — that a resident is not to be locked out of paying by the only means they have — applies identically to an owner paying an assessment. Nothing is drafted, and nothing is in the public pipeline, but the argument is now on the Oregon statute books in an adjacent context.