The other things Oregon appellate courts did not decide

Five gaps are worth stating plainly, because each one is a question Oregon boards routinely face and on which there is no recent appellate guidance.

No decision construes the Oregon Condominium Act. Searches for “Oregon Condominium Act” and for specific ORS chapter 100 sections return nothing dated 2025 or later beyond a passing mention in Eastside Bend. Every appellate development in the window is planned-community law under chapter 94.

No decision addresses association construction-defect liability. “Construction defect” returns 22 documents collection-wide, none dated 2025 or later.

No decision addresses association insurance coverage. The nearest is Twigg v. Admiral Insurance Company, 373 Or 445 (April 17, 2025) — a Supreme Court decision on whether a CGL policy's “accident” requirement depends on how the underlying claim was pleaded. It holds that it does not, which matters enormously to associations pursuing builders, but the plaintiffs were individual homeowners, not an association.

No decision addresses assessment-lien foreclosure. “Assessments against” and “unit owners association” return nothing in the period.

No decision construes House Bill 3746, the 2025 construction-defect reform that shortened the association repose period from ten years to seven and created mandatory condominium moisture inspections. It took effect January 1, 2026 and is entirely untested on appeal.

What is pending

Nothing association-related at the Supreme Court. Of the petitions allowed for review in the window, the real-property and land-use ones are Roberts v. City of Cannon Beach (allowed March 2025, decided July 16, 2026), Western States Land Reliance Trust v. Linn County (allowed November 2025, still pending), and Khosroabadi v. North Clackamas Parks and Recreation District (allowed June 4, 2026). None is an association case.

Humphreys v. Huls, 343 Or App 683, the leading 2025 Oregon appellate decision on express access easements in a divided subdivision, had review denied on January 15, 2026.

Why the silence matters

Because Oregon association law is now moving faster in the Legislature than in the courts, and the two are not talking to each other.

Since January 2025, Oregon has shortened the defect repose, created mandatory condominium inspections, added a pre-suit owner-notice regime, voided covenants blocking fire hardening with a 90-day deemed-approval clock, voided covenants blocking manufactured dwellings in new documents, and set up a retroactive density override operative in January 2027. Not one of those changes has been construed by any Oregon appellate court.

Meanwhile the questions the Court of Appeals has answered — declarant rights, architectural good faith, encumbrance damages — are all questions of older law, litigated on facts predating the new statutes.

The practical consequence for an Oregon board is that the newest and most consequential rules it operates under have no interpretive gloss at all. When the statute is ambiguous — and Senate Bill 1551's “cost substantially more…of similar quality” test is ambiguous, as is the interaction between House Bill 2138's applicability notes and its 2027 operative date — there is nothing to read but the text.

Our Oregon governing statute page sets out the statutory framework as it now stands.

What to watch next

Whether any of the four 2026 Court of Appeals decisions draws a petition for review that is allowed. Eastside Bend is the most likely candidate on significance — it is the first appellate interpretation of several Planned Community Act provisions, and it resolved them against a party that litigated hard through two related appeals.

And watch for the first case construing House Bill 3746 or Senate Bill 1551. On the fire-hardening statute, the 90-day deemed-approval clock creates a fast route to a dispute: an application filed today, unanswered, is approved by operation of law before Christmas.