Who hears the case

Subsection (e): “Hearings…shall be before the executive board or a person designated by the executive board.”

The board that brings the charge decides it, or appoints who decides it. The Act provides no neutral adjudicator, no internal appeal and no alternative dispute resolution — the words “mediation” and “arbitration” do not appear anywhere in the seventy-four sections of chapter 34-36.1. Our Rhode Island mediation and dispute resolution page covers what an owner's options actually are.

The fee-shifting rule, and the trap inside it

Subsection (f) is the provision that decides whether contesting a fine is worth it:

“A decision in a hearing held pursuant to this section must include costs in all cases and reasonable attorney's fees, if the prevailing party is represented by a member of the Rhode Island Bar. Such attorney's fees and costs shall also be a lien on the unit charged.”

Three things follow, and they are not symmetrical.

“Must” and “in all cases”. Costs are mandatory, not discretionary.

The fee award is conditioned on counsel. An owner who appears at the hearing alone and wins recovers no attorney's fees, because there are none. An association represented by Rhode Island counsel that wins does recover them. The rule is neutral on its face and lopsided in practice, because associations are almost always the represented party.

Fees and costs become a lien on the unit. Not just the fine — the cost of the hearing too.

Where fines sit in Rhode Island's collection machinery

Fines are lienable. Section 34-36.1-3.16(a) gives the association “a lien on a unit for any assessment levied against that unit or fines imposed against its unit owner from the time the assessment or fine becomes due”, and attorney's fees, late charges, fines and interest “are enforceable as assessments under this section.” Fines are therefore foreclosable through the non-judicial power of sale in § 34-36.1-3.21.

But they are excluded from the part of the lien that outranks the mortgage. Section 3.16(b)(3): “The priority amount…shall not include any amounts attributable to special assessments, late charges, fines, penalties, and interest.”

So a fine can reach an owner's home, and it cannot reach the lender. Our Rhode Island collections and liens page sets out that structure.

The one governance provision that reaches every Rhode Island condominium

Section 34-36.1-3.20 is on the list in § 34-36.1-1.02(a)(2) of sections that apply to condominiums created before July 1, 1982. Most of the Act's governance provisions are not. So the fine power, uniquely, reaches every condominium in the state — including the older buildings that have no statutory quorum rule, no statutory proxy right and no statutory budget vote. An owner in a 1975 Providence conversion can be fined $100 a day under a statute that gives them no vote on the budget that funds the enforcement.

What this means for a board, and for an owner

Boards: stop relying on a document ceiling, in either direction. If your declaration caps fines, that cap is invalid and quoting it in a violation letter is quoting something unenforceable. If you have been fining above the statutory figures because your documents allow it, the statutory figures still bind.

Boards: the hearing is not optional and the order matters. “Notice and the opportunity for a hearing must be provided to an alleged violator before a fine is imposed and assessed.” A fine levied first and appealed afterwards is not what the statute describes.

Owners: the number in your documents is not your protection. The protections that are real are procedural — notice, a hearing before the fine, and the statutory dollar ceilings. The number your declaration promises is not one of them.

Owners: think about representation early. Subsection (f) makes the fee question turn on whether you have Rhode Island counsel at the hearing, not on whether you were right.

What to watch next

Nothing in the 2025 or 2026 sessions amended § 34-36.1-3.20, and no 2026 bill addressed association fining authority at all. The sixteen-member condominium law commission reporting by December 31, 2027 was directed to examine “best practices for conflict resolution between condominium owners and condominium association” — which is the mandate under which subsection (e)'s board-judges-its-own-charge structure would be revisited, if it is revisited.