Four conditions, and all of them are mandatory

The deemed approval is not automatic. It attaches only to a request that complies, and the drafting is specific on each point.

Both mailing methods. “[M]ailed by United States Postal Service, regular mail and certified mail, return receipt requested.” Not one or the other. An association that sends certified mail only has not done what the section requires.

The recorded address. “[A]t the mailing addresses referenced on mortgage documents recorded in the land evidence records.” Not the servicer's current correspondence address, not the address on the owner's statement — the address on the recorded instrument. That is a title-search task, unit by unit.

The reference. “All written requests for approval to unit mortgagees shall reference this section.” A request that does not cite § 34-36.1-2.19(b) has not given the lender notice of the consequence of ignoring it, and the section makes the citation a requirement rather than a courtesy.

Sixty-five days from mailing. Not from receipt. The clock starts when the request goes out, which is the one element entirely within the association's control and the one to document.

Note also what defeats it: a written denial. A lender that replies at all, in writing, refusing, has preserved its objection. Silence is the only thing the statute converts.

It reaches the older buildings too

The same 2025 act amended § 34-36.1-1.02(a)(2) to add “34-36.1-2.19(b) (mortgage approval)” to the enumerated list of sections that apply to condominiums created before July 1, 1982 — subject to the usual limit that such sections apply “only with respect to events and circumstances occurring after July 1, 1982” and do not invalidate existing provisions of the declaration or bylaws.

That matters more than it sounds. The pre-1982 buildings are the ones with the oldest declarations, the most obsolete provisions, and the least prospect of tracing a 1978 mortgagee. They are also the buildings that get almost nothing else from the modern Act's governance provisions. Our Rhode Island governing statute page sets out which sections reach back and which do not.

What an association can now realistically do

The amendments that mortgagee-consent clauses have been blocking in Rhode Island are usually mundane and usually overdue:

• bringing a declaration's insurance provisions into line with § 34-36.1-3.13 as amended in 2025, including the unit owner's responsibility for the master-policy deductible;
• removing a fine cap that § 34-36.1-3.20(d) has made invalid anyway;
• adding electronic meeting and notice authority, now permitted by § 34-36.1-3.08(c) as amended in 2025;
• fixing a rental restriction, a pet provision or an architectural standard written for a different decade;
• correcting scrivener's errors in unit descriptions or percentage allocations.

None of these is controversial. All of them have been stuck behind a consent requirement that could not be worked.

What it does not do

It does not override subsection (a)'s own limits. A mortgagee approval requirement still may not “[d]eny or delegate control over the general administrative affairs of the association” or prevent the association from commencing, intervening in or settling litigation, or from receiving and distributing insurance proceeds except under § 34-36.1-3.13.

It does not reach lender consents required by something other than the chapter, declaration or bylaws. A consent a lender requires under its own mortgage instrument, or a secondary-market eligibility condition, is outside the section.

It does not help with an unrecorded interest. The mailing address comes from the land evidence records. An interest that is not recorded there has no address the statute recognises.

A board's options

Treat this as the year to do the amendment you have been postponing. The obstacle has been procedural and it has been removed.

Build the mailing list from a title search, not from the roster. This is the step that will decide whether the deemed approval holds if anyone later challenges the amendment.

Put the statutory citation in the letter and keep both mailing receipts. Three sentences of drafting protect the whole exercise.

Calendar day sixty-six. The approval is deemed given, but somebody has to record the amendment, and — per § 34-36.1-2.19 and the recording rules generally — an amendment is effective on recordation.

What to watch next

This provision is fifteen months old and, as far as this column can establish, has not been construed by any Rhode Island court. The first challenge will come from a lender arguing that a request did not comply with one of the four conditions, and the answer will turn on the association's mailing file rather than on the merits of the amendment. Note too that Rhode Island's own codified statute page for § 34-36.1-2.19 does not yet show subsection (b) — anyone relying on the state's website for this section is reading the pre-2025 text. Cite the public law.