The funding number, and the date attached to it

This is the provision that would have changed budgets rather than paperwork:

“The association must maintain a reserves account, separate from the operating account, that shall only be used to conduct necessary work as identified in the conditions survey, reserves studies, and unexpected needed structural repairs to common elements…The reserves account shall be funded by at least fifteen percent (15%) of the monthly assessment fee by January 1, 2027.”

Fifteen percent of the monthly assessment, ring-fenced, with a hard date. Read against the bill's own effective date — “This act shall take effect on January 1, 2028” — that is a drafting tension worth noting: the funding deadline precedes the act's effective date by a year. A board reading the bill would not have been able to tell from its face whether the January 2027 figure was operative.

Who would have had to sign the study

Not just anybody: “All reserve studies shall be conducted, certified, and dated by a reserves study specialist (RS) certified by the Community Associations Institute or a professional engineer (PE) licensed in the state. All reserve studies shall be prepared in conformance with the currently available Reserve Study Standards of the Community Associations Institute or similar standards by another recognized national organization.”

A statute naming a private trade body's credential and its standards is unusual, and it would have made the supply of qualified providers in a small state a practical constraint on compliance.

The rest of the machinery

Four further obligations filled out the section:

• Developers first. Every declarant would commission both a conditions survey and an initial reserve study “within six (6) months after completion of its final phase of construction.”
• A catch-up window. An association with no initial reserve study, or none within five years, would have twelve months from the effective date to get one — unless it was doing a conditions survey instead, in which case the reserve study would follow completion of the identified repairs.
• Disclosure at sale. The most recent reserve study would go to all owners and “shall be included in the sales certificate for new unit owners within sixty (60) days of its availability to unit owners.”
• A plan, then a strategic plan, then annual reporting. The board would develop a plan addressing the study's short-term recommendations, share it with owners, fold it into a strategic planning process, report progress annually, and update it at least every five years.

Funding immediate repairs identified by a conditions survey would be put to the owners, who “by a majority vote of a quorum, may determine the source of these finances which could include reserves and/or assessments and/or loans, and/or amendment of budget through standard procedure.”

Why the 37-0 vote is the story

A bill that clears a chamber unanimously is not a controversial bill. Two others did the same thing on the same subject in the same session: the condominium insurance bill S 2896 Substitute A passed the Senate 37-0-1 on May 19, 2026, and the meetings-and-records bill S 2899 Substitute A passed 37-0-1 on May 27, 2026. All three went to House Corporations. None of the three was ever scheduled there.

No official document explains why. The record shows referral and then nothing, which is a complete account of what happened and no account at all of why. Anyone who wants to know should ask House Corporations rather than infer it, and this column is not going to guess.

What a dead bill means for a Rhode Island board

The obligation you do not have is still a cost you do have. A twenty-year-old building needs a conditions survey whether or not a statute says so. The bill is a reasonable specification of what one looks like — licensed professional, timeline, hazard areas identified, findings shared with owners — and an association can adopt all of it by board resolution today.

Fifteen percent is now a published benchmark. It has no legal force in Rhode Island. It is a number a Senate passed unanimously, which makes it a defensible reference point for a board arguing an underfunded reserve to its owners — and for an owner arguing the same thing to a board.

The disclosure gap is real and it is the one to close voluntarily. Rhode Island's resale certificate at § 34-36.1-4.09 already requires a statement of anticipated capital expenditures for the current and next two fiscal years and of reserves designated for specific projects. It does not require the study itself. A buyer who gets the numbers without the engineering report has the answer without the working.

What to watch next

The sixteen-member condominium law commission created in the same session reports by December 31, 2027, and reserves and long-term capital costs sit squarely inside its mandate. Watch also for reintroduction in the 2027 session, which convenes in January. Three of these bills have now cleared the Senate once; a fourth attempt starting from a 37-0 record is a different proposition from a first attempt.