Reported: missing HOA funds expose a Tennessee licensing gap
Reported: missing HOA funds expose a Tennessee licensing gap
2026-09-19 · Tennessee · Compliance · Reported — unconfirmed
Tennessee does not license, register, certify or background-check community association managers. It licenses real estate brokers, affiliate brokers, firms, rental location agents, time-share salespersons and vacation lodging services through the Tennessee Real Estate Commission. A company whose only business is holding and disbursing an association's operating and reserve accounts falls outside that list, and outside every other state licensing regime.1
That is not news in itself; it has been true for as long as Tennessee has had community associations. It became news because of a reported sequence that ran from late 2025 into the 2026 legislative session, and because of what the legislature did and did not do in response.
What has been reported
NewsChannel 5 in Nashville, reporting by Amanda Roberts with Jackie Padilla and Holly Lehren, published a months-long investigation into Gasser Property Management. The station reported that more than a dozen communities across four Middle Tennessee counties — Davidson, Williamson, Wilson and Rutherford — had identified missing funds, with the aggregate reported as potentially more than $1 million, and that the station's reporting had prompted a Tennessee Bureau of Investigation probe after district attorneys referred the matter.2
Named communities in the station's reporting include Brookview Forest, Provincetown Townhomes and Lenox Creekside in Davidson County, Fountainbrooke in Williamson County, and Hickory Hills in Wilson County. The reported conduct includes lapsed insurance policies, frozen accounts and forged documents. One board told the station that the company's owner had drained more than $200,000 from its accounts.
These are allegations. Emery Gasser has not been charged with any crime, and the reporting records that the station was unable to reach him. A civil suit seeking $1.6 million was reported. Nothing below turns on whether the allegations are proved.
The gap a lawyer put on the record
The structural point was made to the station by attorney Marielle Westerman, and it is the reason this is a legal story rather than a crime story:
“You can have someone with a criminal background, they can embezzle in Florida, come to Tennessee, open up shop, and no one's gonna stop them because there's no law that would protect that association.”
She framed the licensing question by analogy: “We want to screen out the people who shouldn't be performing property management services. It is a piece of paper, but it means something. You wouldn't go to a doctor who isn't licensed or a hairstylist who isn't licensed.”
The station reported that the only requirement it could identify was a county business licence, and that the company lacked one in at least four counties where it operated.
What Tennessee actually regulates
The absence is specific rather than general, and the boundary is worth stating precisely.
The Tennessee Real Estate Commission's rules at Chapter 1260-01 license categories of activity centred on the sale and leasing of real property. Management work that involves leasing units, collecting rent or negotiating leases can bring a firm inside the brokerage regime. Management work that consists of budgeting, billing assessments, holding association funds, paying vendors and administering reserve accounts does not, because none of it is a brokerage activity.
Tennessee does not license community association managers as such, and no licensing, registration, certification or manager-bonding bill was filed in the 114th General Assembly.3
Nor is there a supervisory body with a general remit. There is no state registry of association managers, no complaint channel directed at them, no requirement to hold client funds in segregated or trust accounts, no fidelity requirement on the manager, and no audit or reporting obligation running to the state.
The legislature's answer was insurance, not licensure
Representative Caleb Hemmer, who represents a Davidson County district, told the station he was exploring giving the Department of Commerce and Insurance authority over property managers, comparable to its oversight of other real estate professions:
“You think of all the regulations within real estate, mortgage brokers, etc. They're all licensed. They're all regulated by the state of Tennessee. This is an area that is not regulated.”
He described the work as being at a fact-finding stage running to the mid-January bill filing deadline, and said the issue “should be bipartisan.”
No licensure bill was filed. What Hemmer filed on February 2, 2026 was HB 2338, the blanket fidelity bond mandate that became Public Chapter 731. It obliges the association to insure itself against theft by its managing agent, taking effect January 1, 2027.
The distinction is the whole story. A fidelity bond is a compensation mechanism that operates after a loss and is paid for by the association out of assessments. Licensure is a screening mechanism that operates before appointment and is paid for by the manager. The measure that passed does the first. The measure that was floated would have done the second, and it does not exist.
What the bond does not reach
Three of the reported harms sit outside a fidelity bond's scope entirely, and they are worth separating because the bond is now the state's only answer.
A lapsed insurance policy is not theft. An association that discovers its master policy was allowed to lapse has an uninsured-loss problem and possibly a negligence claim, not a fidelity claim.
The bond has no enforcement mechanism. Public Chapter 731 creates no penalty, no filing requirement and no regulator, and Tennessee has no licensing body that could condition anything on compliance. An association can simply not carry the bond.
The manager may place the coverage. The act permits the board “or managing agent” to obtain the bond on the association's behalf, with no verification requirement running back to the association.
What to watch next
Three things are outstanding and each has a date attached.
The TBI investigation continues and no charges have been filed. The bond mandate takes effect on January 1, 2027. And the 115th General Assembly convenes in January 2027, which is the first opportunity for a manager-licensure bill to be filed at all — the 114th adjourned sine die on April 23, 2026, and bills do not carry over to a new General Assembly.
The reporting that prompted the fidelity bond act described Hemmer as an outgoing lawmaker. Whether the licensure question returns in 2027 therefore depends on someone taking it up who has not yet been identified.
Related Tennessee HOA Topics
- Tennessee Real Estate Commission — rules and laws, licence categories (Tennessee Department of Commerce and Insurance) ↩
- Amanda Roberts, “A timeline: How NewsChannel 5 uncovered claims against Gasser Property Management throughout Tennessee,” WTVF Nashville ↩
- Amanda Roberts, “Multiple instances of missing HOA money exposes lack of Tennessee property management regulations,” WTVF Nashville ↩
- Amanda Roberts, “Tenn. lawmakers push for property management reform amid NewsChannel 5 investigation,” WTVF Nashville ↩
- HB 2338 bill history — Public Chapter 731 (Tennessee General Assembly) ↩
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