Tennessee SB 405 is a tax bill, not an HOA act
Tennessee SB 405 is a tax bill, not an HOA act
2026-09-19 · Tennessee · Legislation · Did not pass
A claim circulating across HOA reference sites holds that Tennessee has a comprehensive homeowners association statute under consideration as Senate Bill 405. The official legislative record does not support it. SB 405 of the 114th General Assembly is a corporate excise tax measure, it has nothing to do with associations, and it is dead.1
We are recording this because the claim is repeated on several of the pages a Tennessee owner is most likely to reach when searching whether the state regulates associations, and because the answer it gives is the opposite of the one the record gives.
What SB 405 actually is
The caption is a matter of record: “AN ACT to amend Tennessee Code Annotated, Title 67, Chapter 4, relative to the ‘CEO Pay Disparity Tax Act.’” Title 67 is Tennessee's taxes and licences title. The bill proposed an excise surcharge on companies whose highest-paid executive earns a specified multiple of median employee pay.
It was filed by Senator Lamar, with House companion HB 431 filed by Representative Jones. On March 18, 2025 it was referred to the Senate Finance, Ways and Means Revenue Subcommittee with a negative recommendation. On April 17, 2026 it was assigned to the General Subcommittee of Senate Finance, Ways and Means — a terminal action. The House companion failed in committee 4–8 on March 17, 2025.
There is no Tennessee Homeowners Association Act
A search of the 114th General Assembly's bill database for the phrase “Homeowners Association Act” returns nothing. No bill by that name was filed in either chamber in 2025 or 2026, and the assembly adjourned on April 23, 2026.
The nearest thing on record is older and also went nowhere: a “Homeowners' Association Act” was introduced in the 113th General Assembly as SB 2000 and withdrawn on January 31, 2024.2
So the underlying proposition — that Tennessee is in the process of adopting a comprehensive association statute — is not merely attached to the wrong bill number. It has no bill at all behind it in the current assembly.
What Tennessee actually enacted in two years
The 114th General Assembly passed four measures reaching covenanted communities, and every one of them was a single-subject amendment rather than a governance framework.
Public Chapter 180 of 2025 rewrote the condominium purchase-deposit escrow rules at section 66-27-506. Public Chapter 727 of 2026 exempted club-membership fees from the transfer fee covenant ban. Public Chapter 731 imposed a blanket fidelity bond requirement from January 1, 2027. Public Chapter 914 barred associations from prohibiting an owner's electric vehicle charging station from July 1, 2026.
Set against what other states have been legislating, the absences are the more striking half of the picture. Across two sessions the 114th General Assembly introduced no bill at all on association fines or fining procedure, on assessment lien priority or association foreclosure, on owner records and inspection rights, on board elections, proxies, meetings or term limits, on community association manager licensing, on condominium reserves or reserve studies, on structural or milestone safety inspections, on association insurance beyond the fidelity bond, on construction defect claims by associations, or on association authority over short-term rentals.3
Which makes the underlying question a fair one
The people repeating the SB 405 claim are answering a real question badly. Tennessee genuinely is an outlier: it runs two condominium statutes and has no general statute for non-condominium planned communities, which leaves most single-family association governance to the recorded declaration and the Nonprofit Corporation Act.
Someone searching for whether that is about to change is asking something sensible. The accurate answer as of the close of the 114th General Assembly is that it is not about to change, that no vehicle for changing it exists, and that the last attempt was withdrawn in January 2024.
How to check a Tennessee bill claim
The primary record is public and free. The General Assembly publishes every bill's caption, sponsors, full text, amendments and dated action history at wapp.capitol.tn.gov, indexed by bill number and General Assembly. Session laws are published as public chapters by the Secretary of State.
Two properties of Tennessee's system are worth knowing when reading a claim about a pending bill. Bills carry over from the first regular session to the second within the same General Assembly, but never into the next one — so any Tennessee bill described as “pending” today, from the 114th General Assembly, is dead. And a deferral to a calendar in the following January is terminal when it is made in the assembly's second year, because the committee that deferred it will not exist.
What to watch next
The 115th General Assembly convenes in January 2027. Any comprehensive Tennessee association statute would appear there as a new bill with a new number, and nothing in the pre-filing record so far indicates one.
Until then, a claim that Tennessee has an HOA act in progress can be tested in a minute against the legislature's own bill search. We were not able to establish where the SB 405 attribution originated.
Related Tennessee HOA Topics
- SB 405 / HB 431, 114th General Assembly — caption, sponsors and action history (Tennessee General Assembly) ↩
- CAI Tennessee Chapter Legislative Action Committee — legislative tracking (records the 113th General Assembly SB 2000 withdrawal) ↩
- Bills by subject — Real Property, 114th General Assembly (Tennessee General Assembly subject index) ↩
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