What the housing charges do cover

Both chambers assigned substantial housing work. The Senate Local Government Committee carries a charge titled “Housing Affordability: Report on the implementation of Senate Bill 15, Senate Bill 840, and Senate Bill 2477, 89th Legislature, and Senate Bill 2038, 88th Legislature.” Those are municipal measures — lot sizes, conversion of commercial buildings to residential use, extraterritorial jurisdiction — and they operate on city regulation rather than on private covenants.

The House's parallel charge examines “how the following factors may improve housing attainability and affordability,” beginning with fees: “Examine the collection, use, and oversight of fees imposed by local governments, including impact fees, utility connection charges, permit and inspection fees, and drainage or stormwater fees.” Again, the subject is what local governments charge, not what associations charge.

The word “homeowner” does appear in both documents. In every instance it is attached to property tax work — the Senate Local Government Committee's charge to “[e]xamine Texas property taxes, focusing on homeowners' school property taxes,” and the House's charge on appraisal reform and the homestead exemption. None of it concerns association governance.

Why 2026 is a quiet year by design

The absence of a charge is not the only reason Texas association law is static this year. Texas holds no regular session in even-numbered years. The Governor's 2025 special-session calls covered redistricting, flood response, hemp regulation and water; none named property or association law, and under Article III, Section 40 of the Texas Constitution a special session is confined to the subjects the Governor submits.

The result is that everything operating on Texas associations in 2026 is either a 2025 statute reaching its first full year in force, a court applying existing law, or a regulator or secondary-market participant acting outside the Legislature entirely — the Texas Department of Insurance, the Texas Real Estate Commission's filing database, the federal mortgage agencies.

What did not get studied

The 89th session produced a visible list of association bills that failed. Senate Bill 1935, addressing the composition and operation of association boards, had a hearing in Senate Local Government on 7 April 2025 and was left pending in committee the same day.³ House Bill 2398, on association governance generally, was referred to committee on 14 March 2025 and never heard.⁴ Senate Bill 700, on association regulation of owner speech and assembly, died in Senate State Affairs without a hearing.

Each of those is the kind of subject an interim charge would ordinarily pick up — a bill that drew enough interest to get filed and enough resistance to stall. None was assigned.

The calendar from here

Pre-filing for the 90th Legislature opens in mid-November 2026. The session convenes in January 2027 and runs 140 days. Any Texas association measure that becomes law in that session will do so without an interim committee report behind it, which historically lengthens the path from filing to floor.

What to watch next

Interim charges are occasionally supplemented during an interim, and committees hold hearings on their existing charges throughout 2026. The housing-affordability charges in both chambers are broad enough that association issues could surface in testimony even though no charge names them — particularly where a witness raises private deed restrictions as a constraint on the density measures the charges are tracking.