Vermont's rental-covenant bill got no hearing at all
Vermont's rental-covenant bill got no hearing at all
2026-09-19 · Vermont · Legislation · Did not pass
The most aggressive bill any Vermont legislature has written about community associations received zero committee meetings and died without anyone voting on it.
S.305, An act relating to housing and land use, was introduced on January 23, 2026 by Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale, with Sens. Patrick Brennan, Thomas Chittenden, David Weeks and Richard Westman. It was read a first time and referred to the Senate Committee on Economic Development, Housing and General Affairs the same day. The committee's meeting record for the biennium shows no meetings on the bill. It died with the biennium at sine die on May 29, 2026.1
What Secs. 13 and 14 would have done
The bill would have added 27A V.S.A. § 3-125, “Prohibited Uses Disallowed”, with two operative subsections.
Leasing. Any covenant or governing-document provision “that either effectively prohibits or unreasonably restricts a unit owner from leasing the individual unit owner's unit for residential purposes … is void and unenforceable.”
Family child care. Covenants that “effectively prohibit or unreasonably restrict a unit owner from operating a family child care home, as that term is defined in 33 V.S.A. § 3511, within the unit owner's unit” would have been void and unenforceable.
The carve-outs were substantial
This was not an unlimited override, and the exceptions are worth reading because they are the ones a 2027 bill would most likely keep.
- Subleases. A ban on subletting would have survived.
- Section 3-120(f)(3) restrictions. VCIOA already lets a declaration restrict leasing on stated grounds; the bill preserved those.
- Short-term rentals. The section expressly did not authorise transient or hotel occupancy or short-term rentals as defined in 18 V.S.A. § 4301. A Vermont association's short-term-rental restriction would have been untouched.
- Scope. It did not reach nonresidential or leasehold common interest communities.
The section number is now taken
Reading S.305 today runs into a collision. The bill's override was drafted as 27A V.S.A. § 3-125. That section number was used in the same session for something else entirely: the electric-vehicle supply equipment provisions enacted by Act 168 of 2026.
Vermont's § 3-125 is the charger section. The leasing and child-care language was never enacted anywhere.
The same package died twice
S.305 was not the only vehicle. The identical concepts were Secs. 4 through 7 of S.328 as introduced, and were removed in the Senate Committee on Economic Development, Housing and General Affairs before that bill reached the floor. S.328 became Act 179 — carrying, in place of the overrides, a report on whether to enact them.
So in a single session Vermont's Senate housing committee received the leasing and child-care override twice, removed it from the bill that moved, and never convened on the bill that carried it alone.
Why the child care provision is the one likely to return first
Family child care homes are a defined category in Vermont law with their own regulatory regime at 33 V.S.A. § 3511, and the state's child-care capacity is an active policy priority independent of housing. A covenant override aimed only at registered family child care homes is a narrower ask than a general leasing override and does not raise the secondary-mortgage-market eligibility question that Act 179's study puts at the centre of the leasing debate.
What to watch next
Items (1) and (2) of the Act 179 study — requiring associations to authorise leasing of residential units, and to authorise commercial purposes within a dwelling unit — are S.305's two subsections restated as questions. The Office of Legislative Counsel must answer them by November 15, 2026.
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