The § 1-203 exemption, and exactly who it covers

Section 1-203 exempts a planned community that either:

1. 1. “contains no more than 24 units and is not subject to any development rights”; or
2. 2. “provides in its declaration that the annual average common expense liability of all units restricted to residential purposes, exclusive of optional user fees and any insurance premiums paid by the association, may not exceed $300.00 as adjusted pursuant to section 1-115”.

Either way it is subject only to §§ 1-105, 1-106 and 1-107 “unless the declaration provides that this entire title is applicable.”

Three precision points that secondary summaries get wrong:

It is “no more than 24”, not “fewer than 24”. A 24-unit planned community qualifies.

Cooperatives get no § 1-203 exemption. The section is by its terms limited to planned communities. Cooperatives escape VCIOA only through the 12-unit floor in § 1-201(a).

Condominiums get no § 1-203 exemption at all.

The dollar-figure exemption carries conditions: the declarant must “reasonably believe in good faith” the stated maximum will cover expenses, and must provide that the assessment “may not be increased above the limitation … during the period of declarant's control without the consent of all unit owners.”

What the $300 figure is today

Nobody publishes it. Section 1-115 makes the adjustment self-executing against the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners, with a December 1990 reference base index of 401, adjusting annually on July 1 only when the change is 10 percent or more, only in multiples of 10 percent of the amounts in the title on January 1, 1999, and never below the enacted amount.

Vermont designates no agency to publish the adjusted figure. The statutory number is $300.00 as adjusted under § 1-115, and anyone who quotes a current adjusted dollar amount is computing it themselves.

Three further scope provisions that catch people out

§ 1-209, small condominiums. Subsection 2-101(b), subdivisions 2-109(b)(2) and (11), subsection 2-109(g), § 2-115 and the whole of Article 4 do not apply to a condominium whose declaration both “creates fewer than 10 units” and “restricts ownership of a unit to entities that are controlled by, affiliated with, or managed by the declarant.” Both conditions are required — this is a developer-affiliate structure, not a consumer small-condo exemption.

§ 1-211, cost-sharing covenants. “A covenant that requires the owners of separately owned parcels of real estate to share costs or other obligations associated with a party wall, driveway, well, or other similar use does not create a common interest community unless the owners otherwise agree.” Many Vermont road and well associations are in this category and are not common interest communities at all.

§ 1-207, nonresidential and mixed use. “A nonresidential common interest community is not subject to this title except to the extent the declaration provides.”

What a small Vermont community has instead

Its declaration, its bylaws, the Vermont Nonprofit Corporation Act at Title 11B if it is incorporated, and the general law of servitudes. Where no agreement binds all owners on a private road, 19 V.S.A. § 2702 provides that each person enjoying a common benefit “shall contribute rateably” — the rule the Vermont Supreme Court applied in Rawley v. Heymann, 2023 VT 64, affirming equal shares on a cul-de-sac.

What to watch next

The 12-unit threshold also governs the reach of Vermont's new electric-vehicle charging section. Both § 1-201(a)'s amendments sentence and the new § 1-204(a)(3) added by Act 168 of 2026 are written in terms of communities containing “12 or more units”.