What is on neither list

This is the part that surprises Vermont owners, because the omissions are the provisions most people assume are universal.

• § 3-123, budget ratification. A pre-1999 Vermont community's owners have no statutory right to ratify or reject the budget.
• § 3-120, rules. The notice-and-comment procedure, the “every rule must be reasonable” requirement, and § 3-120(d)'s flag and political-sign protections do not reach pre-1999 communities.
• § 3-122, removal of officers and directors. Section 3-103 is on the 2012 list; § 3-122 is not. Older communities get the board-composition rules but not the statutory removal right.
• § 3-102(a)(18). The limits on suspending an owner's rights — no denial of unit access, no suspension of the vote, no bar on candidacy, no withholding of health-and-safety services — are outside the retroactive range.
• §§ 3-113 and 3-115. Insurance and assessments for common expenses.
• Most of Article 2 and almost all of Article 4. Only §§ 4-109 and 4-117 reach back.

Both lists are expressly “events and circumstances” based and both provide that the listed sections “do not invalidate existing provisions of the declarations, bylaws, plats, or plans” of those communities. A conflicting pre-1999 declaration survives.

The way out, and when it opened

Section 1-206(a): “The declaration, bylaws, or plat and plans of any common interest community created before January 1, 1999 may be amended to achieve any result permitted by this title, regardless of what applicable law provided before this title was enacted.”

Subsection (b) adds the condition that makes it symmetrical: “If an amendment grants to any person any rights, powers, or privileges permitted by this title, all correlative obligations, liabilities, and restrictions in this title also apply to that person.”

Note that § 1-206 is itself on the 2012 list — the opt-in route only became available to pre-1999 Vermont communities on January 1, 2012.

A narrower carve-out inside the carve-out

Section 1-204(b): a planned community created before January 1, 1999 that contains no more than 24 units and is not subject to development rights is subject only to §§ 1-105, 1-106 and 1-107 — unless its declaration is amended to take advantage of § 1-206, in which case the whole of the (a) list applies.

Three sections. No lien, no records right, no resale certificate.

And a third date nobody mentions

Section 1-201(a) closes with: “Amendments to this title apply to all common interest communities that contain 12 or more units that may be used for residential purposes and are created after January 1, 2011, or are subject to this title by amendment of their declaration.”

Read literally, a Vermont community created in 2005 is subject to VCIOA as enacted in 1999 but not to the 2012 amendments — which is where §§ 3-120, 3-122, 3-123 and 3-124 all come from. Nothing in the statutory text resolves that reading. It is unresolved, not settled either way, and it is the reason the Legislature had to write a third applicability formula into Act 168 of 2026 to make the new charger section reach older communities.

What to watch next

The Office of Legislative Counsel's report on common interest communities, due to two legislative committees on November 15, 2026, is the first document in years positioned to ask whether a statute with three applicability formulas and two retroactive lists is worth keeping in that form.