Minnesota & Georgia's New HOA Laws (2026)

Minnesota and Georgia signed almost identical HOA reform bills on the same day — May 12, 2026 — and both take effect January 1, 2027. That’s not a coincidence of timing so much as a sign of where state HOA law is heading: fine caps, foreclosure limits, and new disclosure rules, arriving in more states, faster than in past years.

If you own in Minnesota or Georgia, here’s exactly what changes. If you don’t, this is a preview of the kind of law that’s increasingly likely to show up in your state next.

Minnesota’s Chapter 82: the changes that matter

Minnesota’s overhaul — Chapter 82, built from Senate File 1750 and its companion House File 1268 — rewrites large parts of the state’s common-interest-community statute. The bill covers dozens of individual changes; these are the ones that will actually show up in an owner’s mailbox or a board’s budget:

• A $100 cap on most fines. An association generally can’t fine an owner more than $100 for a single rule violation, unless owners vote to approve a higher amount or the violation involves a health/safety risk, property damage, or the owner profiting from it (an unauthorized short-term rental, for example). See how fine caps compare to what your HOA can already charge.
• A three-month floor before foreclosure. An association can’t start foreclosure unless an owner is at least three months behind on regular assessments, special assessments, or certain fines — a small fine balance by itself doesn’t clear that bar.
• A fixed order for applying payments. When a delinquent owner sends money — including a partial payment — the association has to apply it to regular and special assessments first. It can no longer route a partial payment to late fees or fines before the underlying dues are covered.
• Required consideration of payment plans. Associations must consider offering a reasonable payment plan to a delinquent owner before moving straight to collections — it’s a mandatory step in the process, though not an unconditional obligation to grant one in every case.

Most of this takes effect January 1, 2027, giving boards through the rest of 2026 to rewrite fine schedules and collection policies before the new rules bind.

Georgia’s SB 406: the changes that matter

Georgia’s Property Owners’ Bill of Rights Act (SB 406) takes a different structural approach — registration as a gate on an association’s collection powers — but lands on several of the same protections:

• State registration is now mandatory. Associations must register with the Georgia Secretary of State. An association that skips registration loses the ability to record a lien, collect fines and fees, or start a foreclosure — full stop, until it registers.
• A higher, and stricter, foreclosure floor. An association generally can’t foreclose until an owner owes at least $4,000 in unpaid regular assessments, or 12 months of assessments — whichever is lower — and never less than $2,000. Fines and late fees don’t count toward that number. The mandatory pre-foreclosure notice is extended from 30 to 60 days, and the notice must state that paying the balance within that window stops the foreclosure entirely.
• The same payment-order rule as Minnesota. Partial payments must be applied to assessments before fines and fees, and associations can’t refuse them outright.
• Longer recordkeeping. Associations must keep 10 years of records and provide the state with 3 years of records, including governing documents, on request.

Most of SB 406 takes effect January 1, 2027, the same date as Minnesota’s law. One narrower piece — new prerequisites for an association to recover attorney’s fees in a collection lawsuit — took effect earlier, on July 1, 2026, for cases filed after that date.

Why two states landed on the same law at the same time

Neither bill copied the other outright, but the overlap — fine caps, delinquency thresholds before foreclosure, a fixed payment-application order, mandatory registration or disclosure — tracks a pattern that’s shown up piecemeal in other states’ recent HOA legislation too. What’s different here is the speed and the completeness: two states, one signing date, similar structure, both effective the same day.

The industry side of this argument, unsurprisingly, isn’t thrilled. Association attorneys we’ve seen quoted on both bills argue the changes add legal ambiguity and compliance cost, and that a small number of disputes involving a handful of associations are driving legislation that applies to every HOA and condo in the state — good actors and bad ones alike. There’s something to that concern: broad statutes are blunt instruments, and a $100 fine cap doesn’t distinguish between a $50,000-a-year luxury high-rise and a small suburban HOA with a modest operating budget.

But that argument runs the other way too. A payment-application rule that stops an association from quietly routing a struggling owner’s partial payment into late fees instead of the actual delinquency isn’t a hard call — it’s a basic consumer protection that most other debt-collection contexts already require. The foreclosure thresholds in both states exist because associations have foreclosed over balances in the low hundreds of dollars, and that’s the fact pattern lawmakers were responding to. Whether a given provision is overreach or overdue mostly depends on which associations you’re picturing when you read it.

Is your state next?

If you don’t live in Minnesota or Georgia, the honest answer is: nobody can tell you whether your legislature will act, but the trend line is real. Florida, Colorado, and several other states have passed owner-facing HOA and condo reforms in recent years — see our Florida HOA laws, California HOA laws, Texas HOA laws, North Carolina HOA laws, and our general Georgia HOA laws overview (the Property Owners’ Association Act baseline this reform builds on) guides for what’s already on the books where you live — and Minnesota and Georgia signing near-identical bills on the same day is itself evidence that legislators in other states are watching the same model bills and advocacy campaigns. Check our state-by-state law hub periodically; this is a fast-moving area.

What this means if you’re an owner

• In Minnesota: a fine over $100 for an ordinary violation should be a red flag once the law takes effect — ask what exception the board is relying on. If you’re behind on dues, the board is required to at least consider offering you a payment plan before pushing straight to collections, and it can’t quietly apply your payment to fines before your actual balance.
• In Georgia: confirm your association has registered with the Secretary of State once the deadline passes — an unregistered association loses its own leverage to collect from anyone, which can create real confusion during a transition year. If you’re facing foreclosure, the association now needs a specific dollar threshold and 60 days’ notice, not just a lien and a filing.
• Everywhere else: these laws are a preview, not a guarantee. Read your governing documents and your state’s current statute — see if your state already has some of these protections — rather than assuming Minnesota or Georgia’s rules apply to you.

What boards should do before January 1, 2027

1. Rewrite the fine schedule and collection policy now, not in December — both laws change the numbers and the sequencing, and a policy that references the old rules will conflict with the statute the day it takes effect.
2. Fix the payment-application logic in your collection letters and your management software’s default settings; this is the provision most likely to trip up an association that just keeps running its old process.
3. Model your delinquency workflow against the new foreclosure thresholds so you don’t accidentally initiate foreclosure below the new floor.
4. Georgia associations: register with the Secretary of State early. Losing your ability to record liens or collect fines during a registration gap is a self-inflicted problem with an easy fix — file before the deadline crowd does.
5. Loop in association counsel on anything ambiguous in either statute; both laws are new enough that court interpretation hasn’t caught up to the text yet, and the state law hub isn’t a substitute for a lawyer reviewing your specific governing documents.