WashingtonSB 51292025-2026 Regular SessionSenateWALLET

Concerning common interest communities.

Sponsored By: Jamie Pedersen (Democratic)

Signed by Governor

Personalized for You

How does this bill affect your finances?

Personalize government policy and PRIA will tell you what this bill means for your household, plus every other piece of legislation we track. PRIA reads each provision against your financial profile to show you exactly what matters to your wallet.

Free to download

Bill Overview

Analyzed Economic Effects

14 provisions identified: 5 benefits, 2 costs, 7 mixed.

More safeguards before community assessment foreclosure

Associations cannot start foreclosure until unpaid assessments reach three months of assessments or $2,000, whichever is greater. Fines, late charges, interest, attorney fees, and collection costs do not count toward that minimum. Two mailed notices must be at least 60 days apart; the first goes to the unit and any owner-provided address. The second must follow at least 90 days of delinquency, and foreclosure must wait 90 days after the minimum debt accrues. The board must approve that unit's foreclosure, and collection and foreclosure must be commercially reasonable. Lien priority over certain earlier security interests covers six months of qualifying common assessments, excluding capital improvements and specially allocated assessments, subject to statutory notice requirements.

Owners bear private energy equipment costs

Owners and later owners must pay inspection, upkeep, repair, and replacement costs for chargers and heat pumps serving only their unit. They also bear equipment-related damage and removal duties and costs, unless governing documents provide otherwise. Charger responsibilities include electricity and insurance costs. Heat-pump duties include removal and restoration when the owner removes it, and removal reasonably needed for work on shared property. These duties apply regardless of when equipment entered service or where its parts are located.

Clearer owner bills and payment options

Associations must adopt budgets and assess common expenses at least annually, with projected common expenses listed by category. Common expenses include association spending, debts, and reserve allocations; the definition no longer requires allocation to every owner by their standard share. Related assessment, budget, and accounting rules no longer expressly include specially allocated expenses, and records must charge spending to appropriate units. Developers delaying common assessments must pay those expenses, including for added units when development rights are reserved. Declarations can allow service and utility charges based on use or provider billing, raising or lowering individual shares. Owners must have at least one payment method without a separate fee; its cost can be shared as a common expense.

Community reserves get safeguards and investment limits

Association money must be held in its own name at a qualified financial institution, except for authorized reserve arrangements. Associations required to obtain reserve studies must keep reserves separate, generally in interest-bearing accounts titled solely to the association. Securities investments must follow governing documents, budget review, investment standards, and qualified administration requirements. New securities investments generally require at least $250,000 in reserves and leave at least 50% in specified accounts; owners holding 75% of votes can approve investing up to 100%. Reserve spending requires two officer or director signatures, invoices, and records identifying reserve items or explaining unlisted items or borrowing and repayment. Investments and transfers between the association's reserve accounts are exempt from those spending controls.

Fewer barriers to home energy equipment

Associations for single-family homes, site condominiums, and planned developments with nonadjacent units cannot require approval for private charging stations. Approval remains allowed when a charger uses shared property or a shared electrical supply; approval application requirements do not apply to exempt installations. Associations cannot unreasonably deny an owner's request to install heat pump equipment on or in shared property. Beginning January 1, 2026, the law repeals the listed charging-station and heat-pump sections in older condominium and homeowners association statutes.

New voting and community board rules

Community board election ballots must include space for owners to write in candidates, whether voting at meetings or without meetings. After the transition meeting, unanimous board action without a meeting is limited to routine tasks, owner-ratified actions, or carrying out prior meeting decisions. Before that meeting, all board members must record their unanimous consent and keep it with meeting minutes. The law also repeals a rule about whether community governing documents can differ from state law. The supplied text does not explain the former limits, exceptions, or replacement rule.

Owners get more board meeting access

Boards must provide at least 15 minutes at each meeting's start for owner comments on agenda items before voting. Individual limits must allow at least 90 seconds per owner per unit, but time can be divided equally if more than 10 owners speak. Remote meetings are allowed despite governing documents, with joining instructions, discussion and comment access, a telephone option, and verbal or roll-call board votes. Meetings addressing unforeseen events need at least seven days' notice when ordinary notice is impractical, plus electronic notice using known electronic addresses or phone numbers. After the transition meeting, board meetings must be in or convenient to the community unless organizational documents say otherwise; remote meetings remain allowed.

Stronger legal protections for community owners

Community documents cannot change statutory rights or duties unless the law expressly allows it. Added meeting, assessment, and charging rules cover qualifying communities created before July 1, 2018, generally for events since that date. Specified plat, nonresidential, mixed-use, and other excluded community types remain outside that expansion. Beginning January 1, 2026, additional chapter 64.90 rules cover older communities as provided by the law's coverage rules. The law also sets which community statutes control conflicts with listed business and nonprofit laws.

Fewer foreclosure duties for community associations

Community associations covered by Washington's unified community law are exempt from certain foreclosure duties toward people claiming to succeed to a borrower. These exemptions cover providing loan information and materials for taking over the loan, and handling claims from multiple successors. They also remove an affirmative duty to provide a loan modification. The exemptions apply when the association is the beneficiary in the foreclosure.

Community boards gain choices with limits

Boards can decline enforcement, including assessment claims, when legally unjustified, unlawful, too minor, or against the association's interests. They cannot act arbitrarily, and declining one case does not prevent enforcement in another. Declarations can let people other than owners, developers, or developer affiliates appoint specified board positions. After developer control ends, appointees cannot exceed one-third of the board or have greater authority than other members. Associations can delegate authorized powers to master associations without amending the declaration, with statutory notice and owner objection or approval procedures.

Homebuyers gain review time and waiver choices

Resale-certificate rules cover all units subject to the chapter, with preparation fees capped at $275 and updates within six months capped at $100. Buyers can expressly waive an unavailable certificate, relieving sellers of delivery duties but giving up the information. Unavailability includes a missed 10-day deadline after request and payment, qualifying seller statements about association inactivity or nonresponse, or three good-faith requests unanswered within three business days. Buyers receiving the certificate five days or less before signing can cancel before transfer by notifying the seller within five days after receipt. Receiving it more than five days before signing gives no cancellation right under this rule. If it arrives less than five days before closing, buyers can extend closing to no later than five days after receipt.

Homebuyers get disclosures but later delivery

Required offering statements must say whether a unit can be sold without every owner's consent after the community ends. The buyer warning about representations now includes factual affirmations. When this delivery requirement applies, statements and amendments must arrive before ownership transfers, rather than by the purchase-contract date. Statutory cancellation and closing-extension rights remain, including a seven-day cancellation window when the statement arrives seven days or less before signing. An affirmation does not create an express warranty when it says it is only proposed, not representative, or subject to change.

Owner voting protections and notice tradeoffs

Meeting notices must list proposed board-member removals and officer removals when owners elect those officers. Notices no longer specifically need to list previously approved budget changes that alter assessment obligations. Secret ballots cover board elections, board removals, qualifying officer removals, and governing-document amendments. Received paper ballots must be counted and electronic results reviewed, announced, and recorded even without a quorum; incumbents and candidates cannot handle ballot information beforehand. The law removes the separate secret-ballot listing for declaration changes that turn shared property into property reserved for particular units.

Small communities get limited rule exemptions

Communities with no more than 50 units can qualify for a limited exemption, though listed statutory protections still apply. Their declared annual average assessment cap cannot exceed $1,000 per residential unit, adjusted under state rules. Optional user fees do not count toward the cap, but association-paid insurance premiums now do. The community cannot have development rights or a declaration applying the entire chapter; the developer must reasonably believe the cap covers expenses. Before the transition meeting, raising the cap requires consent from nondeveloper owners holding 90% of association votes.

Sponsors & Cosponsors

Sponsor

Jamie Pedersen
Democratic • Senate

Cosponsors

Paul Harris
Republican • Senate
T'wina Nobles
Democratic • Senate

Roll Call Votes

All Roll Calls

Yes: 139 • No: 5

House vote • 4/10/2025

3rd Reading & Final Passage

Yes: 90 • No: 5 • Other: 3

Senate vote • 2/12/2025