Massachusetts HOA laws & resources.

Massachusetts legislates the condominium and almost nothing else. A condominium has the Massachusetts Condominium Statute, ch. 183A §§ 1 to 24 — but only where a master deed has been recorded submitting the land to it (§ 2). A covenanted subdivision has no act of its own: there is no homeowners association act in the General Laws, checked against the complete index of all five Parts and 700 chapters. What reaches it instead is General Provisions Relative to Real Property, ch. 184, which decides how long a covenant lasts and when it binds at all. Federal laws apply nationwide alongside both.

Massachusetts HOA law guideEvery Massachusetts statute that governs community associations, indexed by the decision you are making — beginning with whether ch. 183A applies to you at all.

Nine things are worth knowing about how Massachusetts HOA law works:

• Your association may well not be a corporation. Section 10 is headed “Corporation, trust or unincorporated association”, and § 1 defines the organization of unit owners as the corporation, trust or association owned by them. A trust is not formed by filing articles with the State Secretary, so it may appear in no corporate database at all — its declaration of trust is recorded at the registry of deeds. Which form yours takes decides where its papers live.
• The lien is silent until they sue. Under § 6(a)(i) it arises the moment an assessment falls due, and § 6(c) makes the recording of the master deed itself “record notice and perfection” — no claim of lien is ever recorded, so nothing new appears against your unit to warn you.
• Six months of it beats your first mortgage — counted backwards from the lawsuit. Section 6(c) gives priority to the budgeted common expenses that would have come due in the six months immediately preceding the action to enforce the lien, plus that action’s costs and reasonable attorney’s fees. Special assessments, late charges, fines, penalties and interest are excluded.
• And the association can lose it in thirty days. The lien is enforced through ch. 254 §§ 5 and 5A, and ch. 254 § 5 requires an attested copy of the complaint to be recorded in the registry of deeds within thirty days of commencing the action — or the lien is dissolved. It is the first thing to check when one is asserted against you.
• You cannot withhold, offset or waive. Section 7 forecloses it: no owner escapes common expenses by abandoning the unit, giving up the use of the common areas, or by offset, deduction or waiver — and § 6(b) makes you personally liable for the sums, the charges and the costs of collection. Dispute the charge; do not stop paying it.
• You already have a records right, whatever form your association took. Section 10(c) requires the master deed, the by-laws, the minute book and enumerated financial records to be kept up to date within the Commonwealth, retained at least seven years, and made “available for reasonable inspection by any unit owner”, with a right to photocopy at your expense. Section 10(d) adds an annual financial report, a CPA review for condominiums of fifty or more units, and prevailing-party attorney’s fees in an action to enforce that review.
• Reserves are required — but they can be voted down. Section 10(i) requires every condominium to maintain an adequate replacement reserve fund, collected as a common expense and held separately from operating funds. Read it with § 10(m): once control has passed from the declarant, an annual vote of sixty-seven per cent in beneficial interest may modify the reserve requirement — along with the CPA review, the fidelity insurance and the signature rules — and a bare majority may rescind that modification at any time.
• One provision reaches homeowners’ associations by name. Section 10A defines “association” to include a condominium association, homeowners’ association, community association, cooperative, trust or other entity with covenants, and operates notwithstanding ch. 183A — so its electric-vehicle charging right is not confined to people with a master deed. Where an application to install is required, it is processed like an architectural application and is deemed approved if it is not denied in writing within sixty days.
• Covenants expire, and not always at thirty years. Chapter 184 § 23 caps restrictions unlimited as to time at thirty years. But § 27 governs restrictions imposed after 31 December 1961 and § 28 gives fifty years to those imposed before 1 January 1962. Older neighbourhoods run on the longer clock. Neither clock runs out on its own: both sections let the restriction be kept alive by recording a notice of restriction before the period expires, and again every twenty years after that.

Discrimination, and the two clocks. Chapter 151B does not reach associations by implication — § 4(6), § 4(7) and § 4(18) each name “any organization of unit owners in a condominium or housing cooperative” in their own text, and § 4(5) catches an individual board member who aids or abets. Protected classes run wider than the federal Fair Housing Act, including gender identity, genetic information, marital status, veteran status, and recipients of public assistance or a housing subsidy. Watch § 4(7A): a reasonable modification is at the disabled person’s expense by default, but at the owner’s expense in housing of ten or more units, which is most Massachusetts condominiums. Two deadlines, and they are not alternatives to each other — 300 days to file with the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination↗, with a civil action opening ninety days later and running to three years; or, if you never file with the commission at all, one year straight to court under § 9. You may also complain to HUD↗.

Debt collection. Chapter 93 § 49 forbids “a creditor or an attorney for a creditor, or an assignee of a creditor” from collecting a consumer debt in an unfair, deceptive or unreasonable manner — the creditor itself, not only a hired agency — and provides that failure to comply is an unfair or deceptive act under ch. 93A. The Attorney General’s 940 CMR 7.00 adds the detailed conduct rules. The gates matter as much as the reach: the debt must be owed by a natural person, more than thirty days past due, under a single account, from a purchase, lease or loan for personal, family or household purposes.

Solar. Solar Energy Systems; Installation or Use; Restrictive Provisions↗, ch. 184 § 23C, voids any provision in an instrument that purports to forbid or unreasonably restrict a solar energy system as defined in ch. 40A § 1A↗ — or the building of structures that facilitate the collection of solar energy. Both limbs matter: a covenant does not have to ban solar outright to fall foul of it. Chapter 187 § 1A adds easements of direct sunlight by grant, covenant or a ch. 40A § 9B solar access permit, and the Department of Energy Resources↗ publishes guidance on the technology.

The corporate layer, where there is one. An incorporated association is generally formed under ch. 180, and its § 18 entitles every member, and every person with an interest in the funds, to examine its books and records. Section 6A carries the meeting machinery and a members’ route to force a special meeting on ten per cent of the smallest quorum. Check the corporate status of an association with the Secretary of the Commonwealth↗ — and remember that finding nothing there may simply mean yours is a trust.

Everything the acts leave out. How long you have (six years on contract, three on tort, twenty on an instrument under seal), the $7,000 small claims door, the six Housing Court divisions, whether your homestead helps against an association lien, and where your documents are actually recorded are all in other chapters entirely.

Where the paperwork actually is — and it depends on what form your association took, which is the single most common wasted afternoon in Massachusetts.

• Corporate Search — Secretary of the Commonwealth↗ — find an incorporated association’s contact details, officers and filings by searching the community name.

  If nothing comes up, your association may be a trust rather than a corporation. A condominium trust generally files nothing here — ch. 182’s filing duty reaches only trusts whose beneficial interest is divided into transferable certificates or shares — so look for its declaration of trust at the registry of deeds instead.

• Massachusetts recorded document search. Massachusetts records land instruments through registries of deeds — there is no county recorder here. Chapter 36 § 1 divides Berkshire, Bristol, Essex, Middlesex and Worcester into registry districts with offices in named towns, so find the district for the town the property is in. The master deed, the declaration of trust, amendments, by-laws, plans, deeds, liens and judgments are all recorded there.

  Where title is registered land, the documents are filed in the land registration office under ch. 185 rather than recorded (ch. 183A §§ 8, 16).