Massachusetts · Guide

Massachusetts HOA law guide

Massachusetts has a condominium statute and no homeowners association act. That single fact decides how every question below is answered — starting with whether any statute written for associations applies to you at all.

6 statutes Full text on-site Source captured August 2026
Which act governs you

Everything starts with whether a master deed was recorded. Chapter 183A applies where, and only where, an owner or lessee has recorded one submitting that interest to it (§ 2). If your community has one, the Act governs and a handful of its provisions override your documents outright. If it does not, there is no Massachusetts homeowners association act to fall back on — checked against the complete index of the General Laws, all five Parts and 700 chapters, where no chapter is named for homeowners associations, planned communities, common interest ownership or subdivisions. Your rights then come from the declaration, the governing instrument and the general law of covenants in ch. 184. One provision crosses the line in both directions: ch. 183A § 10A defines “association” to include a homeowners’ or community association and operates notwithstanding ch. 183A, so it reaches you either way.

01 Massachusetts Condominium Act Chapter 183A, 26 sections, §§ 1 to 24. Creation by master deed, the organization of unit owners, common expenses and the lien, casualty, improvements and removal from the Act. Read § 6 first: the lien arises the moment an assessment falls due (§ 6(a)(i)), recording the master deed is itself record notice and perfection so nothing further is ever filed (§ 6(c)), and it takes up to six months of budgeted common expenses — measured backwards from the enforcement action — plus that action’s costs and reasonable attorney’s fees ahead of a first mortgage, excluding special assessments, late charges, fines, penalties and interest. Then read § 7, which forecloses the obvious answer: no owner may escape common expenses by abandoning the unit, waiving the use of the common areas, or by offset, deduction or waiver. Section 10 does more than its reputation suggests — § 10(c) gives every unit owner reasonable inspection of the association’s records with a right to photocopy, § 10(d) an annual financial report and prevailing-party fees, § 10(i) a mandatory replacement reserve fund, § 10(b)(5) the power to levy reasonable fines. Section 6(d) is the ten-business-day payoff certificate a sale turns on; § 18 lets seventy-five per cent or more assess an improvement to everyone, with a court-ordered buyout only above ten per cent of the condominium’s value; and § 1 defines every percentage in the Act by aggregate undivided interest, not by counting heads.
The entity underneath

Chapter 183A § 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. The Act prefers none of the three, and which one yours is decides where its founding document lives: a corporation files articles and an annual certificate with the State Secretary, while a trust is created by a declaration of trust recorded at the registry of deeds and may appear in no corporate database at all. A housing cooperative under ch. 157B is a different arrangement again — you hold stock and a proprietary lease rather than a unit. Searching the wrong register is the most common wasted afternoon in Massachusetts.

02 Corporations for Charitable and Certain Other Purposes Chapter 180, 61 sections, §§ 1 to 29. The chapter an incorporated association is generally formed under. Section 18 is the one to know: “Every member of such corporation and every person who has an interest in its funds shall be entitled to examine its books and records” — and no member may be expelled by less than a majority of all the members, nor by less than three quarters of those present and voting. Note the caution the page carries: § 18 opens “No member of such corporation”, and § 16 ties §§ 17 and 18 to the by-laws of a § 15 trade or employment organisation, so whether it reaches every ch. 180 corporation is a question of statutory reading rather than a settled point. Section 6A carries the meeting machinery, a members’ route to force a special meeting on ten per cent of the smallest quorum, and a cap of twenty dollars on penalties annexed to by-laws — which is not a cap on a condominium’s fines under ch. 183A § 10(b)(5). Section 26A is the annual certificate that makes the corporate search useful; §§ 11 to 11B cover dissolution. 03 How a Massachusetts association is actually organised Chapters 182, 157B and 179 §§ 1 to 17, 47 sections. Chapter 182 governs voluntary associations and certain trusts, and its § 1 is where care is needed: “Association” is defined for the whole chapter as one whose beneficial interest is divided into transferable certificates of participation or shares, and the word “trust” carries that same narrower meaning in §§ 2 to 7 and 12 to 14 — which is where § 6, suits against the trust, sits. So § 6 is not handed to a condominium owner as their route; ch. 183A § 13 is, directing claims involving the common areas against the organization of unit owners. Chapter 157B states its own purpose in § 1 and lets a cooperative terminate all proprietary leases only on eighty per cent of its stock (§ 12). Chapter 179 §§ 1 to 17 is the nearest thing in the General Laws to a common-ownership regime outside the condominium: five or more proprietors of real estate held in common may organise as a corporation, pass by-laws and assess their members. Its §§ 18 to 40 are common fields and fences and are not carried.
What a board cannot do to you

Massachusetts has no association act to hold its owner protections, so they sit in two general chapters instead — one about discrimination, one about covenants. Both apply whether or not there is a condominium. Chapter 151B is the more surprising of the two, because it 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) reaches any person who aids or abets a forbidden act, which is how an individual board member is caught. Chapter 184 decides how long a covenant lasts and when it is enforceable at all, and voids three kinds outright.

04 Massachusetts Unlawful Discrimination Chapter 151B, 12 sections, §§ 1 to 10. The housing provisions cover race, color, religious creed, national origin, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, genetic information, ancestry, marital status, veteran status or membership in the armed forces, blindness, hearing impairment, a trained dog guide and any other handicap — plus recipients of public assistance or a housing subsidy (§ 4(10)) and people with children who occupy or will occupy the premises (§ 4(11)). Two qualifications matter here: “age” does not reach minors or 55+/62+ communities whose owner registers biennially with the executive office of housing and livable communities, and genetic information is absent from § 4(6)(b). Section 4(7A) is where associations most often go wrong — a reasonable modification is at the disabled person’s expense by default, but at the OWNER’s expense in publicly assisted housing or housing of ten or more units, which is most Massachusetts condominiums. Deadlines run on two clocks: 300 days to the commission under § 5 with three years to court after that, or one year straight to court under § 9 if no commission complaint is filed at all. 05 General Provisions Relative to Real Property Chapter 184, 46 sections, §§ 1 to 35. Restrictions unlimited as to time are cut to thirty years from the instrument — or the probate of the will — creating them (§ 23), excepting public, charitable and religious gifts, restrictions existing on 16 July 1887, those in a deed, grant or gift of the Commonwealth, and those with the benefit of § 32. But thirty years is not the only clock: § 27 governs restrictions imposed after 31 December 1961 and § 28 gives FIFTY years to those imposed before 1 January 1962. Three restrictions are void: discriminatory covenants under § 23B, excepting a limitation on the basis of religion on property held by a religious institution; anti-solar provisions under § 23C, which void a provision that forbids or unreasonably restricts a solar energy system or the building of structures that facilitate collection; and, to the extent of the prohibition, restrictions barring a community residence for persons with disabilities under § 23D. Section 23A bars a complaint about a structure more than six years after completion. Read in full, the chapter carries no flag, clothesline or political-sign override.
When money is owed

Chapter 183A gives the association the lien; a different body of law limits how the debt may be pursued. Chapter 93 § 49 forbids a creditor — not only a hired collection agency — from collecting a consumer debt in an unfair, deceptive or unreasonable manner, and provides that failure to comply is itself an unfair or deceptive act under ch. 93A. Whether it catches a particular assessment is a real question rather than a formality, and the page states the limits as plainly as the reach.

06 Consumer protection and unfair debt collection Chapter 93A, 11 sections, and ch. 93 §§ 24 to 28 and 49 to 49A — 29 sections. Section 49 opens by binding “a creditor or an attorney for a creditor, or an assignee of a creditor, of a natural person present or residing in Massachusetts who has incurred a debt primarily for personal, family or household purposes”, then defines four ways that standard is failed. The Attorney General’s 940 CMR 7.00 adds the detailed conduct rules, and its definitions decide who is caught: “Creditor” reaches the creditor and its agents and attorneys, and “Person” expressly includes a trust or unincorporated association — but “Debt” is gated to money more than thirty days past due, under a single account, from a purchase, lease or loan, owed by a natural person. Chapter 93A § 9 is the remedy and has a step people miss: a written demand for relief at least thirty days before filing. Damages are actual damages or twenty-five dollars, and two to three times that for a wilful or knowing violation or a bad-faith refusal; attorney’s fees follow any violation of § 2, wilful or not.
Everything that is somewhere else

Six pages still leave a layer out. How the association’s lien is actually enforced, and the thirty-day filing that dissolves it if missed, are in ch. 254. How long you have is in ch. 260. Which court will hear you is in ch. 218 and ch. 185C. Whether your homestead helps is in ch. 188. Where your association’s papers are recorded is in ch. 36 and ch. 185. None of that is in ch. 183A, and none of it is optional to know.

07 Related and miscellaneous Massachusetts statutes Chapters 254, 244, 260, 218, 185C, 188, 187, 36 and 185 — nine topics and six myth cards. Chapter 254 § 5 names the ch. 183A § 6 lien in its own text and requires an attested copy of the complaint to be recorded within thirty days of commencing the action or the lien is dissolved. Contract actions run six years under ch. 260 § 2 — though § 2 yields to § 1, which gives twenty years on a contract under seal, and condominium instruments often are — while tort runs three under § 2A. Small claims reach $7,000 in the district court or the Boston municipal court (ch. 218 § 21). The Housing Court has six divisions covering the whole Commonwealth (ch. 185C § 1). Chapter 188 gives a $125,000 automatic and a $1,000,000 declared homestead exemption, but § 3(b)(2) excepts a lien recorded before the estate was created — and the condominium lien is perfected by the master deed. Chapter 187 § 1 forecloses the usual assumption that windows acquire an easement of light; § 1A provides for solar easements by grant, covenant or a ch. 40A § 9B permit. And ch. 36 § 1 divides five counties into registry districts — Massachusetts has no county recorder.

Source. Every answer on this page is taken from the Massachusetts General Laws as published by the 194th General Court of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts at malegislature.gov, captured August 2026, or from 940 CMR 7.00 as published by the Office of the Attorney General, and names the section it comes from. The statement that Massachusetts has no homeowners association act is checked against the complete chapter index of the General Laws. General information, not legal advice; confirm the current text against the official source.

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