Georgia required every homeowners association and condo board to register with the state and gave owners twelve rights. New York's bill never advanced.

On May 12, 2026, Governor Brian Kemp signed Georgia Senate Bill 406 into law. The Georgia Senate passed it 51 to 0 on March 4; the House passed it 155 to 10 on March 31. The bill requires every homeowners association and condominium association in Georgia to register annually with the Secretary of State as a condition of enforcement authority, beginning January 1, 2027. It codifies twelve property owner rights and doubles the minimum delinquency required before an association can begin foreclosure proceedings. New York Assembly Bill A5227, which would have created a condominium owner bill of rights under Article 9-B of the Real Property Law, was referred to the Assembly Housing Committee in January 2026 and received no floor vote before Albany adjourned on June 18, 2026.

What Georgia's SB 406 requires.

Georgia SB 406 has two effective dates. Attorney fee restrictions took effect July 1, 2026: before an association can recover attorney fees from a property owner, it must provide prior written notice identifying the breach and an itemized statement of fees, and a court must review those fees for reasonableness before awarding them. That provision applies retroactively to any fee claim not reduced to judgment before July 1.

The balance of the law takes effect January 1, 2027. Every residential property owners association in Georgia, including HOAs, condominium associations, and most common-interest communities, must register annually with the Secretary of State. The registration package includes the association's name, principal address, and officer information; a copy of its governing documents; and a financial statement dated within one year of filing. The annual registration fee is $100. According to the Georgia Secretary of State FAQ, the registration portal is being built now, with the January 1, 2027 deadline as the first annual filing date.

The enforcement mechanism has no equivalent in New York law. An association that fails to register, or fails to renew its registration by December 31 each year, forfeits its ability to collect fines, to record liens against a property owner's property, and to initiate foreclosure proceedings. The board's resolutions continue to have legal effect, but the financial tools that back them up are suspended until registration is current. An association cannot selectively cure: it must register before any of the three forfeited powers become available again.

The twelve rights Georgia codified.

Georgia SB 406 lists twelve rights that every property owner in a covered association holds by statute beginning January 1, 2027. Among them:

• The right to inspect and obtain copies of the association's financial records for the preceding three years.
• The right to receive a copy of the association's certificate of insurance on written request.
• The right to attend all annual membership meetings.
• The right to receive written notice of any proposed amendment to the governing documents at least 21 days before a vote.
• The right to challenge a fine before the association collects it.
• The right to receive a copy of the association's registration certificate on request.
• The right to receive an itemized accounting of any delinquency before a lien is recorded.

For each right, the statute specifies the delivery mechanism: written notice, defined time windows, and specific response formats. The complaint mechanism added by SB 406 allows a property owner to file a complaint with the Secretary of State's office; a hearing officer can then review whether a fine or penalty complied with the association's governing documents. The combination of codified rights and a state-agency complaint path is not something New York currently provides to condo unit owners or co-op shareholders for board-level disputes.

The foreclosure floor Georgia doubled.

Before SB 406, the minimum delinquency required before a Georgia association could begin foreclosure proceedings was $2,000. The new law sets the floor at the lesser of $4,000 or twelve months of regular assessments, but not less than $2,000. The statute is specific on what counts: only unpaid regular assessments, not fines and not fees. An owner who owes $1,500 in unpaid regular assessments and $3,500 in board-imposed fines cannot be foreclosed under the new law because fines do not count and the assessment amount has not reached the $2,000 statutory minimum.

Georgia's move follows a direction several states have taken after documented cases of foreclosure over small amounts. Arizona raised its foreclosure floor to $10,000 or 18 months of delinquency in 2025, following a Mesa case where an association bought a $449,000 home at a sheriff's sale for $8,172 to recover $977 in dues.

New York's Condominium Act sets no floor. Governor Hochul signed S7413 on October 16, 2025, adding a 90-day mandatory written notice period before a condo board may foreclose a common charge lien under Real Property Law § 339-aa. That amendment added a procedural step. It set no minimum assessment amount and no payment-plan requirement. An owner in Georgia who owes $3,500 in dues has a statutory floor protecting them. An owner in New York who owes $500 in common charges has a 90-day clock.

What New York already gives condo and co-op owners, and where it stops.

New York gives condo unit owners and co-op shareholders inspection rights in two statutes. Real Property Law § 339-w gives condo unit owners the right to inspect the board's financial books and records. Business Corporation Law § 624 gives co-op shareholders the right to inspect corporate books and records on five days' written notice.

Both statutes share the same enforcement gap. A board that refuses to produce records forces the owner into a proceeding under CPLR Article 78. No state agency can compel production. The Attorney General's Real Estate Finance Bureau has no post-closing governance enforcement authority, a structural limit this site has analyzed separately. The managing agent who controls the records holds no state license and faces no professional discipline for a deficient response to an owner inspection demand.

The framework difference is structural. Georgia's approach places the burden of maintaining compliance on the association: register or lose enforcement power. New York's approach places the burden on the owner: invoke a right, wait for a response, and litigate if the board refuses. That burden allocation is not an accident. New York has made the same choice on managing-agent licensure, mandatory reserve studies, and resale disclosure: boards receive the authority to act, and owners receive no state-agency backstop when boards do not.

The New York bill that would have matched it.

New York Assembly Bill A5227 (Reyes, 2025-2026 session) would have created a Residential Condominium Owner Bill of Rights under Article 9-B of the Real Property Law. The bill was referred to the Assembly Housing Committee in January 2026 and received no committee hearing, no floor vote, and no same-as companion in the Senate before the session ended on June 18, 2026.

A5227 is not the first attempt at this category of reform. The New York Senate passed S5089, a condo owner bill of rights, 60 to 0 with 2 abstentions in April 2025. Two Assembly companion bills were referred to the Housing Committee and never scheduled. The 2025-2026 session ended with four co-op and condo reform bills in committee, including the managing-agent licensure bill S.71, which did not advance for the tenth consecutive session.

Georgia's Senate passed SB 406 unanimously in the same period, 51 to 0, and its House passed it 155 to 10. Both chambers acted in a single session. Albany produced the same Senate margin on S5089. The Assembly did not schedule the companion bill. The legislative record is different in structure, not in the underlying proposal: Georgia's legislature agreed on the problem and passed a solution. New York's legislature agreed on the problem in one chamber and did not advance the solution in the other.

Bottom line.

Georgia's SB 406 is not a new notice requirement on a statute that boards can ignore. Registration is the condition that gives an association its enforcement authority. A board that lets registration lapse cannot fine, cannot record a lien, and cannot foreclose until it files. That accountability structure runs in the opposite direction from New York's framework, which requires owners to initiate litigation to vindicate rights the statutes nominally provide. New York has 14,062 condo and co-op buildings in its universe. Georgia's framework (mandatory registration, codified owner rights, a doubled foreclosure floor, attorney fee restrictions) takes effect January 1, 2027 in a state that already licensed community association managers in 1997. The 2027 Albany session opens in January. No identified sponsor has committed to reintroducing S.71. A5227, the condominium owner bill of rights, has no Senate companion.

Primary sources: Georgia SB 406 (Property Owners' Bill of Rights Act) — bill text and legislative history · Georgia SOS Property Owners' Associations Division FAQ — registration requirements and portal · NY RPL § 339-aa — NY condo lien foreclosure statute · NY RPL § 339-w — condo unit owner records inspection · NY BCL § 624 — co-op shareholder books and records right · NY A5227 — condominium owner bill of rights bill, 2025-2026 session

Companion resources: Florida HB 913 and the NY structural gap · Arizona's $977 foreclosure and NY's missing floor · NY's 90-day foreclosure notice with no dollar floor · Georgia's community manager license since 1997 · Four reform bills Albany adjourned without voting on · Managing agent licensure and the 2027 session · Why the AG can't help with most condo governance disputes · All regulatory gaps