SB711

SB711 changes condominium information and fees, security-fence rules, and recruitment for certain homeowners’ association architectural-review committees. These provisions have different coverage; they do not all apply to every association. Signed May 13, 2025, the law took effect September 1, 2025. Entire enacted act; Official history.

Condominium documents and fees. Under the new website provision, covered associations with at least 60 units, or that contract with a management company regardless of size, must make current county-recorded governing documents available on an association or management-company website accessible to members. This is not a requirement to publish every private record to everyone. A reasonable and necessary fee for furnishing a condominium resale certificate may not exceed $375; that is not a cap on all transfer fees. Sections 1–2 and 4.

Condominium management certificates must include updated declaration-recording information, association mailing address, management-company contact information, the applicable governing-document website, and amounts and descriptions of unit-transfer fees. They must be recorded in each county containing part of the condominium, updated within 30 days after notice of a required-information change, and electronically filed with the Texas Real Estate Commission within seven days after county filing. TREC collects the certificates to make their data publicly accessible. Associations with certificates recorded before the act’s effective date had until March 1, 2026 to file their most recently recorded certificate electronically. Sections 3 and 8.

During a period when a required management certificate is not county-recorded or electronically filed with TREC, a unit owner is not liable for delinquent-assessment collection attorney fees incurred or assessment interest accrued during that period. The act does not forgive the underlying assessment. It preserves the general protection against liability for filing delay or failure unless willful or grossly negligent, subject to this specific owner protection. Chapter 82 generally governs post-1993 condominiums and older ones that opted in; its existing applicability provision also extends Sections 82.116 and 82.157 to older condominiums with stated limits. The new website section is not added to that automatic older-condominium list. Section 3; Condominium applicability rules.

Security fencing. For associations covered by Section 202.023—not condominiums or the excluded master mixed-use associations—the act permits restrictions on fences obstructing defined license areas, public/community sidewalks or drainage areas/easements. It permits requiring driveway gates to be set back at least ten feet from the right-of-way where a driveway meets a roadway with at least two clearly marked lanes. A restrictive covenant may prohibit fencing ahead of the dwelling’s front-most building line. But owners may maintain perimeter or front-building-line fencing installed before September 1, 2025. The front-line prohibition also cannot block such fencing for owners whose residential address is legally exempt from disclosure or who provide law-enforcement documentation of a need for enhanced security. That latter exception does not erase the other listed placement restrictions. Section 5; Existing coverage exclusions and security protection; Definition of laned roadway.

Architectural-review candidates. For the covered non-condominium associations with more than 40 lots, outside the specified development and developer-control periods, the association must solicit interested candidates at least ten days before appointment or election action. Notice must be mailed to each owner, or conspicuously posted on qualifying property or online and emailed to registered addresses. It must give response instructions and a deadline at least ten days after notice. Normally candidates must respond timely and cannot be current board members, their spouses or household residents. If vacancies remain after every timely interested person eligible under that restriction is appointed or elected, any person may fill the vacancies, including otherwise excluded people. Sections 6–7; More-than-40-lot and developer-control limits; Residential-subdivision and condominium limits.