Rather than improving governance of associations, CAI’s California Legislative Action Committee (CLAC) believes this bill will make your job as a community manager more difficult, and likely lead to more lawsuits against community associations and increased costs for the more than 14 million homeowners residing in over 51,000 common interest developments throughout California.

While CLAC appreciates the bill author’s intent to improve governance, transparency, and building safety within homeowner associations, the provision in the bill extending a manager’s duty of care to the members of the association will result in increased litigation and costs to associations. 

The bill includes language regarding a manager’s ‘duty of care’ to the association and members of the association.  This bill would revise the definition of agent to include a person or company that facilitates activities pursuant to specified provisions of the Davis Stirling Act and provides that the agent owes a duty of care that is prudent and provides the highest good faith effort to the board of a homeowner’s association and its members.

CLAC agrees the manager owes a duty of care to the association because of the contractual relationship between the two. We support transparency in management and governance of community associations. 

However, we cannot support extending in statute a manager’s duty to the members of the association. The manager is the association’s agent, and the manager’s contractual duty is owed to the corporation. The association already owes a duty to the members. If the manager fails to comply with the Davis-Stirling Act, that failure is imputed to the association. There is no need to impose a duty on the manager. It will only create litigation expenses which will be passed on to homeowners, further increasing the cost of ownership.

For these reasons, we strongly urge homeowners in California’s community associations to request Governor Newsom veto this bill and prevent increased costs on homeowners.

To stay in the loop on all the bills CAI-CLAC is monitoring this session, visit our 2026 Legislative Session Hot Bills page.