Massachusetts Condo Fines: Reasonable Only, No Statutory Cap or Hearing

The fine power sits in the list of organization powers in M.G.L. c. 183A, § 10(b). Clause (5) authorizes the corporation, trust or association "To impose charges or to charge interest for the late payment of common expense assessments or other charges, and to levy reasonable fines for violations of the master deed, trust, by-laws, restrictions, rules or regulations of the organization of unit owners." Clause (4) supplies the enforcement side, giving the organization power to conduct litigation and to be sued on any cause of action arising out of enforcement of the by-laws, administrative rules or master deed restrictions. Those two clauses are the entirety of the Massachusetts statutory law of condominium fines.

What is missing matters more than what is present. Chapter 183A fixes no maximum fine, no per day or per violation schedule, no minimum warning, no cure period and no hearing. Section 11, which lists the provisions a condominium's by-laws must contain at all times, requires only five things: the method of providing for maintenance, repair and replacement work and payment vouchers; the manner of collecting each owner's share of common expenses; the procedure for hiring personnel; the method of adopting and amending administrative rules and regulations; and use and maintenance restrictions designed to prevent unreasonable interference among owners. A fine schedule or a violation hearing appears nowhere on that mandatory list. Section 12 then says the by-laws "may also provide" a procedure for submitting disputes arising from administration of the condominium to arbitration, which makes an arbitration route optional and document specific rather than a right every Massachusetts owner has. In practice, whatever notice, hearing or appeal an owner gets comes from the recorded by-laws and rules of that particular condominium, not from the General Laws.

Collection is where the statute becomes concrete. The final sentence of § 6(a)(ii) provides that the organization "may also assess any fees, attorneys' fees, charges, late charges, fines, costs of collection and enforcement, court costs, and interest charged pursuant to this chapter against the unit owner and such assessment shall constitute a lien against the unit from the time the assessment is due, and shall be enforceable as common expense assessments under this chapter." Section 6(b) adds personal liability, making the owner personally liable for late charges, fines, penalties and interest plus all costs of collection including attorneys' fees. Section 7 closes the obvious self help route: no unit owner is entitled to an offset, deduction or waiver of common expenses or other charges lawfully assessed, and no owner may escape liability by abandoning the unit or waiving use of the common areas. Withholding the monthly fee to protest a fine is therefore itself a violation in Massachusetts.

There is one significant protection buried in the priority rules. Section 6(c) gives a Massachusetts condominium lien priority over a first mortgage to the extent of the common expense assessments that would have come due during the six months immediately preceding the action to enforce the lien, plus costs and reasonable attorneys' fees. The same paragraph then states that the priority amount "shall not include any amounts attributable to special assessments, late charges, fines, penalties, and interest assessed by the organization of unit owners." Fines are lienable, but they sit behind the first mortgage rather than inside the six month super priority, which is why associations pursuing a fine balance usually add it to an assessment action rather than filing on the fine alone.

The procedural steps in § 6(c) apply once a share of the common expenses has been delinquent for at least 60 days: the organization must send notice of the amount of the delinquency to the unit owner by certified and first class mail, and the same notice to the first mortgagee where that mortgagee has given the organization its name and mailing address. Thirty days before filing an action to enforce the lien, the organization must send the first mortgagee notice of its intention to file. The lien itself is enforced in the manner provided by M.G.L. c. 254, §§ 5 and 5A, and recording of the master deed constitutes record notice and perfection, so no separate claim of lien is recorded.

One limit on the whole discussion: chapter 183A reaches condominiums submitted to it, not every community association in the Commonwealth. Massachusetts has a Condominium Act but no general homeowners association act, so an owner in a covenanted subdivision of detached houses is governed by the recorded declaration and ordinary contract law, with no § 10(b)(5) reasonableness standard and no § 6 lien machinery unless the declaration creates its own.

A fine that the owner does not pay is treated as an assessment. Under § 6(a)(ii) it becomes a lien against the unit from the time the assessment is due and is enforceable in the same manner as a common expense assessment, and under § 6(b) the owner is personally liable for it along with late charges, penalties, interest and all costs of collection including attorneys' fees. That means the association can pursue the owner personally and the unit at the same time. c. 254, §§ 5 and 5A, and because recording of the master deed already perfects the lien, an owner will not see a separate recorded claim of lien as a warning.

The 60 day delinquency notice by certified and first class mail and the 30 day pre-filing notice to a first mortgagee under § 6(c) are the two dated checkpoints an owner should watch for. Section 7 forecloses the common owner response: there is no offset, deduction or waiver of charges lawfully assessed, so paying under protest and disputing the fine separately is the safe course rather than withholding. On the challenge side, the owner's argument is that the fine is not "reasonable" within § 10(b)(5), or that it was not levied for a violation of the master deed, trust, by-laws, restrictions, rules or regulations at all.

Section 10(b)(4) confirms the organization can be sued on causes of action arising out of enforcement of the by-laws, administrative rules or master deed restrictions, so that dispute is heard in court unless the condominium's own by-laws have adopted an arbitration procedure under § 12(b). Section 10(d) supplies a related fee shifting hook: in an action to enforce the financial review paragraph of that subsection, the prevailing party is entitled to reasonable attorneys' fees.