New Texas HOA laws, effective September 1, 2025.

Every two years the Texas Legislature takes another pass at the relationship between homeowners and their associations, and 2025 was a narrower pass than the headlines suggested. Five bills made it through. Each one is short. Read together, they move power toward the owner in a few specific places: the lawn during a drought, the fence around the house, the seats on the committee that approves both, and the way members meet and vote.

What follows is each change in turn, the section of the Property Code it lives in, and the number that decides most disputes under it. Every section was checked against the current statute on October 30, 2026.

The changes at a glance

Brown lawns during a drought: HB 517

An association can no longer fine an owner under a covenant that requires grass or turf, or that bans brown or discolored vegetation, while the property is under a residential watering restriction that could reasonably cause the browning. The protection runs until the 60th day after the restriction is lifted. A qualifying restriction is a temporary, drought-driven limit on residential irrigation ordered by a city, a water utility or another water supplier.

Two limits are worth knowing. The statute bars the fine, not the violation letter, so an association can still send notice. And it covers the lawn covenant only; it does not suspend other landscaping rules. Tex. Prop. Code § 202.008.

Fences and driveway gates: SB 711

Since 2021 an association has not been able to stop an owner from installing security measures, perimeter fencing included. SB 711 rewrote the exceptions. An association may now:

• prohibit fencing that blocks a license area, a sidewalk built for public or community use, or a drainage easement;
• require a driveway gate to be set back at least 10 feet from the right-of-way where the driveway meets a laned roadway;
• prohibit fencing in front of the front-most building line of the house, but only where a restrictive covenant already provides for it.

The owner keeps three protections. Perimeter or front-yard fencing built before September 1, 2025 may stay. The front-yard ban cannot be applied to an owner whose home address is exempt from public disclosure, such as a judge or a peace officer, or to an owner who gives the association a law-enforcement agency’s documentation of a need for enhanced security. The section does not apply to condominiums. Tex. Prop. Code § 202.023.

Who sits on the architectural committee: SB 711

In an association of more than 40 lots that is past its development period, the board can no longer fill the architectural review committee quietly. At least 10 days before it elects or appoints members, it must send every owner a call for volunteers, by mail or by posting plus email to every owner who has registered an address. The response deadline must be at least 10 days after the notice goes out.

Only people who answered in time can be seated, and board members, their spouses and anyone living in their household remain ineligible. If seats are still empty after every eligible volunteer is seated, the association may appoint whomever it likes, board members included. Tex. Prop. Code §§ 209.00505(b), 209.00506, 209.00507.

Meetings and votes by screen: SB 2629

Owner meetings may now be held by any method of communication the Business Organizations Code allows, electronic and telephone meetings included. An association still needs to offer only one method of voting unless its own documents require more, and that one method may now be an electronic ballot, alongside the absentee ballot and the proxy that were already allowed.

Condominium associations got the same flexibility for association and board meetings, with one guardrail: an electronic or written-consent board action cannot be used to levy a fine or a damage assessment, decide an appeal of an architectural denial, or suspend an owner’s rights before the owner has had a chance to be heard. Tex. Prop. Code §§ 209.0056(d), 209.00592(a-1), 82.108, 82.110.

Officials and candidates in common areas: HB 621

An association cannot ban, or make it practically impossible, for owners and residents to invite elected officials or qualified candidates to speak in a common area. It can still apply the rules it applies to any gathering: a rental fee or deposit, occupancy limits, hours, which rooms are available, and a written reservation. Seasonal areas, rooms reserved for association business, and associations that are 501(c)(3) organizations are excepted. Tex. Prop. Code § 202.013.

Solar roof tiles: HB 431

The protected category of solar energy devices now names solar roof tiles expressly. The bill says it clarifies existing law rather than changing it, and it took effect early, on May 29, 2025. Tex. Prop. Code § 202.010(a)(2).

Condominiums: SB 711

• A website. A condominium of 60 or more units, or any condominium association with a management company, must post its current recorded dedicatory instruments on a website its members can reach. § 82.1142.
• The management certificate. It must now include the recording data for the declaration, the manager’s phone and email, the website address and any transfer fees. An amended certificate is due within 30 days of a change, and each certificate must be filed electronically with the Texas Real Estate Commission within 7 days of recording. Certificates recorded before September 1, 2025 had to be filed with the Commission by March 1, 2026. Until the certificate is recorded and filed, an owner does not owe the association’s attorney’s fees or interest on late assessments. § 82.116.
• The resale certificate. The fee is capped at $375. The cap covers condominiums only; the resale-certificate rules for other associations, in Chapter 207, did not change. § 82.157(f).

What did not change

Several summaries of the 2025 session describe new rules on fines, cure periods and collections. None passed. Section 209.006 still requires a violation notice to give the owner a reasonable period to cure, without a fixed number of days; the owner still has 30 days to request a hearing; and the notice rules still do not apply to a repeat violation within six months. Those rules were last changed in 2021. Nothing in 2025 changed collections, foreclosure, records requests, flags, standby generators, xeriscaping, short-term rentals or board eligibility. A bill that would have let owners withhold assessments, HB 5011, did not pass.

No later law has amended any section discussed here. The 89th Legislature’s two called sessions in 2025 did not reach them, and the next regular session opens on January 12, 2027.

What to do now

Boards: pull the lawn, fencing and committee provisions out of the dedicatory instruments and read them against sections 202.008, 202.023 and 209.00507. A rule that was enforceable in August 2025 may not be now, and a fine levied under an unenforceable rule is the fastest way to turn a neighbor complaint into a lawsuit. Condominium boards should confirm the management certificate is on file with the Real Estate Commission.

Owners: if you received a brown-lawn fine during a watering restriction after September 1, 2025, or a demand to remove a fence built before that date, the statute is on your side, and a short letter citing the section is usually the right first step.

Sources: enrolled text of SB 711, HB 517, HB 621, HB 431 and SB 2629; Texas Property Code chapters 202, 209 and 82, current through October 30, 2026; Government Code § 301.001.