Enrolled Bill Summary

            Senate Bill 507 amends the Property Code to adopt the Texas Residential Property Owners Protection Act. The bill requires certain residential property owners' associations in subdivisions subject to certain deed restrictions and covenants and where association membership is mandatory to record a management certificate with each county in which any part of the pertinent subdivision is located and to make the association's books and records reasonably available to an owner. The bill requires an association to give written notice to an owner before it may take an enforcement action such as suspending an owner's right to use a common area, filing certain suits against an owner, charging an owner for property damage, or levying a fine for a violation of its restrictions or bylaws. The notice must provide the owner with a reasonable period to cure a violation and avoid the fine or suspension, and the owner is authorized to request a hearing before the board of the association to resolve the matter. The bill also authorizes an association to in certain limited circumstances collect reimbursement of reasonable attorney's fees and other costs relating to collection of amounts, including damages, due the association for enforcing restrictions and bylaws.

            The bill prohibits an association from foreclosing a property owners' association's assessment lien if the debt securing the lien consists solely of fines assessed by the association or associated attorney's fees. The bill also requires an association that conducts a foreclosure sale of an owner's lot to send the lot owner a notice containing information about the sale and the owner's right to redeem the property. An owner is entitled to redeem the property from any purchaser at a foreclosure sale not later than the 180th day after the notice is mailed, and the purchaser is prohibited from transferring ownership of the property to anyone else during the redemption period. The bill prescribes the amounts that the owner must pay to the association and to the purchaser if the purchaser is someone other than the association and the procedures that must be followed in order to redeem the property.