Overview

Effective January 1, 2026, the Legislature made it clear that California HOA members were entitled to receive a copy of the inspection reports mandated by SB 326, California’s “Balcony Law.” That entitlement reached a category of documents many bad HOAs would have preferred to keep out of their members’ hands.

For many bad HOAs that spent years deferring maintenance on wooden balconies, decks, and other exterior elevated elements, the SB 326 reports have not delivered good news. Many of the reports have revealed systemic dry rot, water intrusion, and structural decay, and the cost of correcting those conditions has fallen on the membership as special assessments, often reaching tens of thousands of dollars per household. The reports have also forced HOAs to take action they could no longer postpone, because an inspector’s finding of an immediate threat to safety obligated those HOAs to make repairs without delay. Bad HOAs facing such pressures have every incentive to keep the reports quiet, which is why many of them have stalled, supplied sanitized summaries, or dismissed the reports as internal documents beyond the members’ reach.

The SB 326 report also stands apart from the typical report an HOA’s vendor prepares. The Davis-Stirling Act has never given members the right to obtain every document a vendor generates, such as a consultant’s report investigating a water intrusion problem, yet the Legislature singled out the SB 326 report for protection those other reports never received.

This Fact Sheet explains why the SB 326 report qualifies as a mandatory association record, how long HOAs must retain and produce it, the separate statutory routes that secured member access regardless of when a member first asked, and the steps a homeowner should take after an HOA refuses to produce the report, stalls, or buries what the inspector found.

Key Points

The question of whether a California HOA can withhold its SB 326 inspection report has a direct answer, and the Davis-Stirling Act supplies it from more than one direction. The report falls within the type of “association record(s)” that an HOA has to allow its members to copy, the HOA has to retain it for years, and the HOA has to produce it on a fixed timeline once a member asks. The points below explain where that obligation comes from, how far back a member can reach for the report, why the report differs from most vendor reports an HOA may keep to itself, and what a homeowner should do when an HOA tries to withhold what the inspector found.

• The SB 326 report records what the mandatory balcony inspection uncovered, which is exactly what bad HOAs would rather members never read. Civil Code 5551 requires HOAs to inspect the load-bearing components and waterproofing systems of their exterior elevated elements (e.g., balconies, decks, stairways, and walkways) made or supported in whole or in part of wood. That statute also requires the inspector to deliver a written report identifying the components examined, describing their condition, flagging any immediate threat to safety, estimating the remaining useful life of those components, and recommending the repairs the HOA needs to make. In cases where bad HOAs allowed years of deferred maintenance and repairs, those findings convert into repair costs, and the repair costs convert into special assessments, so the report frequently arrives carrying news that exposes both a large bill and the years of deferred maintenance that produced it. [For the inspection requirements behind the report, including the deadline HOAs faced and which licensed professionals the Davis-Stirling Act allowed to perform the inspection, read my Fact Sheet “California HOA Balcony Inspection Law: What SB 326 Requires.”]
• Members held a strong claim to the report even before the 2026 amendment to Civil Code 5551 designated it as an association record. Although Civil Code 5200 didn’t list the SB 326 report by name until January 1, 2026, two features of Civil Code 5551 already pulled it within members’ reach. From its passage, Civil Code 5551 required the HOA to incorporate the report into the reserve study prepared under Civil Code 5550, a study members have always been entitled to receive and copy.
• Civil Code 5200(a)(15) classifies every SB 326 inspector’s report as an association record, which strips an HOA of any discretion to withhold it. Effective January 1, 2026, SB 410 added the SB 326 report to the list of association records members may copy that’s codified in Civil Code 5200. Once a document carries that status, an HOA can’t treat production as optional or condition it on board approval. Civil Code 5210(b) fixes the timeline, requiring an HOA to produce records from the current fiscal year within 10 business days of the request. [If you’d like to know more about the other HOA records to which you’re entitled to copy, read my Fact Sheet “What HOA Documents Am I Legally Entitled to See in California?”]
• The two-inspection-cycle retention rule keeps the SB 326 inspection report reachable for as long as 18 years. Most association records stay open to member inspection for a limited period of time, such as one or two years. But the SB 326 inspection report follows a much longer rule. Civil Code 5551(i) requires HOAs to maintain each report for two inspection cycles, and Civil Code 5210(a)(3) ties the inspection window to that same period. Because Civil Code 5551(b) sets the inspection interval at nine years, two cycles equal 18 years, which means a member can demand not only the most recent report but the one before it, a comparison that often reveals deterioration an HOA allowed to worsen across a decade or more. [In my opinion, this will prove an extremely valuable tool for homeowners attempting to prove gross negligence for failure to maintain on the part of successive HOA boards over a long enough time period.]
• The SB 326 inspection report differs from the ordinary vendor report an HOA can lawfully keep to itself. Civil Code 5200 entitles members to specific, enumerated categories of records, and a consultant’s freestanding report doesn’t appear on that list. Consider an HOA that hired an engineer to investigate a water intrusion problem in one of its buildings. Members could demand the consultant’s contract under Civil Code 5200(a)(4), the HOA board’s written approval of the proposal or invoice under Civil Code 5200(a)(5), and the invoices and canceled checks for the work under Civil Code 5200(b). Yet  none of those provisions allow homeowners to copy the consultant’s report itself. The SB 326 report escaped that result for a single reason, which is that the Legislature wrote it into Civil Code 5200(a)(15) and Civil Code 5551 by name.
• A refusal, a delay, or a sanitized summary often signals that the report contained findings the HOA preferred to keep quiet. An HOA holding a clean report has no reason to resist producing it. When an HOA stalls past the Civil Code 5210 deadline, hands a member a one-page recap in place of the full report, or insists the report is an internal document, the resistance itself frequently points to the conditions the inspector documented and the assessment those conditions will require. Members reading that resistance should treat it as a reason to press harder, because the report becomes most valuable precisely when an HOA works hardest to keep it out of view. [To understand how these repair costs become special assessments and when homeowners can challenge them, read my Fact Sheet “California HOA Special Assessments: What They Are, When They’re Legal, and How Homeowners Can Challenge Them.”]
• A homeowner who meets resistance should build a clean record and escalate in a deliberate sequence. An HOA rarely abandons a weak refusal on its own, so a member who wants the SB 326 inspection report should move methodically rather than argue in the moment. The steps below convert a stonewalled request into a documented violation a bad HOA struggles to defend.
  • Put the request in writing and cite the statutes that control. A member should request the report in writing and cite Civil Code 5200(a)(15). Homeowners should also cite Civil Code 5551(f), which requires HOAs to fold the SB 326 reports into their reserve studies, as well as Civil Code 5300(b)(3), which requires HOAs to make the reserve studies available to homeowners upon demand.
  • Reject a summary and insist on the report itself. Reject any attempt by your HOA to offer a summary or short recap in place of the full report.
  • Escalate to a petition to compel if the HOA still refuses. When an HOA ignores a proper written demand, homeowners should demand ADR within the context of Civil Code 5930. If mediation doesn’t result in full disclosure, or the HOA refuses the demand, homeowners should file an action under Civil Code 5235. Upon prevailing, they’re entitled to recover a penalty of up to $500 for each category of documents the HOA refused to deliver, as well as their attorneys’ fees and costs.
• Homeowners whose HOAs have refused to produce the entirety of the SB 326 inspection report should call the HOA attorneys at MBK Chapman. A records refusal often sits on top of exactly the kind of problem a bad HOA most wants buried, whether that’s a looming special assessment, systemic deferred maintenance, or a safety condition the HOA ignored. The HOA attorneys at MBK Chapman know what Civil Code 5551 and Civil Code 5200 require, how to force stonewalling HOAs to produce records, and how to use those records once they’re received.

The SB 326 report sits among the records an HOA has no authority to withhold, and the Davis-Stirling Act reinforces that conclusion through Civil Code 5200, Civil Code 5210, and Civil Code 5551. A homeowner who requests the report in writing, refuses a substitute, and reaches for the reserve study as a backstop leaves an HOA with no defensible path other than production. When an HOA resists anyway, that resistance usually marks the report as worth fighting for rather than a reason to walk away. The homeowner who treats a refusal as the start of the record, not the end of the request, ends up holding both the document and the leverage that comes with it.

FAQs

About Michael Kushner

Michael Kushner is a California attorney with over 30 years of experience representing homeowners in disputes with their HOAs. He is widely regarded as California’s leading homeowner-side HOA attorney, and has built one of the state’s most prominent law practices dedicated to holding HOAs accountable under the Davis-Stirling Act and California law.

In addition to his law firm’s work, Michael is a recognized lecturer, author, and the host of the hit HOA HELL podcast, where he provides homeowners living in HOA-governed communities with clear, practical strategies for dealing with bad HOAs. He’s also the author of the best-selling book, HOA HELL | California Homeowners’ Definitive Guide to Beating Bad HOAs, which has become a go-to resource for both homeowners seeking real-world solutions to their HOA disputes, as well as those good HOA board members who are interested in doing a good job.

About MBK Chapman Fact Sheets

Homeowners searching for answers online will often come across articles that appear authoritative, but are actually written as search-engine marketing content rather than by an experienced HOA lawyer. These pieces tend to prioritize keyword density over clarity, accuracy, or legal context, which often leaves homeowners more confused than informed.

At MBK Chapman, our Fact Sheets are part of our HOA Law Library and are written by Michael Kushner, an HOA lawyer with decades of hands-on experience representing California homeowners. In fact, Michael Kushner is the HOA lawyer who pioneered the systems and strategies used by some of California’s most successful homeowner-side HOA law firms.

Each Fact Sheet is deliberately concise, statute-based, and designed as a quick-reference guide to help homeowners understand key HOA laws and enforcement rules at a glance.

AND DON’T FORGET TO TUNE INTO MY PODCAST, HOA HELL

YOU CAN ALSO ORDER MY GROUNDBREAKING BOOK

HOA HELL | California Homeowners’ Definitive Guide to Beating Bad HOAs

Amazon  |  Barnes & Noble