Illinois Just Told Every Association to Get a Website
On August 7, 2026, the Governor signed Public Act 104-0797. It amends both statutes that govern Illinois community associations, and it does two things for unit owners.
First, every board must run a website that owners can reach on the internet, no later than January 1, 2028. Second, boards must send the association's annual financial disclosure electronically to owners who have given the association their contact information and authorized electronic delivery.
The Act takes effect January 1, 2027. The website deadline sits a year further out. Every situation is different and this article is not legal advice.
This is a real gain, and it is narrower than the headlines suggest. It also comes with one step you need to take yourself, or the second half of it will never reach you.
First, Figure Out Which Statute Governs You
The Act amends two different laws, and which one covers you changes what the new rules are worth.
If you own a condominium, you are under the Condominium Property Act (765 ILCS 605). Your board's new website duty is Section 18.4(t). The new email duty is Section 18(a)(7).
If you own an attached or detached townhome, a villa, or a single-family home in a covenanted community, you are probably under the Common Interest Community Association Act (765 ILCS 160). Your board's website duty is Section 1-30(l), and the email duty is Section 1-45(b).
Check one thing first. If your association also exercises powers for a condominium in the same development, it may be a "master association" under Section 18.5 of the Condominium Property Act, and master associations are expressly excluded from the Common Interest Community Association Act. In Bogot v. Haverford Homeowners Association, 2026 IL App (1st) 250080, the First District held in May 2026 that an association covering detached homes and a condominium building was a master association governed by the Condominium Property Act. If your development has both condominiums and houses, get the classification confirmed before you count on any deadline here.
One terminology note. The statute calls your association a "common interest community association." Nobody says that out loud. Everyone says HOA.
What the Website Actually Has to Contain
The new language is identical in both statutes:
"The board must provide a website no later than January 1, 2028 that unit owners can access on the Internet that includes information about board and membership meetings and the approved minutes from a meeting of the board."
That is the whole requirement. One sentence.
Read it closely, because the omissions matter. It requires "information about" board and membership meetings without saying what information. It refers to "the approved minutes from a meeting of the board," in the singular, and only after minutes are approved. It says nothing about how long anything stays posted. Expect boards to read those gaps in their own favor.
It does not require the annual budget, the reserve study, vendor contracts, insurance policies, the declaration, the bylaws, the rules, or the financial statements. It does not require meeting agendas. The separate 48-hour board meeting notice rules are unchanged.
So the website is a floor, not a filing cabinet. It will not replace a records request, and no board has to treat it as one.
The Email Requirement Only Works If You Opt In
This is the part most owners will miss, and the part you can act on today.
Both statutes already required an annual financial disclosure. Section 18(a)(7) makes a condominium board give every owner an itemized accounting of last year's common expenses and what was collected against them. Section 1-45(b) makes a community association board give members a reasonably detailed summary of receipts, common expenses, and reserves for the preceding budget year, or a consolidated annual independent audit report.
Public Act 104-0797 changes this twice. The condominium accounting must now expressly include "receipts and expenses," not just expenses. And both statutes gain a delivery requirement. The Condominium Property Act version reads:
"this information shall be supplied through electronic transmission to all members who have provided their information to the association and authorized the association to transmit such information by electronic transmission as provided in Section 18.4"
The Common Interest Community Association Act version is nearly identical. It says "must" rather than "shall" and carries no cross-reference.
Notice the condition. The board owes you electronic delivery only if you have both given the association your contact information and authorized electronic transmission. No email address on file and no written authorization means this new right does nothing for you.
So send the authorization. A short signed letter or email to the board and the management company, stating your email address and authorizing the association to transmit notices and financial information electronically, is enough. Date it. Keep a copy.
Authorizing does not trap you online. Both Acts say that if you never authorize electronic communication in writing, the association has to keep dealing with you on paper and pay for that itself. Going paperless is your choice. You just do not get the new right unless you make it.
What This Law Does Not Do
Do not build a strategy on a tool that cannot carry weight.
The new duties carry no penalty. Public Act 104-0797 attaches no fine, no enforcement mechanism, no deadline consequence, and no attorney fee award to either new duty. Compare the records provisions, which do carry fee awards. A board that reaches January 1, 2028 with no website faces nothing automatic.
Neither Act gives owners a general right to sue for compliance. Both Acts let the board go to court on behalf of the owners as a group. Neither gives an individual owner a matching general right. Where the legislature wanted an owner remedy, it wrote one, as it did for records in Section 19 of the Condominium Property Act and Section 1-30(i) of the Common Interest Community Association Act. Courts do not fill that gap lightly. In Channon v. Westward Management, Inc., 2022 IL 128040, the Illinois Supreme Court refused to read a private right to sue into Section 22.1 of the Condominium Property Act, holding that courts take that step only where a statute would "be ineffective, as a practical matter, unless a private right of action were implied." That is binding on every Illinois court, and it is the first thing board counsel will cite.
Some small HOAs are exempt, and some only partly. Section 1-75 has two exemptions that are easy to confuse. Subsection (a) is the full one: a common interest community association organized as an Illinois not-for-profit corporation, with either 10 or fewer units or budgeted assessments of $100,000 or less a year, is exempt from the entire Act unless it votes to be covered. Subsection (b) is far narrower and reaches only three provisions. The website duty, Section 1-30(l), is not one of them, so an association covered by subsection (b) but not subsection (a) still owes the website. Condominiums have no size exemption, so a six-unit condominium carries the same duty as a 500-unit high-rise.
The bill got much weaker on its way through Springfield. As introduced, HB 5449 would have required 75% owner approval for any fee increase over 10%, and quarterly emailed financial data including invoices, contracts, and obligations. Two floor amendments stripped all of that out and dropped the agenda requirement. The trade association representing Illinois boards and management companies published its own account in July 2026, stating that its legislative committee "worked with legislative sponsors to successfully remove the fee cap, as well as amend the quarterly notice requirement to annual."
What Unit Owners Should Do Now
Authorize electronic delivery in writing this week. Nothing else here matters if the association never has to email you.
Ask the board, in writing, for its website plan. A short letter asking what platform, what budget, and what launch date does two things. It creates a record, and it makes any eventual failure a knowing one. Ask that the response appear in the minutes.
Keep using records requests, because they still do the heavy lifting. For condominiums, Section 19 requires a written request stating with particularity what you want. If the board does not produce the records within 10 business days, the law treats the silence as a denial, and an owner who sues for the core categories and wins recovers reasonable attorney's fees and costs. For common interest communities, Section 1-30(i) gives the board 30 days, and fees require both prevailing and a court finding that the failure was due to the acts or omissions of the board. Those are not the same rights.
Read the annual accounting and compare it to the budget. The gap between what was budgeted, what was collected, and what was spent is where most assessment disputes start. If the numbers point toward a large new charge, the petition right that forces an owner vote when assessments exceed 115% of the prior year is untouched by this Act, and we walk through it in How to Challenge an HOA Special Assessment in Illinois. Condo owners get 21 days to deliver that petition. Community association members get only 14.
Keep the paper. A board that missed the deadline after being asked in writing is in a different position than one that simply overlooked it. We cover the claims that grow out of a documented record in Do You Have a Claim Against Your HOA?
One Thing You Should Not Do: Withhold Assessments
If your board ignores the new website requirement, or refuses to email the financials after you authorized delivery, the temptation is to stop paying until it complies. Do not.
Unpaid assessments become a lien on your unit, and interest, late charges, and the association's attorney fees stack on top. In Spanish Court Two Condominium Association v. Carlson, 2014 IL 115342, the Illinois Supreme Court held that an association's failure to repair and maintain the common elements is not a viable defense to an eviction action for unpaid assessments. A general complaint about how the board is run belongs in its own lawsuit, not in the collection case.
One category does survive. The same opinion says a unit owner "could, for example, challenge whether assessments are due by challenging the association's recordkeeping, or the manner in which the assessment was adopted." In that very case, the trial court disallowed a special assessment on that basis. So if the board never adopted the assessment properly, that goes to whether the money is owed. A complaint that the board never built its website does not. We explain how far collection can go in Can My HOA Foreclose on My Condo in Illinois?
Pay, note that you are paying under protest if you have a dispute, and fight through the channels that work.
Talk to Us Before the Deadline Is Behind You
Public Act 104-0797 gives owners two new handholds and no hammer. The value is in using it early: authorization on file, the board's intentions in writing, a record built while the deadline is still ahead of everyone. That is cheap now and expensive to reconstruct later.
Our office represents unit owners, not boards, in HOA and condo disputes across Chicago and the collar counties. If your board is stonewalling on records, financials, or meetings, contact The Law Office of Krista Krepp at contact@krepplaw.com or schedule a consultation online.
Frequently Asked Questions
When does my association actually have to have a website up? January 1, 2028. The Act takes effect January 1, 2027, but the website provision carries its own later deadline. The electronic delivery requirement is not delayed, so on our reading it reaches annual disclosures supplied on or after January 1, 2027.
What happens if my board misses the deadline? Nothing automatic. The Act sets no fine, no penalty, and no fee award. Condominium owners have an argument that the duty is written into the governing documents by operation of law, which opens ordinary contract and fiduciary duty routes. For common interest community members the statute is thinner. No reported Illinois decision has construed this provision yet.
Do I automatically get the financials by email now? No. The duty runs only to owners who gave the association their contact information and authorized electronic transmission. Without a written authorization, the board owes you nothing electronically. Send one and keep a dated copy.
Does the new website replace my right to request records? No. The website carries meeting information and approved board minutes. Records requests reach the declaration and bylaws, rules, minutes for the preceding seven years, insurance policies, contracts and leases, the books and records of account, and reserve studies, with fees available to a condominium owner who prevails. Two categories are harder: for the membership list and for ballots, fees require a court finding that the board acted in bad faith.
My HOA is small. Does this apply to us? Maybe not, and maybe only partly. Section 1-75(a) fully exempts a common interest community association organized as a not-for-profit corporation with 10 or fewer units, or budgeted assessments of $100,000 or less, unless it elects coverage. The narrower exemption in Section 1-75(b) does not cover the website duty. Nothing in the Condominium Property Act exempts small condominiums.
Can I stop paying assessments if the board ignores the new law? No. Withholding turns a transparency dispute into a lien, and then into an eviction or foreclosure action with the association's attorney fees added to your balance. Pay under protest and pursue the transparency issue separately.