HOA 101 - CC&Rs

An HOA is a private entity. But in some ways, it can act like a small, hyper-specific government.

Like a government, an HOA needs a constitution, a document that lays the ground rules for what’s allowed and what’s not. HOAs call these documents covenants, conditions, and restrictions, or CC&Rs. They describe how to maintain and use the property, like where homeowners can park their cars, how they should landscape their lawns and what kind of pets they're allowed to own. CC&Rs are often written while the developer building a new housing project still controls the HOA. To change them is expensive, and many HOAs require a supermajority of members to vote in favor of an amendment.

Supermajority voting requirements can make the CC&Rs difficult for homeowners to change, even when a majority of homeowner’s support doing so.

One expert said "They’re having to work within a framework they didn’t create and is almost impossible to change.” The supermajority framework is especially troublesome if an election has low voter turnout.