Hypothetical:
You build a shed in your back yard. The next month your HOA (assume you live under an HOA) passes a rule that sheds are not allowed on anyone’s property.
Do you have to remove your shed? Can you make the HOA pay for the cost of the shed and its removal? Or do you just have to suck it up and lose the shed?
It’s going to depend on how the compact is worded and relevant state law. Ex post facto is a criminal law term. What you want to look for in the HOA and state rules is “retroactive enforcement” and “grandfathering”.
IME w condo management in FL grandfathering is the practical norm.
As said, it’s mostly a creature of state law. And HOAs and condos are generally regulated similarly but not identically.
An FQ answer requires knowing which state and the details of that particular HOA’s documents.
Even in a scenario where ex post facto would be relevant, this isn’t an example of it. If you had a shed in your yard, then on June 1 they pass a law that sheds aren’t allowed in yards, and you immediately remove it, they can’t cite you for having a shed on May 31. But if you don’t immediately remove it, they can cite you for having a shed in your yard in July, because July is after the law was passed.
In practice, as others have said, laws like this usually have a grandfather clause. But they don’t have to. When various drug laws were passed, for instance, you didn’t get a pass on drugs you already owned.
HOAs are also not the state; they are private contracts usually formulated as private corporations or private unincorporated associations. Contract law is governed both by state and federal laws, and are adjudicated in civil courts.
You don’t have to live in that HOA. And HOA contracts are not unique. Any house purchase could contain a rider that certain changes would be forbidden in the future. Up to you whether to sign the contract or walk away.
Basically, the only answer to the OP is “read the fine print.”
And how stringently the HOA enforces their rules.
A similar situation might be changes in city building codes. It seems like typically they grandfather exceptions for existing structures, but changes to those structures have to comply with current codes. So if your shed has 1920’s wiring, you don’t necessarily have to upgrade the wiring to modern codes. But if you work on the wiring, the changes have to comply with 2025 codes. I’m not sure if they can change the code and then force people to bring their structures to that code. Maybe for safety things, but maybe not for aesthetic things.
I live in a senior park. Several years ago, California made a change to disallow storage sheds from sitting on the property/lot line. As long as i live here, I don’t need to do anything. If I sell/die/go insane/etc.,the shed must be removed (a new one can be built off the line) as part of the sale or transfer of ownership.
As I understand, the insidious thing about HOAs is that they are not as constrained by legal rights, except for discrimination laws. They can get away with restrictions and rules a municipality or state never could.
After all, the original purpose of HOA covenants was to prevent homeowners in a neighbourhood from selling to black families.
As noted above, this is not true. HOAs are generally permitted to exist under state law and state laws vary. They are, of course, constrained by legal rights in most states - but the degree of constraint varies.
If they were unconstrained by legal rights, they couldn’t use the courts to enforce their edicts, but they do - all the time.
In spite of their quasi-governmental behavior, a HOA is a private entity and primarily constrained by contract law.
Statutory law regarding civil rights also apply, but only when explicit.
It’s important to remember that by itself, the Bill of Rights only constrains government from infringing the stated civil rights. Private relations and contracts are not generally directly impacted. You can’t make a First Amendment claim against me for ejecting you from my front parlor because I object to your speech. Or (closer to home), SDMB can definitely constrain your free speech or remove you from the community.
A HOA is (oddly enough) like the SDMB like that.
In many (most?) states there is significant statute law constraining what HOAs or condo associations can do.
Institutional overreach is always a problem with any regulatory whatever. But the idea that HOAs are largely unconstrained by law is ignorant, obsolete, or both.
Or, in the case of Florida, by Chapter 720, F.S. as well as any relevant contract or civil rights law (State or Federal).
The trend over the past few years here is to roll back the authority of HOAs and Condo Associations (Chapter 718, F.S.) and to put more accountability on the officers.
Since the HOA covenants are basically a contract that the homeowner agrees to, what’s allowed would probably be consistent with contractual changes in general. Even if the covenants say that the homeowners have to comply with any future changes, those changes have to be reasonable. For instance, adding requirements for homeowners to have external lighting would be seen as reasonable, but requiring that all homes can only be one story and any homes over two stories must be rebuilt is not. Ultimately, the homeowner would need to sue the HOA and the court would decide if the changes to the covenants were reasonable or not.
I’ve heard that, in some states, it’s possible for an HOA to be formed without the consent of all of the homeowners, but to still be binding on all of them, even those who didn’t agree to it. That makes them considerably more governmental.
I’ve heard that - but I’ve never seen a description of what exactly is meant. I suspect that people are being either unclear or mixing different concepts together as I can’t see how someone can tell me today that the house I’ve owned for forty years is suddenly subject to the rules of an HOA that I never agreed to.
Mandatory homeowner’s associations usually involve deed restrictions, so they will be in place when the land was subdivided/bought. Voluntary homeowner’s associations exist* but based on conversations I’ve had , people who live where mandatory ones are common don’t understand the idea of a voluntary association that doesn’t make rules that are binding on the homeowners , even ones who didn’t agree to them.
I remember a story here where someone said they didn’t know the house was in an HOA when they bought it , so in that sense they didn’t agree to it. But apparently the HOA was real and pre-existing and the seller hadn’t disclosed its existence, so it really wasn’t a matter of the neighbors starting a homeowner’s association today and trying to enforce rules on people who had never agreed.
*They do such things as hold meetings with government officials, take positions on zoning variances and traffic lights and put pressure on government agencies to solve problems. If your front yard was so full of trash that it violated the health code, they could do something about it - call the appropriate authorities, which any neighbor could do on their own. It’s just that the organization has more influence because it speaks for more people. But they can’t demand that you do anything you are not legally required to , such as requiring window treatments to be white on the side facing out.
I think what @md-2000 means is that the HOA is not constrained by my legal rights in the same way a government is. For example, a government cannot outright ban a political sign in my front yard. They can regulate the size, placement ( so it doesn’t block a view of traffic) etc, but they can’t ban it altogether. The government must respect my First Amendment right to free speech. A homeowner’s association can ban political signs, “for sale” signs, outdoor Christmas decorations - unless there is a specific law that says they can’t. The First Amendment has nothing to do with the HOA or other private parties, only the government.
The bit about HOA’s not being subject to the same constraints as governmnet was something I read in a discussion about petty politics and unreasonable bylaws. “Can’t have more than 2 stories?” I saw some things about not parking the car on the driveway (had to be in the garage) not parking the boat and trailer beside the house (It was unsightly - so the owner built a fence to hide it from view, then painted a picture of the boat and trailer on the fence gate); obviously, what house colours were permissible, any junk in the yard, whether you could have a shed in the back yard … all things a bit beyond the range of what a municipality could get away with.
The state could, if they wished, legislate all of those things, and the municipality has whatever powers the state wants them to have, so a state could give a municipality those powers, too. It’s not a matter of the government not having those powers; it’s a matter of them just not caring.