Fences
What your governing documents decide, and where code sets a hard floor.
Who maintains a fence, the association or the homeowner, is set by your CC&Rs, not by a general rule. A fence that also serves as a pool barrier must meet your locally adopted pool code, including self-closing, self-latching gates. Left unrepaired, a leaning or rotting fence is deferred maintenance, a safety and liability issue, not just an eyesore.
Your CC&Rs decide who pays and who approves
A fence is not automatically the association's job or automatically the owner's job. The CC&Rs and bylaws assign maintenance responsibility component by component, and fences are one of the most commonly disputed ones because a single fence can sit on a boundary between two lots, along a common area, or on a limited common element. Before the board commits budget to a fence repair, or tells an owner it's their problem, check what the governing documents say about that specific fence's location and classification.
Even where an owner pays for their own fence, check whether your architectural review process requires approval before work starts. Many communities require sign-off on materials, height, and placement regardless of who's paying.
A fence guarding a pool has to meet code, not just your CC&Rs
If a fence acts as a barrier around a pool or spa, it isn't just a design element for your architectural guidelines to control. Model pool safety code sets a floor: barriers must reach a minimum height above grade, gates must close and latch on their own, and the fence can't have gaps wide enough for a small child to pass through.
Exact height and gap figures vary by the pool code your jurisdiction has actually adopted; confirm the current numbers against that code before writing them into a policy. See Pool Barrier and Fencing Requirements Under the ISPSC for the shape of what model code requires.
Visible damage that sits unrepaired is deferred maintenance
A leaning post, a missing picket, or rot at the base of a fence is not a special category of problem. It's ordinary maintenance that should have happened and didn't.
"Preventive, predictive, or corrective maintenance that assets and systems should have undergone but have not yet done so."
Source: Deferred Capital Renewal and Deferred Maintenance, APPA
Left alone, it doesn't stay contained: postponed maintenance is linked to fiscal instability and safety liability, not just curb appeal. Log it as a work order the day it's noticed, not the day someone complains.
Check yourself
Answer before you read the explanation, recalling it is what makes it stick.
Your community's back fence divides two owners' yards and is leaning badly. Who fixes it?
The pool fence gate gets propped open with a brick during pool parties. What's the concern?
Three fence pickets have been missing for eight months and nobody logged a repair. What is this?
Sources
Architectural Review
Next, see how the same responsibility question plays out for gates.
Who maintains a given fence, whether it counts as a pool barrier, and the exact height and gate requirements that apply all vary by your governing documents and your locally adopted pool code.