Academy/Common Rules & Restrictions
Clotheslines
Sometimes not, and the answer depends on which state your community sits in.
In roughly nineteen states, a "right to dry" statute voids an outright HOA ban on clotheslines, and a wider group of states extend their solar-access laws to cover a clothesline as a solar energy device. Even where a law like this applies, the association can usually still regulate where and how the clothesline is placed. It just cannot ban the device entirely. Check your state's current law before enforcing, or denying, a clothesline restriction.
Why "no clotheslines" isn't automatically enforceable
Most CC&Rs list clotheslines alongside satellite dishes and window units as things a board can ban for looking untidy. In a growing number of states, state law now overrides that clause specifically for clotheslines.
Roughly nineteen states currently have a right-to-dry statute, and a separate, wider group of states apply their existing solar-access statutes to clotheslines as a form of solar energy device. Which category your state falls into, if either, changes over time. Check your state legislature's current text, not a list from an old article, including this one.
What the board can still control
A right-to-dry or solar-access law voids a total ban. It does not strip the board of all authority over the topic. Where the law applies, the association can typically still set reasonable rules about where a line goes, for example limiting it to a side or back yard rather than a front-facing one, and can regulate its appearance, such as requiring a retractable or fold-away design rather than a permanent post-and-line structure.
Where the reader's state has no such law on the books, the ordinary CC&Rs and Declaration control the question outright, and a clothesline ban written into those documents is generally enforceable like any other covenant.
Before you approve or deny a request
Do not answer from memory or from a list of states someone forwarded you. State legislatures amend and repeal these statutes, and the exact scope, right-to-dry versus solar-access versus neither, changes which rule applies.
Confirm your state's current statute, then compare it against your own CC&Rs and any rules already adopted under them. If the two conflict, the state statute controls only on the narrow point it covers, an outright ban, not on placement or appearance rules the board may still be free to set.
Check yourself
Answer before you read the explanation, recalling it is what makes it stick.
A homeowner asks to install a clothesline. The board's CC&Rs ban all clotheslines as unsightly. What should the board do first?
A state's right-to-dry statute voids an outright clothesline ban. Which of these can the association still do?
A homeowner says their state's solar-access law protects their clothesline too. Which statement is accurate?
Sources
- Clothesline Bans Void in 19 States, Sightline Institute
Common Rules & Restrictions
Next, see how a similar federal-versus-state pattern plays out for flags, one of the few areas where federal law, not state law, sets the floor.
Whether your state has a right-to-dry or solar-access law covering clotheslines, and exactly what placement or appearance rules your association may still enforce, vary by state and by your own CC&Rs.