Hardship exceptions

Hardship exceptions aren't a default board power

A rule or policy the board writes on its own can only fill in details a rental restriction already allows. In most jurisdictions, the restriction itself, and any carve-out from it, has to live in the declaration (your CC&Rs), not in a board resolution.

"Boards may impose restraints on leasing by resolution, but these policies must be reasonable, uniformly applied and based on objective criteria... most jurisdictions require that any rules or regulations that prohibit rentals exist by amendment to the declaration, not merely documents that may be amended or adopted by the governing board."

Source: Rental restrictions: Communities fighting corporate investors, Community Associations Institute

A hardship exception is a step further than that: it's permission to break the rule for one owner. Practitioner guidance treats that as permissible only where the governing documents expressly give the board the power to grant it. If your bylaws or declaration are silent, "we'll make an exception" is not a power the board actually has, however sympathetic the owner's situation.

"Just this once" becomes a liability, not a favor

Even where the documents do authorize waivers, a board that grants one without written, objective reasons is building a problem for itself. If a second owner in a similar situation is later denied the same relief, that owner has grounds to argue the rule was enforced unfairly against them, which is the core of a selective-enforcement claim.

This risk is highest when the "hardship" is judged case by case, in the room, based on how sympathetic a story sounds. A job relocation, a medical emergency, and a divorce can all feel equally urgent, but a board that waives the rule for one and not another, without a documented reason tied to a standing criterion, has no defense for the difference.

What a defensible process looks like

Before the board fields its first request, confirm two things: does the declaration or bylaws actually grant a waiver power, and if so, what criteria trigger it. Waiting until a request arrives means deciding the standard and the outcome in the same meeting, which is exactly how inconsistent decisions happen.

A working process sets the criteria in advance (in writing, before any request), applies the same criteria to every owner who asks, and documents the specific facts behind every grant or denial, not just the outcome. That written record is what turns "the board was fair to me" into something the board can actually show.

A hardship exception is also not the same thing as grandfathering. Grandfathering protects an owner automatically, based on when they bought, under some states' statutes or case law. A hardship exception is discretionary relief the board chooses to grant, and only if its own documents let it.