Academy/Common Rules & Restrictions
Home businesses
Whether the board can stop an owner from running a business out of their own unit.
Usually, yes. If your CC&Rs restrict units to residential use, that covenant applies no matter who owns the unit or what business they run. The narrow exception is a disability-related Fair Housing Act accommodation request, which is fact-specific and belongs with an attorney, not a blanket right to work from home.
Your CC&Rs decide this, not your deed
Owning your unit does not override a recorded covenant. If the Declaration limits units to residential use, or names commercial activity as prohibited, that restriction is generally enforceable against every owner equally, regardless of how the business operates or how much money it makes.
What counts as "commercial use" is defined by the actual wording in your governing documents, not by intuition. A consultant who works alone at a laptop and a business that brings clients or deliveries to the door may be treated very differently depending on how your covenant is written. Read the covenant before you enforce it.
The one narrow exception
The Fair Housing Act requires associations to consider reasonable accommodation requests tied to a resident's disability. If an owner asks to work from home because a disability makes commuting impossible, that request can trigger a real, individualized accommodation analysis, separate from the general no-business covenant.
Whether a given request qualifies, and what the association must do about it, depends on the specific facts and cannot be resolved by reading this page. Route any accommodation request to the board's attorney rather than deciding it informally, and never treat it as a blanket exemption from the use restriction.
What else might apply
A covenant that is silent on home businesses does not mean nothing applies. Local zoning ordinances regulate home occupations independently of the HOA, and a business that generates regular deliveries or client parking may run into separate commercial vehicle or parking rules even if the business itself is allowed.
Enforce consistently. Selectively citing the covenant against one owner's business while ignoring another's invites a fair-housing or selective-enforcement complaint that has nothing to do with the business itself.
Check yourself
Answer before you read the explanation, recalling it is what makes it stick.
The CC&Rs ban "commercial use" of any unit. An owner runs an online tax-prep business from a spare bedroom, no client visits, no signage. What should the board do first?
A resident asks the board to waive the no-home-business rule because a chronic illness prevents them from commuting to work. What should the board do?
The CC&Rs are silent on home businesses, but the owner's business now gets a delivery truck every day. What should the board check before acting?
Sources
- 24 CFR 100.204, Reasonable accommodations, U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (via Cornell LII)
Common Rules & Restrictions
Next, see how a related use restriction, leasing, can affect the whole community's mortgage financing, not just one owner.
Whether your CC&Rs even mention "business," what counts as commercial use, and how local zoning treats a home office all vary by association and municipality.