Academy/Common Rules & Restrictions
Play equipment
Trampolines, swing sets, and playhouses aren't governed by any federal or general state law. Here's what actually decides your board's authority, and the liability that applies even if your rules say nothing at all.
No federal or general state law regulates trampolines, swing sets, or playhouses. Placement, setbacks, and screening are governed by your Declaration, Bylaws, and Rules, plus any local zoning or building code. Separately, common law attractive nuisance liability for hazardous play equipment applies whether or not your governing documents mention it at all.
There's no federal or state rule for swing sets
Search for a law that limits how close a trampoline can sit to the fence line, or requires a swing set to be a certain distance from a sidewalk, and you will not find one. No federal statute and no general state law was found to govern play equipment placement, fencing, or hours of use. Some cities and counties do regulate accessory structures like playhouses or platforms through building or zoning code, and a few states protect specific outdoor features from HOA bans, but none of that was found to extend to play equipment generally. Check your municipal code before assuming your association's rule is the only one in play.
Liability doesn't wait for a rule to exist
Even if your governing documents never mention swing sets or trampolines, a much older legal doctrine still reaches them: attractive nuisance. Under this common law rule, a landowner, including an association responsible for common areas, can be liable when a hazardous, artificial condition draws in a trespassing child, the owner knew or should have known children were likely to wander onto it, the danger is one children would not recognize, and fixing it would have been easy compared to the risk. Read more in the Cornell Legal Information Institute's summary of attractive nuisance doctrine.
This doctrine does not care whether your Rules and Regulations address play equipment. A trampoline in a common area, an unfenced pool, or an unsecured play structure carries this exposure regardless of what the covenants say, and a board cannot contract its way out of it by staying silent.
What your board can actually regulate
Your association's authority over play equipment on a member's own lot comes from the Declaration and Bylaws, carried out through Rules and, often, an architectural review process. That is the layer that can require a permit before installation, set screening or placement standards, or limit materials and colors, if your documents actually grant that power. What counts as reasonable, and how much setback or screening a board can demand, is not fixed by any statute in this Course's research base; it depends on what your Declaration authorizes and what your local zoning code separately requires. Before denying or approving a request, confirm the rule you are enforcing actually exists in a recorded document, not just in board custom.
Check yourself
Answer before you read the explanation, recalling it is what makes it stick.
A resident's unfenced trampoline draws neighborhood kids after school, and one is hurt. What liability doctrine applies regardless of what the CC&Rs say about play equipment?
Your board wants to require a ten foot setback for swing sets from property lines. Which statement is accurate?
A neighbor reports an unfenced trampoline is dangerous, but the CC&Rs never mention play equipment at all. What should the board do?
- Attractive nuisance doctrine (Wex), Cornell Legal Information Institute
Common Rules & Restrictions
Play equipment is one of many topics where the real authority sits in your own governing documents, not in a state or federal statute. Explore the related topics below to see where that pattern repeats.
Whether your CC&Rs or rules mention play equipment at all, and what local zoning or building code requires for fencing, setbacks, or permits, varies by association and municipality.