RVs and boats

Two rulebooks, not one

An RV or boat sitting in your driveway is regulated in at least two separate places, and they don't always agree. The first is private: your Declaration, CC&Rs, and the board's rules and regulations, which you agreed to when you bought into the community. The second is public: your city or county's zoning code, which can regulate recreational vehicles, junk vehicles, and screening independent of any HOA.

A city ordinance that allows RV parking on a residential lot does not cancel a stricter rule in your CC&Rs, because the CC&Rs are a private contract between you and your neighbors, not a permission slip issued by the government. The reverse is also true: an association can't excuse a resident from a local zoning violation just because its own rules are silent. Anyone asking "can I park this here" has to check both, not just the one that gives the answer they want.

Why there's no simple national rule

Some restrictions on what you do with your own property are covered by federal law no matter what state you live in. Small satellite dishes and certain antennas are protected from most association rules by the FCC's OTARD rule, and the U.S. flag has its own narrow federal protection. RVs and boats have neither kind of federal shield.

Whether your own state adds a law specific to RV or boat storage varies, and it changes over time. Ask your board's attorney or search your state's statutes before assuming nothing applies beyond your CC&Rs. Absent a state law on point, the governing documents and local zoning are the whole answer.

Before the board adds a new restriction

Say your CC&Rs never mention RVs or boats, and the board wants to adopt a rule banning them anyway under its general power to make rules.

In Arizona, the state supreme court has held that an association's amendment and rulemaking power reaches only changes a reasonable owner could have foreseen from the original declaration, and that a general amendment clause cannot be stretched to create a wholly new category of restriction owners had no notice of. That doctrine is specific to Arizona and still being worked out there. Whether your own state limits a board's rulemaking power the same way is a question for your association's attorney before the board votes.

Either way, a rule adopted without following the declaration's own amendment procedure and notice requirements is vulnerable to challenge, regardless of what it says about boats or RVs.