Security devices

Where security devices fit in the review chain

An architectural review committee only has the authority its declaration gives it. If the declaration and any guidelines adopted under it are silent on security devices, the committee's power to regulate them at all is, at minimum, questionable.

"The authority of an association or any architectural, construction improvement, or other such similar committee of an association to review and approve plans and specifications for the location, size, type, or appearance of any structure or other improvement on a parcel..."

Source: Florida Statutes Section 720.3035, State of Florida

That principle is general, not Florida specific. A board that wants to require preapproval for a doorbell camera or a security fence needs that authority written or reasonably implied somewhere in the governing documents, not just assumed.

Texas voids an outright ban, with two carve-outs

Texas is the only state verified in this course to legislate security devices specifically, and it protects the owner's right to have them at all.

"A property owners' association may not adopt or enforce a restrictive covenant that prevents a property owner from building or installing security measures."

Source: Texas Property Code Section 202.023, State of Texas

The board keeps two specific things. It may still prohibit "the installation of a security camera by a property owner in a place other than the property owner's private property," and it may still regulate "the type of fencing that a property owner may install." The statute also does not reach condominiums or master mixed use associations.

What the board can still regulate in Texas

Read the two carve-outs as a practical split. The board cannot tell an owner no cameras, no alarms, no motion lights, period. It can still say where a camera goes (on the owner's own property, not aimed from or mounted on common area) and what a security fence looks like, through the same design guidelines it applies to any other fence.

Whether your state has anything like this statute varies. Check your own state's property or common interest ownership statutes for a security device provision before you assume Texas's rule applies to you.

If your state has no security device statute

Without a state law on point, the review defaults to the general hierarchy: the declaration first, then any design guidelines adopted under it, then board discretion exercised in good faith. There is one federal layer that sits above all of that regardless of state or declaration language: if a security device is needed because of a resident's disability, the Fair Housing Act's reasonable modification and reasonable accommodation duties apply on top of whatever the declaration says.