Short-term rentals

Two different fights, two different rulebooks

A state law that bars a city from banning short-term rentals is aimed at government regulation, zoning ordinances, permit denials, that kind of thing. It has nothing to say about the Declaration or CC&Rs you signed when you bought your unit. Those are a private contract between you and the association, not a government restriction, so state laws written to restrain city hall generally don't touch them.

A homeowner who cites the state statute against their own HOA's rental ban is answering the wrong question. The right question is what the governing documents say, not what the city is allowed to do.

Arizona: a documented example, not a national rule

In Arizona, state statutes stop cities and counties from prohibiting short-term rentals outright. But that preemption runs against government regulation, not against a private HOA's own recorded restrictions, which remain enforceable as a matter of contract between the association and its owners regardless of what municipal law permits (Central Arizona Association of Realtors).

Whether your own state's short-term-rental law works the same way, or reaches further, or doesn't exist at all, is a question only your state's statute and your own governing documents can answer. Arizona is one documented example, not a template to copy onto every state.

Your board can't always add a new ban later

If your community's declaration is silent on short-term rentals and the board wants to add a ban now, the general "board may amend the declaration" clause that most declarations carry is not a blank check. In Kalway v. Calabria Ranch HOA, LLC, the Arizona Supreme Court held that an association's amendment power is limited to changes that were reasonably foreseeable from the original declaration; a general amendment clause cannot be used to impose an entirely new category of restriction that gave owners no notice they might one day be subject to it (Arizona Supreme Court).

This doctrine is Arizona-specific and its exact boundaries are still being litigated there. Boards in other states should not assume the same limit applies, or that it doesn't, without checking their own state's case law before treating an amendment as automatic.

Why lenders care too

Restricting rentals isn't only a resident-relations decision. Fannie Mae's Selling Guide can make a whole condo project ineligible for conforming financing if the association's legal documents require rental pooling, or restrict an owner's ability to occupy the unit through blackout dates and occupancy limits, or otherwise make the project operate like a hotel (Fannie Mae Selling Guide). A board weighing new short-term-rental rules should loop in whoever handles the association's lender relationships, not just its attorney.