I have kept a steady rhythm with these posts lately, aligning them with our company core values and our weekly Fundamentals (which are simply action statements that flow from those values). Writing within that structure has helped me think clearly about what we stand for and how we operate. This week, I am stepping outside of that pattern because something has been on my mind following the process of selling our former home.
If you’ve read my blog for some time, you know that when something does not add up, I tend to dig in and get to the bottom of it. While I don’t go looking for conflict, I do not ignore thorns when they catch and threaten to leave a mark.
The Listing
We listed our townhouse property on November 21, 2025, just before Thanksgiving. That stretch between Thanksgiving and New Year’s is traditionally slow, and by early January we had already carried the property through the holidays without meaningful traction. Interest rates were not light, and the buyer pool was narrower than we would have liked. Most of the inquiries that came through were from investors rather than families looking to occupy the home.
In early January, one of those investors asked about rental restrictions. The investor’s agent reached out to our Homeowner’s Association (HOA) for clarification. Their response was simple and direct: the community was at capacity for rentals.
“At Capacity”
That phrase implies something formal. It suggests a defined limit that exists in writing and can be traced to an amendment in the governing documents. I had the governing documents and found no mention of any rental restrictions.
So, I reached out to the HOA myself for clarification. The response referenced prior board decisions about lowering the rental percentage.
At that point, I retained counsel and sent him the correspondence. He pulled the recorded Covenants from the Recorder of Deeds, reviewed the Bylaws, and obtained the meeting minutes that were cited as the basis for the alleged change.
The recorded documents did not reflect a rental cap matching what had been communicated.
A Conversation Is Not an Amendment
The 2023 meeting minutes include the following language: “AirBnB use did not exist when bylaws were created. The board has decided to update the bylaws to include that no homes can be used for Airbnb purposes. During this time we discussed lowering the rental rate from 40% to 20%.”
The minutes reflect a discussion; they do not reflect a motion, a vote, or a formally adopted amendment to the governing documents. There is no recorded update lowering the rental percentage from 40% to 20%.
“Discussion” and “amendment” are not interchangeable terms.
Asking for the Source
My attorney drafted a letter asking the HOA to identify where in the recorded documents the authority to impose or communicate a rental cap existed. He requested a response within five days. Absent a recorded provision or formal amendment, there would be no basis to represent such a restriction to third parties.
The letter was sent. There was no response within the requested time frame, and no response afterward.
We ultimately sold the home to a buyer who intended to live in it rather than rent it, and we closed on February 27, 98 days after posting our listing. The transaction concluded, but the question about rental restrictions remained. While that issue was no longer relevant to our situation, the principle of the matter kept it on my radar.
When Informal Governance Has Real Consequences
What has stayed with me is not only the silence that followed the letter but how easily a discussion can begin to function as policy and how quickly that policy can be communicated in a way that affects a potential sale.
- A board considers lowering a rental percentage.
- That conversation circulates.
- Over time, it is repeated as though it were adopted.
- When it is then relayed to a buyer’s agent as settled fact, it carries consequences.
- The burden shifts to the homeowner to disprove something that does not appear in the recorded documents.
My attorney mentioned that this was not an isolated incident and he has handled several similar HOA matters recently. Most boards are volunteers. They are neighbors, not career administrators. That reality makes the work more understandable, but it also makes precision more important. When governance operates informally, the gap between what was discussed and what was formally adopted can widen without anyone fully noticing.
The harder question is: What happens next? If you no longer live there, do you attend a board meeting to press the issue. If legal counsel has already been ignored, do you spend more money escalating it? At what point does a homeowner decide that the record is enough, even if there is no repercussion?
I do not have clear answers. I know only that when a rule is communicated as binding, it should exist in the documents that govern the community or organization. When it does not, someone bears the cost of clarifying it.
If this resonates with your own experience and you want to understand the specifics of what we encountered, you are welcome to reach out privately. For now, I am thinking about how often policy becomes practice before it becomes written, and how much that gap matters.
