Guess what?! Political signs!

Our LOA association owns and maintains most of the roads and the roadsides in our community. Maintaining the roadsides for all residents enjoyment is the responsibility of the association.

We live in North Carolina and our community adopted the North Carolina Planned Community Act a few years ago. Also from what I am reading the statute 47F (which is the Planned Community Act) is pretty much the "law" for Landowner associations. It is stated in the NCPCA that the political signs are to be placed only on land exclusively owned by the landowner.

Along with our CC&Rs we have the NCPCA and our Bylaws as governing documents. There is no language regarding political signs in our Covenants.

I have done about as much research on this I think is possible, and from what I have learned I believe landowners have the right to place political signs on their "exclusive property" but not in common lands. The roadsides are common lands, and people like to walk/walk their dogs and enjoy nature etc. along the roadsides. Therefore I believe it is within our duties as board members to require that landowners whose land lies adjacent to the common lands along the roadsides keep their signs on their property only.

I support people's right to free speech, and I do not have a personal stake in regards to the candidates the landowners are supporting, but I believe the board is within it's rights requiring the landowners to move their signs out of the common land along the roadsides and onto their property.

Before we make the "leap" to make this a "rule" I on behalf of our board suggested I try to get some advise from this great source!

Is there any law that supersedes the NCPCA for example??

Thanks for any feedback!

Robin,

We are in a town home community. Therefore, our rule is very simple:

SIGNS, POLITICAL:
Signs supporting or opposing any candidate, party or issue are prohibited on the common areas.

If you are in detached single family homes, you need to be sure to identify common area. Reason being, if I mow the turf immediately next to the road, I would expect that that property is mine and I may place a political sign there. Therefore, to avoid fights, specify the common areas or say that signs may not be x feet back from the road (6-8 feet would be a good range).

Also, if you already have political signs in the area, then you run the risk of someone thinking the rule is to silence them. Therefore, specify reasons for this restriction (to avoid obstructing line of sight for drivers and pedestrians using the road/sidewalk).

Is there any language about any signs at all?

I would check state laws as it applies to political signs within homeowner associations.

Many HOAs limit size of signs, number of signs, and dates when signs can be up. Does not interfere with first amendment rights.

Keep in mind, Jill, that the question is about signs on the common areas. If you want to know about signs on your private property or on exclusive use common areas, you might want to heck state laws or even municipal laws too.

I guess that depends on your political persuasion.

But, John, an HOA can't impose the limits you suggest if the local or state laws say otherwise. You, like Jill, are in SC. What limitations if any does SC have?

What about flags & banners in SC?

I know I'm going to take flack for this.

Jill,

The Constitution only specifies rights as they relate to government intervention.
The Constitution does not apply to private agreements (which is what an HOA is created from).

From the the Bill of Rights[emphasis added]: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech,. . ."

As you can see, that section does not apply to companies or parties of a private contract making agreements limiting speech.

This is the exact reason why some States have adopted laws that specify HOAs may not prohibit political signs.

Thanks, Tim and Kerry. I wonder what the state law is here about political signs at homes governed by HOAs. It was an academic question, as I wouldn't dare post one.

Treat political signs the same as you would holiday lights. Can go up no easier than 30 days prior to an election and removed within one week after the conclusion of the election. If you have a primary and a general, two separate events, not one long continuous one.

Homeowners property only, no common area.

Our HOA only allowed For Sale/Rent signs ONLY. All other signs were not allowed. Not even when they changed our roads to public we could NOT allow "No parking" signs to be put up. Instead we had the curbs painted red. We did have to have Stop/Yield signs because that is a law.

Now for Political signs or signs of contractors working on a property, it really depended on the situation. Basically, if they were taken care of and were not causing issues, they stayed. If someone complained, then we would address that complaint like any other. There was no official band on having them. It's really up to how your HOA members feel and what they want. Just like everything else in a HOA.

Excuse me yet again I did not post a caveat about local, state, and federal laws... The "Law" withstanding, a HOA can decide amongst themselves in the internal operations of their HOA. Matter of fact, it's in your HOA rules that the HOA rules can't supersede local, state, and federal laws. I did not feel I need to keep stating it over and over again...

We are having deep discussions about this in our HOA, especially after such a contentious election year.

We've learned that you can make rules about size and placement of signs, but you cannot govern the CONTENT of the sign. So for example, political signs are allowed. Black Lives Matters signs are allowed. "I like cats" signs are allowed. Signage is allowed. Rainbow flags are allowed. "Don't let your dog poop on my grass" signs are allowed.

This is a highly emotional issue for our residents. We hate the idea of signage causing further division but then we remember that people, not signs, create division. In our community someone (not necessarily or probably from our community, based on video footage obtained) went around repeatedly and stole any Democratic signs that were displayed.

We have questions about what you can display in your windows. Off your balconies. It's a painful and emotional issue.

But no, it is not constitutional to restrict people's ability to display political signs, and we are trying to understand what if any restrictions can be put on signage of any kind. We do seem to agree that signage with profanity is unacceptable, thank God.

To complicate matters we have properties on all sides of our golf course, and some residents displayed huge political flags facing the golf course, which feels like it's screaming their political position at our golf customers. Sigh. We live in times where we have to remember that if it resides on personal property, it's their right to scream if they want to.

We are still putting the final touches on our language in our CC&Rs but I can tell you this topic is highly charged here. No one is trying to put signage on common area, thank God. We're just struggling with what's ok to put on your property, and in what size and form.

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