Vacation Rentals

Unless there are rental restrictions in the Covenants/Bylaws they can not be restricted. You would have to change the Covenants/Bylaws.

But you raise an interesting point. If being rented for short time and at a profit, is that not a commercial use thus prohibited? Some municipalities are going after such rentals for lodging taxes thus it could well be a commercial usage.

Well, JohnF, in CA an excellent resource is Davis-stirling.com (named after the HOA legislation of the same name) authored & compiled by an HOA Law firm. Now, our CC&Rs do have the clause that prohibits transient use, so we defined a 30-day minimum in our Rules & Regs as the minimum limit & we have a stiff fine.. Hoping to restate our CC&Rs in the next several months, so our board probably will create a limit of 3 or 4 months.

Davis-stirling.com, Rental Restrictions
"Adopting Restrictions. A restriction that rentals cannot be less than 30 days is not a prohibition and has been deemed reasonable by the courts. (Mission Shores v. Pheil.) If associations want to restrict or prohibit short-term rentals, they can do so in their rules without amending their CC&Rs. Most associations already have provisions in their CC&Rs that give them the authority they need. The first, found in many documents, prohibits owners from using their units for hotel-like operations. The second prohibits owners from running a business in the development. The third is the nuisance provision found in all governing documents. And, finally, most documents give boards broad powers to adopt rules and regulations for the benefit of the membership."

All others this site also is good for many general topics that affect all HOA, e.g., his to write a good contract, the basics for what should go in minutes and much more.

I might be clueless on the topic but why is it an issue to have these short term rentals. I tend to use AirBnB, VBRO, etc. when travelling and never had an issue.

As long as the tenants are respectful of the community rules, what other issues can come up versus other residents.

I recently had a condo in a vacation area building, and people who thought they were buying a place to live quietly in paradise found out they were soon living in a hotel, quite a difference, and lots of strife! Most tenants on a few days vacation have no concern or regard for HOA rules and regulations - so noise, garbage, drunkeness, disregard for community property, etc, were all issues, think "spring break". Like you said, these services are great for the renters, great alternatives to hotels.