When Are Home Businesses OK?

I live in a HOA of 65 seperate homes with city owned streets and large lots. I know that I have read on this site that many HOA's allow home bsinesses as long as you can't see them, hear them, or smell them.

Does anyone agree with this and what would be the reasons for not allowing people to work out of their homes?

There could be a lot of reasons to not allow somebody to work out of their home. The typical example given is if somebody wanted to set up an automotive repair shop in his garage. The traffic from the customers, the noise from the engines, and the smell of the motor exhaust would have a negative impact on the neighbors. But it doesn't have to be a direct business like that. In my neighborhood a couple of years ago we had one person who set up a rock cutting / polishing shop in his garage (think granite counter tops). He didn't have customers coming to his shop so we didn't have the traffic impact, but he would start up the grinders/polishers/cutters at 7:00AM and often keep working until 9:00PM (or later). The noise from all of that was completely unacceptable. He got shut down fairly quickly.

On the other side there are a number of people in my neighborhood who do work out of their homes. These are typically people who do office work (accountants, computer programmers, etc) and if they didn't mention it in conversation, we would have no idea that they work out of the home. Since there is essentially no impact on the neighbors (other than having somebody home all day to keep an eye on things), there would be no reason to restrict their working out of the home.

Then there are those in the gray areas. Child care (traffic in the morning and afternoon, potentially a lot of noise), home marketing (delivery trucks), etc. These types of businesses may or may not be acceptable depending on your neighborhood. Even with large lots there may be an impact on the neighbors.

So what I'm hearing here is that Most HOA's are open to business's that are not disruptive to the neighborhood?

Does any anyone think that just saying no business of any kind is fair? If so why?

Mike,

I'll guess you have a specific situation(s) prompting your queries. Details, please.

I am a Graphic Designer, I teach at the local University and I do Design work in my home. I have a client in about once every month or two. My house is the one with the fewest cars in the driveway at any given time. This isn't againest the CC&R's. Our officers are changing the CC&R's to say no Buiness of any kind. They are also changing it so that they can park their motor homes in their back or side yards. And they want to have their boats and stuff in their driveways all summer. This seems more disrubtive than most people working out of their homes. Don't you think?

The vote is 51% to pass.

How tuff is that?

What should I do to stop it?

The same petition process usually would apply to the issue of them voting to ban all businesses. They're loony! What do the docs currently say about businesses?

The current document says that that the family residence should not be used for any commercial or business purpose other than traditional home business conducted within the home.

I am not saying this is a great arguement, but it is an answer to your question:

Because you signed a contract agreeing that there would NOT be employees working from your home.

bottom line, that's one reason. You agreed to it.

This is what my Tennessee documents say--

"No trade or business may be conducted in or from any Unit, except that an owner or occupant residing in a unit may conduct business activities within the unit so long as: (a) the exhistance or operation of the business's activity is not apparent or detectable by sight, sound,or smell from outside of the unit. (b) the business activity conforms to all zoning requirements for the property (c) the business activity does not involve persons coming onto the property who do not reside in the property or door to door solicitation of residents of the property and (d) the business activity is consistant with the residental character and does not constitute a nuisance or a hazardous or offensive use, or threaten the safety of the other residents. WHEW!)

Donna,

Explain what is ment under C in your outline

Mike,

" c) the business activity does not involve persons coming onto the property who do not reside in the property or door to door solicitation of residents of the property "

The Developer intends to not have persons coming and going into a unit for the purpose of doing business there, such as customers. The second part? Your guess is as good as mine. I took it to mean vendors coming to the property. DUNNO!

Mike,
Anytime. Actually my Tennessee Association Documents are pretty darn good and fair which was a suprise to me after coming from Florida and dealing with 3 different mega sets of documents from down there. Kudos Mr. Developer(so far as we are far from buildout and turnover)

As I see it, writing a rule prohibiting all home business would be unenforceable because enforcement would require an invasion of privacy. And these types of rules have been completely struck down then allowing any and every business until the documents can be amended to an enforceable rule.

Also, the current rule of allowing "traditional home businesses" is not well written. I would consider daycare a traditional home business. And yet, that is often one of the more problematic businesses. For that matter, many a carpenter is home based as well as many plumbers.

Then there is the whole issue of when is it a home business and when is it simply working from home? For instance, I can do most everything that my job entails (outside dealing with the interruptions) from home. Currently I don't do so much because of kids. But when I do work from home is that a "home business?"

Some people see the difference as coming down to a tax deduction. But that is certainly an invasion of privacy.

I think a better means of defining acceptable business is to look at sight, sound, smell, and traffic. And a couple visits a month is not distinguishable from other visitors. My neighborhood defines one car a day as permissible traffic. The thing is that this is measurable. It also happens that at this level nobody will typically notice.

I would look again at your documents. These restrictions should be in the covenants, not the bylaws. And typically (though not always) the covenants have a higher level to change then the bylaws.