| Alabama | Yes | Alabama's Act has no dedicated architectural-review statute and no solar, flag, or EV-charger carve-out. Your recorded declaration controls what you can build, and any resulting fine still needs the § 35-20-11(a)(2) hearing and counsel rights. |
| Alaska | Yes | Alaska's statute has no architectural-review process, no approval deadline, and no solar, flag, or EV carve-outs — design control lives in your declaration and rules. Your levers are the ones the act does supply: the rule must actually exist, the board owes you fiduciary care and good faith, and any fine for a violation requires notice and a hearing first. |
| Arizona | Not addressed — see guide | Your Arizona HOA can require design or architectural approval before you build, but § 33-1817 says approval "shall not unreasonably be withheld," and any security deposit collected to guarantee your project comes with real refund deadlines. |
| Arkansas | Not addressed — see guide | Arkansas has no architectural-review statute, no solar-access law, and no state flag statute — the federal Freedom to Display the American Flag Act and the FCC's antenna rule are the only carve-outs. The committee's power begins and ends with the recorded bill of assurance or master deed, strictly construed in favor of the free use of your land. |
| California | Yes | California ARCs must apply documented standards, decide in good faith, and give written reasons. State law also protects solar, EV charging, and certain landscaping from outright bans. |
| Colorado | Yes | Your HOA's design review has real but limited power. Colorado law bars unreasonable restrictions on solar/energy measures, EV charging, and voids covenants contrary to public policy. |
| Connecticut | Yes | Your Connecticut association can require approval before you change your unit's exterior, but its rules have to include a real decision deadline, and state law protects rooftop solar on unshared roofs, the state flag, political signs, and religious door displays from a flat ban. |
| Delaware | Yes | A Delaware association's control over your paint, fence, or addition only exists if your declaration actually reserved it, and DUCIOA requires the board to adopt real approval procedures, including a deadline to act on your application. Flags and 'For Sale' signs get direct statutory protection; solar panels and EV chargers don't. |
| District of Columbia | Yes | The District has no statute overriding condo covenants for solar or exterior changes, so an alteration fight runs on your condominium instruments, but DC's process rules travel with it: rules adopted in the open, enforcement only through reasonable, hearing-backed fines, and federal floors for flags, antennas, and disability modifications. |
| Florida | Yes | Your HOA's architectural committee has real but limited power. Florida law protects solar panels, the U.S. flag, and certain antennas from being banned, even by the ARC. |
| Georgia | Yes | A Georgia association's power to control your paint color, fence, or addition isn't automatic. It exists only to the extent your recorded declaration actually grants it, and it has to be applied through rules that were adopted and given to you, not invented at the committee's discretion. |
| Hawaii | Yes | Hawaii gives design committees no statutory process — approvals run on your documents — but the legislature carved out rights no covenant can take: solar energy devices (HRS § 196-7), clotheslines, personal gardens in your own yard, and medical-cannabis nondiscrimination. |
| Idaho | Yes | Idaho doesn't give owners a generic architectural-review appeals statute. Instead it flatly protects five specific things, rooftop solar, political signs, the flag, rentals, and accessory dwelling units, from an outright covenant ban, each with room for reasonable rules. |
| Illinois | Not addressed — see guide | Illinois doesn't hand your board's rule-making or architectural committee unlimited power. Rules have to go through a real meeting, fines for violating them need a hearing, and the board's reach stops at the common elements, it can't touch your unit's interior or ban a religious object on your door. |
| Indiana | Yes | Indiana's ARC power lives in the covenants, but the legislature has drawn lines: the 2022 solar law (Ind. Code ch. 32-25.5-3.5) gives homeowners a petition path around solar restrictions, and § 32-21-13-4 protects political signs around elections. |
| Iowa | Yes | Iowa has no architectural-review statute and no state solar, flag, or EV-charger carve-out — but § 564A.8 lets your city or county ban HOA solar restrictions by ordinance, so the answer may sit in local law. Otherwise the ARC's power begins and ends with your recorded documents, applied evenly. |
| Kansas | Yes | If your Kansas association runs an architectural review committee, K.S.A. § 58-4617 requires it to have real procedures, including a deadline to act on your application and stated consequences if it misses that deadline. What Kansas doesn't do is override an ARC denial of solar panels or an EV charger the way some states do. |
| Kentucky | Yes | Search Kentucky's community-association statutes and you won't find a dedicated architectural-review section, or a solar, flag, or EV-charger carve-out. Your board's power over paint, fences, and additions comes almost entirely from your own declaration, with one hard exception: political yard signs. |
| Louisiana | Yes | Louisiana doesn't write a dedicated architectural-review statute or protect specific projects like solar panels or EV chargers. What La. R.S. § 9:1122.113 does say: you can't change the appearance of the common elements, or your unit's exterior, "without permission of the association." |
| Maine | Not addressed — see guide | Maine's Condominium Act doesn't set timelines, criteria, or protections for solar panels, flags, or EV chargers the way some states do. What it does require is the one thing that keeps a committee honest: a written record of every architectural approval and denial that you can go inspect. |
| Maryland | Yes | Maryland's Condominium Act gives owners one real rule: no exterior change without council permission, wrapped in a genuine rule-adoption process you can test. The Homeowners Association Act has no architectural-review section at all, so that power exists only if your own declaration created it. |
| Massachusetts | Yes | Massachusetts doesn't hand condo owners a dedicated architectural-review statute or protections for specific projects like solar or EV chargers. What ch. 183A does say: any restriction on your unit has to trace back to the master deed or a validly adopted bylaw. Here's how to use that. |
| Michigan | Yes | A Michigan condo's exterior-appearance control comes entirely from its own condo documents under MCL § 559.147. For a subdivision HOA, no statute touches architectural review at all, and Michigan hasn't carved out solar, flags, or EV chargers by law. |
| Minnesota | Yes | Minnesota's condo and HOA statute doesn't hand you a dedicated architectural-review law protecting solar panels or flags. What it gives instead: a bounded rule-making power for the board, and one alteration right, for disability accommodations, that can never be waived. |
| Mississippi | Yes | Mississippi's condominium statute has no dedicated architectural-review provision and no solar, flag, or EV-charger carve-out. What it does give you, by default, is control over your own unit's interior finishes under Miss. Code § 89-9-13(4); everything about the exterior and common areas runs on your declaration. |
| Missouri | Yes | Missouri law barely touches architectural review. Subdivision HOA authority over your exterior comes entirely from your declaration; even condo owners get only a bare consent requirement, not a real ARC process or any protection for solar panels, flags, or EV chargers. |
| Montana | Yes | Montana has no architectural-review statute, and no solar, flag, or EV-charger protections like some states carry. The one state law that touches your exterior at all protects existing use rights from being tightened after you bought, not paint colors or fence height. |
| Nebraska | Yes | Nebraska's Condominium Act gives associations broad power to regulate common elements and adopt rules, but there's no dedicated architectural-review statute, and no solar, flag, or EV-charging protections. Almost everything here traces back to your declaration. |
| Nevada | Yes | Your HOA's design review has real but limited power. Nevada law protects rooftop solar, flags, political signs, and drought-tolerant landscaping from outright bans, even by the architectural committee. |
| New Hampshire | Yes | RSA 356-B:42 lets a condo association control exterior appearance changes directly or through an architectural committee, and RSA 356-B:47-a bars a flat ban on the American flag — but neither protection is written into New Hampshire law for a plain subdivision HOA. |
| New Jersey | Yes | A New Jersey association's design power stops where the statutes start: solar collectors on roofs you own and maintain are protected by N.J.S.A. 45:22A-48.2, and the U.S. flag and troop-support displays are protected by 45:22A-48.1. |
| New Mexico | Yes | New Mexico voids any post-1978 covenant that effectively prohibits solar collectors (NMSA § 3-18-32(B)), declares solar use a property right (§ 47-3-4), and bars flag restrictions stricter than federal, state, or local law (§ 47-16-16). Beyond those carve-outs, ARC power runs on your recorded documents — and the open-meeting rules govern how standards get adopted. |
| New York | Yes | New York's Condominium Act doesn't hand your board a separate architectural-review statute. Alteration rules live in your declaration and by-laws, and enforcement runs through § 339-j. One thing the statute does protect outright: flying a small U.S. flag. |
| North Carolina | Not addressed — see guide | Your HOA's power to control what you build or change comes from the same statute that limits it. § 47F-3-102 lets the association regulate common elements and enforce rules, but only through properly adopted rules and a notice-and-hearing process before any fine sticks. |
| North Dakota | Yes | North Dakota has no architectural-review statute — design control comes from your covenants, enforced only 'where reasonable.' But the condo chapter protects three things by name: your right to decorate your own unit's interior, political yard signs within 60 days of an election, and EV charging stations, with a 60-day deemed-approval rule and a $1,000 penalty for willful board violations. |
| Ohio | Not addressed — see guide | Ohio's board has real statutory power to regulate the appearance of your unit or lot — but that power runs through the declaration and bylaws, and any resulting charge still goes through the same notice-and-hearing process as any other violation. |
| Oklahoma | Yes | Neither Oklahoma statute creates an architectural-review process, a timeline, or protections for solar panels or EV chargers. The one hard-edged exception is the flag: no association can restrict a member from displaying the American flag up to twenty feet. |
| Oregon | Not addressed — see guide | Oregon's boards have broad power to regulate common-property appearance and modification — but condo owners get something specific in return: ORS § 100.023 voids board restrictions on drought-driven irrigation cutbacks, licensed home child care, and portable cooling devices. That override doesn't have an identical HOA-side twin. |
| Pennsylvania | Not addressed — see guide | Pennsylvania's condo and HOA statutes don't set architectural design rules; your declaration does. But any fine for an architectural violation still has to clear the same notice-and-hearing gate as any other fine, and resale certificates create a paper trail worth pulling. |
| Rhode Island | Yes | Neither Rhode Island condo act has a dedicated architectural-review section, and neither protects solar panels, flags, or EV chargers the way some states do. Whatever standard applies to your unit's exterior comes entirely from your recorded declaration. |
| South Carolina | Yes | Neither South Carolina statute has a dedicated architectural-review section, and neither protects solar panels, flags, or EV chargers from board control. Your leverage is entirely in whether the standard was ever recorded and made accessible to you. |
| South Dakota | Not addressed — see guide | No South Dakota statute creates, limits, or reviews association architectural control, and the state has no solar, flag, or EV-charger carve-out of its own. An ARC's power comes entirely from the recorded covenants, which means every denial can be tested against exactly what those covenants say, plus the federal floors that apply everywhere. |
| Tennessee | Yes | Tennessee has no ARC statute and no solar override, so the recorded documents are the battlefield. What the state does protect: U.S. and armed-forces flag display against newer dedicatory instruments, and an existing owner's right to keep renting despite a later ban. |
| Texas | Yes | Texas HOAs can run architectural review, but state law protects solar devices, the U.S. and Texas flags, rainwater harvesting, and certain landscaping from outright bans. |
| Utah | Yes | Utah's architectural committees answer to the recorded documents, and to two statutes with teeth: rules can't ban solar on a detached home's roof under Utah Code § 57-8a-701, and the U.S. flag is protected under § 57-8a-219. |
| Vermont | Yes | Your Vermont association's power over your unit's exterior is real and comes straight from the statute, but the committee still needs a recorded standard, a real process, and a deadline to act. The flag and political-sign protections are broader than you'd expect, and solar isn't covered at all. |
| Virginia | Yes | Your HOA's architectural review has real but limited power. Virginia law protects solar energy devices, the U.S. flag, and EV charging stations from outright bans, even by the committee. |
| Washington | Not addressed — see guide | Washington doesn't hand owners a solar-panel-style override list. Its leverage is transparency: a seven-year paper trail behind every ARC decision, an EV-charging carve-out, and mandatory resale disclosure of any flagged violation. |
| West Virginia | Yes | West Virginia's statutes don't include a dedicated architectural-review statute or a solar, flag, or EV-charger carve-out. Your declaration controls what you can build, and any resulting fine still needs a notice-and-hearing under W. Va. Code § 36B-3-102(a)(11). |
| Wisconsin | Yes | Wisconsin voids restrictions on platted land that prevent or unduly restrict solar or wind energy systems (Wis. Stat. § 236.292), and no condo document can ban respectful display of the U.S. flag or political signs in your unit (§ 703.105). Beyond those carve-outs, architectural power runs on your recorded documents — and on how evenly they're applied. |
| Wyoming | Yes | No Wyoming statute creates or limits association architectural review, and the state's Solar Rights Act protects solar access between neighbors, not against covenants. A Wyoming ARC's power begins and ends with the recorded declaration, which makes every denial testable against exactly what that document says, plus the federal floors for flags, antennas, and disability modifications. |