No right to a view, even after the HOA moves a building envelope
No right to a view, even after the HOA moves a building envelope
2026-09-10 · Arizona · Courts
Arizona homeowners who lose a view because their association approved a change next door have no nuisance claim over it. Division One of the Court of Appeals affirmed the dismissal of such a claim on August 28, 2026 in Pavlak v. Funk Family Enterprises LLC — the most recent published Arizona appellate decision touching community associations.1
The facts
In 2014 the Pavlaks bought Lot 11 in Mountain Ranch, a Mesa community. They said they bought it relying on the building envelope originally platted for the neighbouring lot.
A building envelope is a familiar device in Arizona hillside and view-lot subdivisions. Mesa's city code defines it as the specified area on a lot within which all disturbance must occur — structures, driveways, walkways, patios, pools, walls, construction access, grading, slopes and riprap. It is, in effect, a promise about where a future house can go.
That envelope was later moved, with approval from both the association and the City of Mesa. The Pavlaks sued the neighbouring owner in common-law nuisance. The superior court dismissed for failure to state a claim, and the Court of Appeals affirmed: “Because the Pavlaks have shown no error, the judgment is affirmed.”
Why the claim failed
Arizona does not recognise a right to an unobstructed view. That rule is long-standing and it is the foundation of the decision. A neighbour who builds within what the law and the covenants allow does not commit a nuisance by blocking a vista, however much the vista was worth.
The court also declined, on these facts, to let the claim proceed on a privacy theory — the argument that a relocated envelope put a neighbouring structure close enough to intrude on the plaintiffs' seclusion rather than merely on their outlook.
What it means for owners
A platted building envelope is not a private covenant running in your favour. This is the practical heart of the case. Buyers of view lots routinely treat the recorded envelope on the neighbouring parcel as a guarantee. It is a land-use control, administered by the entities that imposed it — the municipality and, through architectural review, the association. Those entities can generally modify what they created.
The remedy, if there is one, is upstream. The moment that determines a view is the approval, not the construction. An owner concerned about a proposed relocation has to engage the association's architectural process and the city's while the application is live. A nuisance suit against the neighbour after the approval is the weakest available position, and this decision confirms it.
Suing the neighbour was the wrong defendant for the grievance. The complaint was, in substance, about a decision the association and the city made. Nothing in this opinion addresses what an owner might argue against an association that approves a relocation — and from September 12, 2026, an association's exercise of discretionary approval power is subject to the new statutory duty to act reasonably, including a duty to act neutrally and without favoritism.
That is a different claim, against a different party, on a different theory, and it was not before this court.
What it means for boards and architectural committees
Approving a variance that costs a neighbour their view is lawful and still consequential. The committee has the authority. What the decision does not give it is immunity from the reasonableness duty, or from the obligation to follow its own process.
Document why. An approval that relocates an envelope, grants a height variance, or otherwise changes what a neighbour reasonably expected is the paradigm case for a minuted reason. The absence of a recorded rationale is what makes a decision look arbitrary later, and “nonarbitrary” is now a statutory standard.
Expect the disclosure question. Whether a pending or approved envelope relocation must be disclosed to a purchaser sits alongside the resale disclosure package, which HB 2397 expands on the same September 12 date — including a new requirement to disclose outstanding and unresolved violations cited against the unit.
What to watch next
The privacy theory. The court rejected it “on these facts,” which leaves the door ajar. A relocation that places habitable space and windows materially closer to an existing home is a different factual case from one that blocks a distant view.
Whether declarations start protecting sight lines expressly. The clean way to create a view right in Arizona is to write it into the declaration as a covenant. Very few Arizona declarations do, and this decision is a reason to expect a few more to try.
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