Arizona HOA Solar Rights

SECTION 1 — Overview: Solar rights for HOAs in Arizona

Arizona statutorily protects residential solar. Any covenant, restriction, or condition that effectively prohibits the installation or use of a solar energy device is void and unenforceable, and a planned-community association is separately barred from prohibiting solar outright.^1,2 The protection runs on two tracks that work differently and shouldn't be conflated. The foundational track is A.R.S. § 33-439, a general real-property covenant statute enacted in 1979 and located in Title 33, Chapter 4, reaching recorded community restrictions of every kind, including condominium declarations and planned-community CC&Rs.^1,3 The community-specific track is A.R.S. § 33-1816, in the Planned Communities chapter (Title 33, Chapter 16), which bars a planned-community association from prohibiting solar and confines the association to reasonable placement rules.² The Arizona Condominium Act (Title 33, Chapter 9) contains no parallel dedicated solar section, so condominium solar rights rest on § 33-439.⁴ Both tracks reference the same statutory definition of a solar energy device in A.R.S. § 44-1761.⁵ The reasonable-rules carve-out stays narrow: an association may adopt placement rules only if they don't prevent installation, impair the device's functioning, restrict its use, or adversely affect its cost or efficiency.² These provisions place Arizona among the strong-protection states, alongside California, Florida, Colorado, Nevada, and Texas.^3,6 The sections that follow set out the statutory mechanics, the boundary of association authority, dispute routing, and recent legislative and judicial activity.

SECTION 2 — The statutory framework

2A. The covenant-voiding statute and the definition

A.R.S. § 33-439(A) states that "any covenant, restriction or condition contained in any deed, contract, security agreement or other instrument affecting the transfer or sale of, or any interest in, real property which effectively prohibits the installation or use of a solar energy device as defined in section 44-1761 is void and unenforceable."¹ Subsection (B) exempts instruments entered into before April 17, 1980.¹ The statute sits in Chapter 4 (Conveyances and Deeds), not in either association chapter, and its language reaches "any interest in real property." That breadth makes it the foundation for both community types: a recorded condominium declaration and a recorded planned-community declaration both count as "instruments affecting an interest in real property," so a flat declaration ban on solar is unenforceable no matter how the clause is worded.¹ A.R.S. § 44-1761 defines a solar energy device as a system or series of mechanisms designed primarily to provide heating, to provide cooling, to produce electrical power, to produce mechanical power, to provide solar daylighting, or to provide any combination of the foregoing by collecting and transferring solar-generated energy by active or passive means; the definition also addresses distributed energy generation systems that generate or store electricity.⁵ The practical effect: photovoltaic panels, solar water and pool heating systems, and comparable devices fall within the protected category, and an association can't achieve indirectly, through aesthetic wording, what § 33-439 forbids it from doing directly.

2B. The two community-type provisions

For planned communities, A.R.S. § 33-1816(A) states that "notwithstanding any provision in the community documents, an association shall not prohibit the installation or use of a solar energy device as defined in section 44-1761."² Subsection (B) permits an association to "adopt reasonable rules regarding the placement of a solar energy device if those rules do not prevent the installation, impair the functioning of the device or restrict its use or adversely affect the cost or efficiency of the device."² Subsection (C) requires a court to award reasonable attorney fees and costs to any party who substantially prevails in an action against the board for a violation of the section.² This provision, added by Senate Bill 1254 in 2007, lives in Chapter 16 and governs planned communities only.^2,7 The Arizona Condominium Act (Chapter 9) has no counterpart section; the chapter's substantive provisions end at § 33-1261, followed by the enforcement provision at § 33-1270, with no dedicated solar section in between.⁴ Condominium solar rights therefore flow from the general covenant-voiding statute, § 33-439, which by its terms reaches condominium declarations. This distinction matters, because a number of widely circulated secondary sources cite a "§ 33-1816.01" as a condominium solar statute — no condominium solar section by that designation appears in the current Arizona Revised Statutes, and readers shouldn't rely on it.⁴ The two tracks parallel each other in policy but stay textually separate: § 33-1816 supplies an express association-level prohibition and a mandatory fee-shift for planned communities, while § 33-439 supplies the void-and-unenforceable rule that applies across recorded restrictions, condominiums included.

2C. The boundary of association authority and the role of CC&Rs

An Arizona association may still regulate the placement of a solar device, but only within the statutory limits. It may adopt reasonable placement rules; it may not prohibit installation or use, impair the device's functioning, restrict its use, or adversely affect its cost or efficiency.² On order of precedence, the solar statutes and § 33-439 override conflicting CC&R text: because § 33-439 renders a prohibiting covenant void and § 33-1816 applies "notwithstanding any provision in the community documents," a declaration cannot lawfully ban solar even if its recorded text purports to.^1,2 Architectural review retains a residual role, but it stays confined to placement and appearance conditions that produce none of the prohibited effects. A committee can't use aesthetic discretion to deny a solar application outright, and the Arizona Court of Appeals has held that guidelines and conduct that effectively prohibit a device are unenforceable.⁸ Most Arizona associations organize as nonprofit corporations and answer as well to the Arizona Nonprofit Corporation Act (A.R.S. § 10-3101 et seq.) for corporate governance, but that Act doesn't expand an association's authority over solar.⁹ The operational takeaway: an Arizona board can apply reasonable placement conditions but cannot deny a solar application outright, and an aesthetic denial that effectively prohibits the device is unenforceable.

SECTION 3 — What an Arizona HOA can and cannot do regarding solar

A. What an association cannot do

An association may not prohibit the installation or use of a solar energy device, and it may not impair the device's functioning, restrict its use, or impose placement conditions that adversely affect the device's cost or efficiency to the point of economic unfeasibility. This limit comes from § 33-1816(A) and (B) for planned communities, mandatory under Chapter 16, and from § 33-439 across recorded restrictions, including condominium declarations, mandatory under Chapter 4.^1,2 The statute sets no numeric cost cap and no efficiency-loss percentage. Secondary sources that state a fixed "$1,000" cost limit or a "10 percent" or "15 percent" efficiency threshold describe other states' rules, not Arizona law, and shouldn't be relied on here.²

B. What an association may do

An association may adopt reasonable rules regarding the placement of a solar device, provided the rules produce none of the prohibited effects. The governing standard is A.R.S. § 33-1816(B) for planned communities, and courts decide the reasonableness inquiry under § 33-439 case by case — so a placement rule that operates as a de facto prohibition is void.^2,8

C. Approval and architectural review

A solar application interacts with architectural review only as to placement and appearance, under § 33-1816(B) for planned communities and, for design and architectural committees generally, A.R.S. § 33-1817. Arizona's solar statutes impose no specific statutory response deadline and no automatic "deemed approved" rule, unlike some other states, so timing runs on the association's own documents.^2,10

D. Dispute resolution and remedies

The consequence of an unlawful prohibition: the offending covenant or rule is void and unenforceable under § 33-439, and a prohibiting board action violates § 33-1816.^1,2 A solar dispute may run through Superior Court or through the administrative HOA dispute process, administered by the Arizona Department of Real Estate under A.R.S. Title 32, Chapter 20, Article 11 (§ 32-2199 et seq.): an owner or association files a petition with ADRE, which refers the matter to the Office of Administrative Hearings, where an administrative law judge may order compliance and levy a civil penalty, with judicial review and appeals proceeding to the Superior Court and then the Arizona Court of Appeals — Division One in Phoenix, Division Two in Tucson.¹¹ For fee-shifting, § 33-1816(C) mandates that a court award reasonable attorney fees and costs to a party who substantially prevails against the board, mandatory for planned communities, and in the administrative forum a prevailing petitioner is entitled to reimbursement of the filing fee under § 32-2199.01.^2,11

SECTION 4 — Recent legislative and judicial activity

4A. Recent bills

No bill enacted over the past 24 months amended A.R.S. § 33-1816, § 33-439, or added a condominium solar provision. The operative text of both solar statutes stays unchanged, continuing to track the language in force since § 33-1816 was added by Senate Bill 1254 in 2007.^2,7 The Arizona Legislature's 2025 HOA reform package consisted of six bills — SB 1039, SB 1070, SB 1494, HB 2323, SB 1022, and SB 1378 — signed by Governor Katie Hobbs and effective September 26, 2025. That package addressed subjects such as the planned-community assessment-lien foreclosure threshold in § 33-1807, raised from $1,200 to $10,000 and from one year to eighteen months, and left § 33-1816 untouched.¹²

4B. Recent appellate rulings

No Arizona Court of Appeals or Arizona Supreme Court opinion in the past 36 months interprets § 33-1816, § 33-439, or the solar reasonable-rules boundary as applied to a community restriction. The controlling appellate authority predates that window but remains the governing precedent:

4C. Active legislative debates

No active proposal to amend the solar provisions or the reasonable-rules standard has surfaced. Recent HOA-related legislative attention in Arizona has focused on adjacent subjects — outdoor shade structures, assessment-lien reform — rather than the solar statutes themselves.

SECTION 5 — National positioning and related coverage

Arizona sits in the strong-protection tier of states whose statutes void or limit association solar restrictions, a group that also includes California (Civ. Code § 714), Florida (Fla. Stat. § 163.04), Colorado (C.R.S. § 38-30-168), Nevada (NRS § 278.0208, voiding any covenant that prohibits or unreasonably restricts an owner from using a solar energy system), and Texas (Prop. Code § 202.010).^3,6 That tier stands apart from solar-easement-only states, which enable voluntary easements between neighbors but don't override associations, and from no-protection states, where the declaration fully controls whether an owner may install solar.³ Arizona's distinctive feature is the combination of a broad covenant-voiding statute (§ 33-439) with a planned-community-specific prohibition and defined reasonable-rules boundary (§ 33-1816), rather than a single unified code section. For a multi-state operator, the practical implication is direct: an Arizona association cannot deny solar outright, and it must confine its review to reasonable placement that doesn't impair function or economics.

HOA Weekly's Arizona Solar Rights coverage updates quarterly as the legislature and Arizona courts act. No federal rule comparable to the FCC's OTARD rule applies to rooftop solar, so Arizona's state statutes control the question here.

1. A.R.S. § 33-439, Restrictions on installation or use of solar energy devices invalid; exception (Arizona State Legislature) ↩
2. A.R.S. § 33-1816, Solar energy devices; reasonable restrictions; fees and costs (Arizona State Legislature) ↩
3. "Solar Rights Laws in Arizona, California, Florida" and other states (Connecticut General Assembly, Office of Legislative Research, Report 2021-R-0185) ↩
4. Arizona Revised Statutes, Title 33, Chapter 9 (Condominiums) section index, §§ 33-1201 through 33-1270 (Arizona State Legislature) ↩
5. A.R.S. § 44-1761, Definitions (Arizona State Legislature) ↩
6. Nevada Revised Statutes § 278.0208, voiding covenants that prohibit or unreasonably restrict use of a solar energy system (Nevada Legislature) ↩
7. Arizona Solar Center, "Know Your Rights," describing Senate Bill 1254 (2007) barring HOAs from prohibiting solar energy devices and the 1979 enactment of § 33-439 (cross-verification) ↩
8. Garden Lakes Community Association, Inc. v. Madigan, 204 Ariz. 238, 62 P.3d 983 (Ariz. Ct. App. Div. One 2003) (cross-verification; standard citation provided for editor verification of the published opinion) ↩
9. Arizona Nonprofit Corporation Act, A.R.S. § 10-3101 et seq. (Arizona State Legislature, Title 10) ↩
10. A.R.S. § 33-1817, Declaration amendment; design, architectural committees; review (Arizona State Legislature, Title 33, Chapter 16) ↩
11. Homeowners Association Dispute Process, A.R.S. Title 32, Chapter 20, Article 11 (Arizona Department of Real Estate) ↩
12. SB 1494 (2025, 57th Legislature, 1st Regular Session), amending A.R.S. § 33-1807 (planned-community assessment liens and foreclosure threshold) (Arizona State Legislature) ↩
13. SB 1358 (2023, 56th Legislature, 1st Regular Session), homeowners' associations; solar, water devices (Arizona State Legislature) ↩