Why the association's reading lost

The association argued that § 55-3211 protects only the investment-backed interest of the owner who declined to consent — here C&L Lee, L.C. — and not a later purchaser who buys with record notice. It leaned on the phrases “in such a way” and “affected property” to argue the prohibition is limited in duration and lapses on transfer.

The Court disagreed in a sentence that is likely to be quoted for a long time: “Simply put, there is nothing in the plain language of the statute that creates a temporal limitation. The HOA's only way around the statutory prohibitions is to obtain the express written consent of the owner of the affected property.”

The statute's second sentence — preserving covenants that limit an owner's right to transfer an interest “as long as that covenant… applied to the property at the time the homeowner acquired his interest” — did not rescue the ban. Because the owner never consented, the restriction never encumbered the property at all, so it was not valid “at the time [the Homeowners] acquired [their] interest.” The Court read that second sentence as doing something narrower: it provides that restrictions validly added run with the land and bind later owners without fresh consent.

The recording-statute argument, rejected

The association warned that this reading produces a “checkerboard of properties exempt from the short-term rental restriction, with no indication in the recording system,” and cited Miller v. Simonson, 140 Idaho 287 (2004), and Idaho Code § 55-811 on constructive notice.

The Court held Miller inapposite. That case asked whether a purchaser had constructive notice of validly created covenants after a county recording error; it never asked whether a restriction validly encumbered the land in the first place. The recording statutes at §§ 55-801 to 55-820 sit in a different chapter and address a different subject than §§ 55-3201 to 55-3213. And because § 55-3211 is unambiguous, the Court said, it applies the statute as written “irrespective of any concerns that may arise in determining whether a particular property is subject to a rental restriction contained in recorded CCRs.”

For the same reason the Court declined to reach the association's arguments from legislative purpose in § 55-3202 and from legislative history, citing Verska: an asserted purpose cannot modify plain meaning.

What this changes for Idaho associations

• A majority vote is not the operative act. For rental restrictions, the vote sets the association's position; the individual owner's signature is what encumbers a lot. Twenty-three of thirty was not enough for the five who said no.
• Record notice does not cure the gap. Three warranty deeds reciting the covenants changed nothing, because there was no valid restriction for the deeds to carry.
• The exemption is durable. An unconsented restriction does not ripen with time or with a change of ownership; the only cure named by the Court is written consent from the owner of the affected property.
• Title work now has a question the record may not answer. The Court expressly accepted that determining whether a given lot is subject to a recorded rental restriction may be harder than reading the recorded instrument. Associations that adopted rental restrictions by vote should be able to say which lots returned signed consents.

What to watch next

Neither side took fees. The homeowners sought them under Idaho Code § 12-121, but the Court held the appeal “presented an important issue of first impression that will help guide homeowner's associations throughout the state for years to come” and that the arguments were “sound and thoughtfully presented.” The association's cross-request also failed. Costs, but not fees, went to the homeowners as a matter of course under I.A.R. 40(a).

The Court added a caution worth noting for anyone briefing an Idaho fee request: the homeowners' supporting citations did not stand for the propositions cited, and I.A.R. 11.2 requires counsel to verify that citations actually support the argument, with sanctions available for failure.

The reasoning is textual and turns on wording that Idaho has since reused.⁴ Section 55-3212, the accessory-dwelling-unit provision amended in 2026, is built on the same consent structure — a point taken up separately in this column.