Massachusetts HOA ADUs & Modifications

Key Findings

Here is the thing to understand about Massachusetts: the state says very little about what a homeowner may build, and the community's own documents say almost everything. There is no comprehensive planned-community statute, and Massachusetts never adopted the Uniform Common Interest Ownership Act. So the master deed, the declaration, and the by-laws run the show — except in a handful of places where the Legislature and the federal government step in and take the decision out of the board's hands. Here is what that looks like, point by point.

1. Solar is the strongest protection an owner has, and it works as a flat void rule, not a reasonableness test. Massachusetts law provides that any instrument provision purporting to forbid or unreasonably restrict a solar energy system, or the structures that collect solar energy, "shall be void." Both an outright ban and an unreasonable restriction fall.
2. EV charging joined the protected list in 2024. A new section of the Condominium Act bars an association from prohibiting or unreasonably restricting an owner who wants to install electric-vehicle supply equipment in the owner's own separate-interest or exclusive-use area, and it defines "association" broadly.
3. ADUs by right is a zoning mandate, and it stops at the town line — it does not reach private covenants. The state now requires cities and towns to allow accessory dwelling units by right in single-family districts, but the mandate binds municipalities. Inside a covenant-governed community, the declaration still controls.
4. Some older architectural restrictions may have quietly expired. Massachusetts caps restrictions "unlimited as to time" at thirty years, so a long-dormant covenant can be unenforceable.
5. Flags, antennas, and disability modifications answer to federal law, not to a Massachusetts HOA statute.

Details

The statutory landscape

Condominiums answer to the Massachusetts Condominium Act, Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 183A, which the Legislature passed on June 27, 1963. It is an enabling statute — sections 1 through 24 — and it hands developers and unit-owner organizations planning flexibility above a statutory floor.¹ Massachusetts has no comprehensive planned-community or HOA statute. A non-condominium homeowners association takes its rules from the recorded declaration, from the state's nonprofit corporation law (Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 180) if it incorporated, and from common law.² And Massachusetts is not a UCIOA state; the jurisdictions that adopted a version of the Uniform Common Interest Ownership Act are Alaska, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Minnesota, Nevada, Vermont, Washington, and West Virginia. The American Bar Association's Real Property, Trust and Estate Law Journal put the situation bluntly in Spring 2026, observing that "Massachusetts has stubbornly clung to its vintage 1963 Condominium Act (G.L. c.183A), even in the face of Massachusetts judges calling it a 'primitive, first generation condominium statute' that has outlived its utility."³

No agency regulates HOAs here, and Massachusetts licenses no community-association managers. The Commonwealth's official "Condominiums" page states it plainly: "The Commonwealth of Massachusetts does not have any jurisdiction or regulatory oversight over Condominiums. Condominiums are privately owned, managed and governed through the terms set forth in the Master Condominium Documents, deed and by-laws and Chapter 183A." Enforcement runs through the members and the courts.⁴

How modifications are reviewed

Inside a Massachusetts community association, the board or trustees review a member's proposed modification under the master deed or declaration, the by-laws, and any rules and regulations — and those documents vest the architectural-review discretion. The master deed sets the rules of the game, and a unit owner holds the right of possession only on the condition that the owner complies with the constituent documents.⁵ Trustees owe fiduciary duties to the organization of unit owners, and they generally enjoy protection when they act in good faith. That private-governance baseline holds — until a statutory or federal override cuts across it. Several do.

Solar (G.L. c. 184 § 23C)

This is the anchor. Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 184, § 23C voids any instrument provision that purports to forbid or unreasonably restrict a solar energy system — as ch. 40A, § 1A defines it — or the structures that facilitate solar collection. The statute reaches both an outright prohibition and an unreasonable restriction.⁶ The Land Court tested that language in Hunter v. Killeen (2024), where a condominium owner who lost an architectural variance for rooftop solar argued that the master deed and declaration of trust were void under § 23C. The court held that the provisions did not themselves unreasonably restrict solar, because they merely vested reasonable discretion in the trust — but it let the owner amend to challenge whether the trustees' denial was reasonable. Keep the weight of that ruling in perspective: it is an unpublished trial-level decision, and it does not bind other courts.⁷

EV charging (G.L. c. 183A § 10A)

The 2024 clean-energy act — chapter 239 of the Acts of 2024, "An Act promoting a clean energy grid, advancing equity and protecting ratepayers," signed November 20, 2024 and effective February 18, 2025 — added § 10A to the Condominium Act. The section defines "association" to include a condominium association, a homeowners' association, a community association, a cooperative, a trust, or another nongovernmental entity whose covenants and by-laws bind a homeowner, and it bars that association from prohibiting or unreasonably restricting an owner who installs EV supply equipment in an area the owner separately owns or exclusively uses. The owner pays, a licensed contractor or electrician does the work, and the installation meets health and safety standards; the board may require an application, but if it does not deny that application in writing within 60 days, the application is deemed approved. The same act amended §§ 6(a) and 10(b)(6) on energy-conservation and efficiency devices.⁸ The Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities describes the change as a statewide "Right to Charge" rule — condominium and homeowners' associations "cannot prohibit or unreasonably restrict Electric Vehicle (EV) charger installations by property owners" — and it adds that it "will not be filing regulations at this time."⁹ One honest wrinkle: because § 10A sits inside the Condominium Act, practitioners have flagged that its reach to non-condominium associations reads as textually ambiguous, though it plainly covers condominiums.

ADUs (Affordable Homes Act)

The Affordable Homes Act — chapter 150 of the Acts of 2024, signed August 6, 2024 — amended the Zoning Act. It rewrote ch. 40A, § 1A to define an accessory dwelling unit and rewrote ch. 40A, § 3 to provide that "No zoning ordinance or by-law shall prohibit, unreasonably restrict or require a special permit or other discretionary zoning approval for the use of land or structures for a single accessory dwelling unit, or the rental thereof, in a single-family residential zoning district," subject to reasonable regulation. An ADU may run to half the gross floor area of the principal dwelling or 900 square feet, whichever is smaller; owner-occupancy requirements are barred; and a town may require no more than one added parking space — none at all within a half-mile of a commuter rail, subway, ferry, or bus station. These provisions took effect February 2, 2025, 180 days after signing.¹⁰ The Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities implemented them through 760 CMR 71.00, "Protected Use Accessory Dwelling Units," published in the Massachusetts Register on January 31, 2025.¹¹

Now the point that trips people up. This is a municipal-zoning mandate; it binds local government. The primary and authoritative sources do not show that it voids private HOA covenants or condominium restrictions. The Executive Office's own ADU FAQs say it directly: "Condominium conversions are governed by MGL c. 183A, which is not regulated or amended by the ADU law" — and the office points readers to the Attorney General's Georgetown ADU decision of June 16, 2025.¹² So inside a covenant-governed community, the declaration still controls ADUs, and you should not file Massachusetts alongside California (Civ. Code § 4751) or Colorado (HB 24-1152), where the statute expressly reaches covenants.¹³ The same Affordable Homes Act also added ch. 183A, § 24, which allows electronic meetings and voting for condominiums, effective August 6, 2024.¹⁴

Restriction-duration limit (G.L. c. 184 §§ 23–30)

Massachusetts puts a clock on old restrictions. Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 184, § 23 provides that conditions or restrictions "unlimited as to time, by which the title or use of real property is affected, shall be limited to the term of thirty years after the date of the deed or other instrument," excepting gifts or devises for public, charitable, or religious purposes. Sections 27 and 28 govern how a restriction imposed after 1961 or before 1962 stays enforceable, and the extension mechanisms generally must be built into the original instrument — § 27, for instance, requires a common scheme of four or more parcels plus a recorded extension provision. That clock bears directly on whether an old architectural restriction still binds anyone.¹⁵

Other categories (landscaping, flags)

Massachusetts has no HOA-specific landscaping statute; the declaration governs there. And for the United States flag, the controlling law is federal, which we turn to next — not a Massachusetts statute.

Federal overlays (labeled FEDERAL)

• U.S. flag: The Freedom to Display the American Flag Act of 2005, Pub. L. No. 109-243, 120 Stat. 572, enacted July 24, 2006, bars a condominium, cooperative, or residential real estate management association from restricting an owner's display of the U.S. flag, subject to reasonable time, place, and manner rules. It carries no federal enforcement mechanism and no private right of action.¹⁶
• Antennas and satellite dishes: The FCC's OTARD Rule, 47 C.F.R. § 1.4000, preempts any restriction that impairs the installation, maintenance, or use of a covered antenna — a direct-broadcast dish one meter or less, a TV broadcast antenna, or certain fixed-wireless antennas — inside the user's exclusive-use area. It does not reach common areas or common elements.¹⁷
• Disability modifications: The Fair Housing Act, 42 U.S.C. § 3604(f)(3), generally makes these resident-paid.¹⁸ In Geezil v. White Cliffs Condominium Four Association, 105 Mass. App. Ct. 103 (Nov. 13, 2024), the Appeals Court held that a condominium association is not the "owner... having the right of ownership" of common areas under the cost-shifting provision of ch. 151B, § 4(7A), so it did not have to pay for a disabled owner's requested common-area patio modification. The decision lines Massachusetts up with the federal resident-pays approach and overrode a 2010 MCAD interpretation.¹⁹
• Common-area public accommodations: ADA Title III may reach common-area facilities that qualify as places of public accommodation.²⁰

Court structure

Trial-level real-property and restriction disputes move through the Massachusetts Superior Court and the Land Court — a specialized statewide trial court, a department of the Trial Court, with jurisdiction over real-property, title, and restriction matters under ch. 185, and authority under ch. 240, § 16 to decide whether an equitable restriction is enforceable. The Land Court hears covenant, restriction, and condominium master-deed disputes often. Appeals go to the Massachusetts Appeals Court, the intermediate appellate court the state established in 1972, and the Supreme Judicial Court takes further review at its discretion.²¹

Recent activity (past 24–36 months)

Recent Legislation

Two enacted bills reshaped the modification landscape here, and both came out of the 2024 session. One added a right to charge an electric vehicle; the other opened single-family districts to accessory dwelling units. Neither one hands a board new power to say no — if anything, they narrow it.

Recent Court Rulings

The courts have not rewritten HOA law from the bench. They have done something more practical: they told associations who pays for a disability modification, and they tested how far the solar-void statute actually reaches. One decision is a published Appeals Court opinion; the other is an unpublished Land Court ruling that turns on the same statute owners lean on most.

Active legislative debates

Lawmakers keep circling two ideas. Representative Josh Cutler filed An Act ensuring solar energy access (House No. 3685 in the 2023–2024 session), which would replace ch. 184, § 23C with language that names homeowners', condominium, property owners', and community associations and cooperatives outright and defines an "unreasonable restriction" — one that "substantially curtails or burdens solar access," for example.²² Owner-advocacy groups have also pushed a Condominium Owners' Rights Act (for instance, S.2498 in the 193rd session), which would create a condominium ombudsman, a mediation program, and other owner protections.²³

Recommendations

Solar — act now. Treat any covenant that bans or unreasonably restricts solar as void under § 23C. Replace an approval regime that functions as a ban with reasonable, content-neutral placement and aesthetic guidelines, and deny a request only on documented reasonableness grounds. Watch for one trigger to revisit this: passage of an H.3685-type bill, which would tighten the standard and bind non-condominium associations expressly.^6,22

EV charging — act now. Adopt a § 10A-compliant written application process, decide within 60 days — or the request is deemed approved — and require owner-paid, licensed installation that meets safety standards. Given the statute's broad definition of "association," extend the policy to non-condominium associations too, notwithstanding the placement ambiguity.^8,9

ADUs — do not assume preemption. If the declaration restricts ADUs, that restriction governs inside the community even though the municipality must now allow ADUs by right. A board that wants to permit or prohibit ADUs should amend its governing documents deliberately rather than lean on the state law. The one threshold that would flip this: an appellate decision, or EOHLC or Attorney General guidance, holding that the ADU law reaches private covenants.^10,12

Old restrictions — audit. Before you spend money to enforce an architectural covenant, check it against the 30-year limit in § 23 and for extension defects under §§ 27–28.¹⁵

Federal compliance — standing policy. Conform your rules on flags, antennas, and disability modifications to federal standards. After Geezil, a Massachusetts condominium association generally need not fund a common-area disability modification — but it must still permit a reasonable, resident-paid one.^16,17,18,19

Caveats

• This is a compliance research summary, not legal advice. Any given outcome turns on the exact language of the recorded declaration and the governing documents.
• Hunter v. Killeen is an unpublished Land Court motion ruling, and it does not bind other courts. No free primary-source full text is posted publicly; the ruling is available through Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly, No. 14-028-24, and its case-identifying details are corroborated by multiple independent sources.
• The reach of ch. 183A, § 10A to non-condominium associations is textually ambiguous, because the section sits inside the Condominium Act. Practitioners have flagged it, and no appellate court has resolved it.
• Secondary sources differ slightly on the clean-energy act's signing date (November 20 versus 21, 2024) and on how they phrase the effective date (Mass.gov lists February 18, 2025 for §§ 84–86; some practitioner summaries say February 15 or 19). We treat the Commonwealth's statutory pages as controlling.
• The conclusion that the ADU law does not void private covenants rests on the statutory text and on EOHLC guidance to date. No appellate court has squarely resolved it, and it remains the key open question — so do not represent Massachusetts as an HOA-preemption state for ADUs absent such a ruling.

1. Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 183A, Massachusetts Condominium Act (enacted June 27, 1963) ↩
2. Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 180, Corporations for Charitable and Certain Other Purposes (nonprofit corporation law) ↩
3. Let the Sunshine In: Ending Secrecy in Common Interest Communities in Massachusetts and Other States, Real Prop. Tr. & Est. L.J. (A.B.A., Spring 2026) ↩
4. Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Condominiums (Mass.gov) (Commonwealth has no jurisdiction or regulatory oversight over condominiums) ↩
5. Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 183A, § 4 (unit owner's rights and use subject to the master deed and by-laws) ↩
6. Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 184, § 23C (instrument provision forbidding or unreasonably restricting a solar energy system is void); Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 40A, § 1A (definition of solar energy system) ↩
7. Hunter v. Killeen, Mass. Land Ct., No. 23 MISC 000539 (Foster, J. 2024), Mass. Law. Wkly. No. 14-028-24 (unpublished; discussed by Moriarty Bielan & Malloy LLC) ↩
8. Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 183A, § 10A (electric vehicle supply equipment; "right to charge"); Act of Nov. 20, 2024, ch. 239, 2024 Mass. Acts (An Act promoting a clean energy grid, advancing equity and protecting ratepayers) ↩
9. Exec. Office of Hous. & Livable Cmtys., Notice of "Right to Charge" Rule in Effect (Feb. 26, 2025) ↩
10. Act of Aug. 6, 2024, ch. 150, 2024 Mass. Acts (Affordable Homes Act); Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 40A, § 3 (single accessory dwelling unit allowed by right in single-family zoning districts) ↩
11. 760 Mass. Code Regs. 71.00, Protected Use Accessory Dwelling Units (Exec. Office of Hous. & Livable Cmtys.) ↩
12. Exec. Office of Hous. & Livable Cmtys., Accessory Dwelling Unit (ADU) — FAQs (Mass.gov) (condominium conversions governed by ch. 183A, "not regulated or amended by the ADU law"; citing Georgetown ADU decision, Mass. Att'y Gen. June 16, 2025) ↩
13. Cal. Civ. Code § 4751 (governing-document provision effectively prohibiting or unreasonably restricting an ADU is void and unenforceable); Colo. H.B. 24-1152 (2024) (covenant restriction on a qualifying ADU void as a matter of public policy) ↩
14. Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 183A, § 24 (electronic meetings and voting for condominiums) ↩
15. Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 184, § 23 (restrictions unlimited as to time limited to thirty years); id. §§ 27–28 (enforceability and extension of restrictions) ↩
16. Freedom to Display the American Flag Act of 2005, Pub. L. No. 109-243, 120 Stat. 572 ↩
17. Over-the-Air Reception Devices (OTARD) Rule, 47 C.F.R. § 1.4000 (FCC) ↩
18. Fair Housing Act, 42 U.S.C. § 3604(f)(3) (reasonable modifications of existing premises at the resident's expense) ↩
19. Geezil v. White Cliffs Condo. Four Ass'n, 105 Mass. App. Ct. 103, No. 23-P-1103 (Nov. 13, 2024); Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 151B, § 4(7A) (disability modifications) ↩
20. Americans with Disabilities Act, Title III, 42 U.S.C. § 12181 et seq. (public accommodations) ↩
21. Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 185 (Land Court jurisdiction; § 15, appeals); Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 240, § 16 (determination of the enforceability of restrictions) ↩
22. H.3685, 193d Gen. Ct. (Mass. 2023–2024), An Act ensuring solar energy access (Rep. Josh S. Cutler) ↩
23. S.2498, 193d Gen. Ct. (Mass. 2023–2024), An Act relative to the Condominium Owners' Rights Act ↩