Michigan HOA Architectural Review

Start with the fact that shapes everything else in Michigan: the state runs on condominium law and governing documents, not on a broad HOA statute. The Michigan Condominium Act governs most community associations here, including the detached developments people call "site condominiums" (MCL 559.101 et seq.).¹ Michigan has never enacted a comprehensive statute for traditional HOAs.² So the power to review an exterior change, and to approve or deny it, comes from the master deed or the recorded covenants — not from any general architectural-review law the state hands down.

Quick-Reference Architectural Authority Table

Section 1: Overview — How architectural review works in Michigan

The headline fact in Michigan is structural. Most community associations here — including the detached developments people call "site condominiums" — are condominiums, and the Michigan Condominium Act governs them (Act 59 of 1978, MCL 559.101 et seq.).¹ Michigan has never passed a comprehensive statute for traditional planned-community HOAs.² So the power to review an exterior change, and to approve or deny it, sits in the master deed and bylaws for a condominium, or in the recorded covenants for a traditional HOA — not in any general architectural-review statute. That makes classification the first move. A condominium or site condominium answers to the Condominium Act; a traditional non-condominium HOA answers to its recorded covenants, the Michigan Nonprofit Corporation Act (Act 162 of 1982, MCL 450.2101 et seq.),² and the common law; cooperatives and summer resorts run on their own separate schemes. Site condominiums look like conventional subdivisions of detached houses, but they are condominiums under the Act, not traditional HOAs — and getting that wrong is the most common mistake in Michigan.¹²

Because no comprehensive HOA statute exists, the process rules operators take for granted in other states — decision timelines, deemed approval when a board misses a deadline, mandatory written denials — live in the governing documents here, not in a general statute. Michigan imposes exactly one statutory application process: the solar-policy process the 2024 solar law created, which voids "homeowners association" solar bans and requires a written solar energy policy statement. Whether that law reaches condominium associations is genuinely contested.³ The federal overlays — the flag act, the OTARD rule, and the Fair Housing Act — apply in Michigan as they do everywhere. Michigan keeps no ongoing HOA regulator; the state licensing department handles only developer registration and disclosure under the Condominium Act.¹² Disputes go to court, moving from the Circuit Court to the Michigan Court of Appeals and, on further review, the Michigan Supreme Court.⁵ The sections below lay out the framework, the obligations and enforcement tools, and the recent activity.

Section 2: The architectural-review framework

2A. Source and scope of architectural authority

Architectural-control authority in Michigan starts in the recorded governing documents, which hand it to the board or to an architectural (or "architectural control") committee. In a condominium or site condominium, that authority lives in the master deed and the attached condominium bylaws — a structure the Michigan Supreme Court reaffirmed in 2024 when it held that the Condominium Act governs condominium ownership while the bylaws attached to the master deed govern the project's administration.¹³ In a traditional HOA, the authority lives in the recorded declaration of covenants, conditions, and restrictions. No state statute independently gives an association power to regulate exterior modifications; the documents supply that power, and the applicable statute supplies the enforcement mechanics and the corporate governance.¹

Classification controls which law applies, so it comes first. The Michigan Condominium Act (MCL 559.101 et seq.) governs condominiums and the very common detached site condominiums.¹ The Act never separately defines "site condominium"; the term simply describes a condominium of single-family detached homes rather than attached units, and, as the state's own Condominium Buyer's Handbook confirms, site condominium developments must comply with the Act.¹² A site condominium is therefore a condominium, and its architectural authority runs through the master deed and bylaws. Traditional non-condominium HOAs have no comprehensive governing statute; they rely on their recorded covenants, the Michigan Nonprofit Corporation Act (MCL 450.2101 et seq.) for corporate structure, and the common law.² Cooperatives and summer-resort associations answer to their own separate schemes. Most associations of either type also organize as nonprofit corporations, which adds a corporate overlay of director duties, meetings, and voting.²

The order of precedence follows from that structure. For a condominium, the Condominium Act controls where it speaks; below it sit the master deed, then the condominium bylaws, then any rules and architectural guidelines adopted under them.¹ For a traditional HOA, the recorded covenants sit at the top of the private hierarchy, followed by the bylaws and then the rules and guidelines, with the Nonprofit Corporation Act supplying corporate governance and filling the gaps the documents leave open.² In both structures, a rule or architectural guideline that conflicts with the recorded document above it is vulnerable, and an association cannot use guidelines to expand authority the recorded documents never granted.

2B. The review process as it actually works in Michigan

Neither the Condominium Act nor the Nonprofit Corporation Act sets a statutory deadline for deciding a general architectural application, a deemed-approval rule for a slow association, a mandatory written-decision requirement, or a statutory architectural appeal track. Each of those exists in Michigan only if the master deed, the bylaws, or the covenants create it. That is the single most important operational point for a professional reader used to comprehensive-statute states: in Michigan, the governing documents define the defensible process, and the association must follow whatever process those documents prescribe.

A defensible Michigan process therefore begins by reading the documents to confirm which body holds approval authority, which standards apply, and which timeline or notice steps the documents require. Michigan case law makes the "read and follow your own documents" point concrete: courts enforce restrictive covenants as written and, to be enforceable in equity, those covenants must be reasonable.⁶ Consistent application matters too. An association that enforces a standard against one owner while ignoring identical conditions elsewhere invites waiver and selective-enforcement defenses — though a well-drafted anti-waiver clause preserves the right to enforce later, as the Michigan Court of Appeals confirmed in Powers v Bone (2025).¹⁴ The sound practice is to require written applications, decide within the timeframe the documents set, communicate decisions in writing with the specific provision relied on, and document the file — even though no general statute compels those steps.

Michigan's one statutory application process is the solar-policy process the Homeowners' Energy Policy Act created. For associations the Act reaches, a member who wants to install a solar energy system files a written application, and the association must approve or deny it within 30 days — or within 120 days if the member applies before the association has adopted its required solar energy policy statement.³ If the association fails to adopt a policy on time, or fails to act on an application within the statutory window, the member may proceed and the association cannot impose fines or penalties.³ That deadline-and-deemed-approval structure is unique to solar and other covered energy improvements; it does not reach paint, fences, additions, or other ordinary architectural applications, and its application to condominium associations is contested (discussed in 2C and Section 3C).

2C. Limits on architectural authority

The first limit is reasonableness and consistent application under Michigan law. Michigan courts strongly protect the freedom to create and enforce covenants, and they will enforce valid recorded restrictions and master-deed and bylaw terms as written — but a restrictive covenant, to be enforceable in equity, must be reasonable, and courts construe restrictions strictly against the party seeking to enforce them, resolving genuine ambiguities in favor of the free use of property.⁶ Equity also recognizes limited exceptions to injunctive enforcement, including technical violations without substantial injury, changed conditions, and laches.¹⁴ The practical takeaway for an approve-or-deny decision: a standard grounded clearly in the documents, applied consistently, and reasonable in scope is enforceable, while a vague, selectively enforced, or arbitrary denial is exposed.

The second limit is the solar law. The Homeowners' Energy Policy Act (Act 68 of 2024, MCL 559.301 et seq., effective April 2, 2025) makes any provision in a "homeowners' association agreement" that prohibits — or has the effect of prohibiting — a solar energy system invalid and unenforceable as contrary to public policy, and it likewise voids provisions that prohibit or require approval for other "energy-saving improvements or modifications."³ Associations keep the ability to review applications and enforce reasonable standards, but the anti-prohibition rule is the ceiling on architectural authority for covered devices. Two scope limits matter. First, the Act does not define "homeowners' association," and practitioners disagree about whether it reaches an "association of co-owners" under the Condominium Act, cooperatives, or summer resorts. Hirzel Law, PLC reads the plain language as not indicating that the Act applies to condominium associations, cooperatives, or summer resorts,¹⁵ and Tilchin & Hall, P.C. takes the interpretation that the Act "does not apply to associations organized under the Condominium Act";¹⁶ both still advise condominiums to comply voluntarily to avoid liability until a court settles the question.¹⁵ Second, by its terms the Act does not reach an energy-saving improvement, modification, or solar system in a common area or on a shared roof (MCL 559.313), so associations may keep regulating those shared elements.³

The third set of limits is federal, and it applies regardless of community type — but each limit is narrow. The Freedom to Display the American Flag Act bars covered condominium, cooperative, and residential real estate management associations from preventing a member from displaying the U.S. flag on property the member owns or exclusively controls, subject to the Flag Code and to reasonable restrictions necessary for safety.⁷ The FCC's OTARD rule prohibits restrictions that impair the installation, maintenance, or use of covered antennas and satellite dishes (generally one meter or less) in an owner's area of exclusive use, but it does not reach common elements such as a shared roof.⁸ The Fair Housing Act requires associations to permit reasonable, disability-related exterior modifications, though the owner makes the modification at their own expense and it remains subject to a reasonableness analysis.⁹ None of these federal rules is a blanket exemption from architectural review; each carves out a defined category and leaves the rest of the association's authority intact.

Section 3: Obligations and enforcement

3A. The application-and-approval obligation (governing-document sourced)

An owner's core obligation — to get approval before making an exterior modification — and the association's matching duty to review it are governing-document obligations in Michigan, not statutory ones. The master deed and bylaws (condominiums) or the recorded covenants (traditional HOAs) define what needs approval, who decides, and on what standard.¹ Because these are document obligations, an association enforcing them must show that the specific restriction sits in a validly recorded document and was applied as written; Michigan courts will not supply an approval mechanism the documents omit, and after-the-fact correction of an unapproved change does not necessarily erase the violation, as the Court of Appeals held in Dearborn Hills Civic Ass'n v Bittar in late 2025.¹⁷ The only architectural obligation Michigan imposes by statute is the solar-application and solar-policy process (Section 3C).

3B. Enforcement tools available to the association (statute plus documents)

For condominiums, the Condominium Act supplies the primary statutory enforcement tools. Unpaid sums assessed to a co-owner — together with interest, late charges, attorney fees, and fines "in accordance with the condominium documents" — form a lien on the unit that the association may foreclose by judicial action or by advertisement, with a six-month redemption period (one month if the unit is abandoned) (MCL 559.208).¹⁰ Attorney-fee recovery is conditional, not automatic: MCL 559.206(b) lets a successful association recover costs and reasonable attorney fees in a proceeding arising from a co-owner default only "to the extent the condominium documents expressly so provide," and Michigan appellate courts have confirmed that the statute creates no independent right to fees without that document predicate (Highfield Beach at Lake Michigan v Sanderson, 331 Mich App 636 (2020)).¹¹ A co-owner may also sue the association and its directors to compel enforcement of the documents (MCL 559.207),⁴ and any person or association of co-owners adversely affected by a violation of the Act, the rules, an agreement, or the master deed may bring an action for relief, with costs available to the prevailing party (MCL 559.215).⁵ Fines require notice and a hearing and must be authorized by the documents (MCL 559.206(c)).¹¹

For traditional HOAs, enforcement rests on the recorded covenants, the Nonprofit Corporation Act, and the common law rather than on the Condominium Act's lien-and-fee machinery. An HOA's lien, fine, and fee powers depend on whether the covenants grant them; where they do, courts enforce them, and where the covenants are silent, the association's options narrow.² The common-law remedy is injunctive relief to compel removal of, or to prevent, a nonconforming improvement, which Michigan courts grant to enforce valid restrictions as written.⁶ The Nonprofit Corporation Act (MCL 450.2101 et seq.) supplies the corporate-governance backbone — director duties, meetings, and voting — for both HOAs and incorporated condominiums, but it is not an architectural-enforcement statute.²

3C. Solar and energy-improvement obligations (statutory, contested scope)

The Homeowners' Energy Policy Act imposes affirmative statutory duties around solar. A covered association must adopt a written solar energy policy statement within one year of the Act's April 2, 2025 effective date (practitioners commonly cite an April 1, 2026 deadline), must include the statutorily required content, and must furnish the policy to members and post it if it maintains a website.¹⁸ It must process solar applications within the statutory 30-day (or 120-day) window, and it may deny a solar application only on the grounds the Act enumerates in MCL 559.309 — namely, that a court has found the installation violates a law, or that the installed system does not substantially conform with the approved application.³ Failure to adopt a timely policy, or to act within the deadline, lets the member proceed without fines or penalties.³

Two scope points sit at the center of any Michigan solar decision. First, applicability to condominiums is unsettled: the Act regulates "homeowners' associations" but never defines the term and never mentions "condominium association" or "association of co-owners," and Michigan community-association firms — including Hirzel Law, PLC and Tilchin & Hall, P.C. — read it as not reaching Condominium Act associations, cooperatives, or summer resorts, while advising those entities to comply voluntarily because a member may sue and recover attorney fees for noncompliance under MCL 559.315.^15,16 As of Hirzel Law's January 2026 legislative update, no one had filed a lawsuit seeking clarification from a court.¹⁵ Second, the Act excludes shared roofs and common areas: it does not apply to the installation or operation of solar or other energy-saving improvements in a common area or on a shared roof (MCL 559.313), so associations keep authority over those shared elements.³

3D. Federal-overlay obligations

Regardless of community type, Michigan associations must honor three federal limits when they review exterior modifications. The Freedom to Display the American Flag Act prevents a covered association from restricting a member's display of the U.S. flag on property the member owns or exclusively controls, subject to the Flag Code and reasonable safety restrictions.⁷ The FCC OTARD rule prevents restrictions that impair covered antennas and satellite dishes (generally one meter or less) in an owner's exclusive-use area, putting the burden on the association to justify any restriction and excluding common elements.⁸ The Fair Housing Act obligates associations to permit reasonable, owner-funded disability-related modifications to the exterior.⁹ These are obligations, not options; an architectural denial that ignores them creates federal exposure independent of state law.

Section 4: Recent legislative and judicial activity

4A. Recent bills

Michigan is not rewriting its architectural-review law across the board. The one measure that matters here is the 2024 solar law, and its reach into condominium communities is still an open question.

4B. Recent rulings

Michigan's appellate courts are not reshaping architectural-review law from the bench. Two recent decisions matter for a practical reason: both tell owners and associations that the governing documents, followed precisely, still decide these disputes.

4C. Active legislative debates

No bill pending as of mid-2026 would define "homeowners' association" for the Homeowners' Energy Policy Act or otherwise resolve its contested application to condominiums, and no reported Michigan lawsuit has yet settled the question.¹⁵ Separate 2026 legislation to require condominium reserve studies — House Bill 5784 of 2026, amending MCL 559.205 — is advancing, but it does not touch architectural-review authority.²⁰

Section 5: National positioning and related coverage

Michigan sits in the condominium-statute-dominant, documents-driven category. It regulates condominiums and the very common detached site condominiums in detail through the Condominium Act, but it has no comprehensive HOA statute for traditional planned communities — which sets it apart both from comprehensive single-statute states and from the UCIOA states that adopted a uniform common-interest framework — and its recent solar law adds an anti-prohibition layer whose reach to condominiums is contested.^1,3 For a multi-state operator, the practical implication is that Michigan inverts the usual order of analysis: the first step is classifying the community (condominium or site condominium versus traditional HOA versus cooperative or summer resort); the master deed or covenants, not a state code, govern the architectural process; and the new solar law's application to condominiums is unsettled and should be handled conservatively. That is a sharp contrast with carve-out-heavy states such as California and Maryland, where detailed statutes prescribe timelines, deemed approval, and specific protections for flags, signs, and low-water landscaping that Michigan simply does not codify.

Federal frameworks — the Freedom to Display the American Flag Act, the FCC OTARD rule, and the Fair Housing Act — apply to Michigan associations in addition to state law, and each one limits architectural review in its own defined way. HOA Weekly updates this Michigan architectural-review coverage as the Legislature, the Michigan Court of Appeals, and the Michigan Supreme Court continue to act.

1. Michigan Legislature, Condominium Act, 1978 PA 59, MCL 559.101 et seq. ↩
2. Michigan Legislature, Nonprofit Corporation Act, 1982 PA 162, MCL 450.2101 et seq. ↩
3. Michigan Legislature, Homeowners' Energy Policy Act, 2024 PA 68, MCL 559.301 et seq. (MCL 559.305, 559.307, 559.309, 559.311, 559.313, 559.315) ↩
4. Michigan Legislature, MCL 559.207 (co-owner action to compel the association and its directors to enforce the condominium documents) ↩
5. Michigan Legislature, MCL 559.215 (person or association of co-owners adversely affected by a violation may bring an action; costs available to the prevailing party) ↩
6. Thiel v Goyings, Michigan Supreme Court, Docket No. 156708 (restrictive covenants enforced as written and, to be enforceable in equity, must be reasonable; equitable exceptions include technical violations, changed conditions, and laches) ↩
7. Freedom to Display the American Flag Act of 2005, Pub. L. No. 109-243, 120 Stat. 572 ↩
8. FCC Over-the-Air Reception Devices (OTARD) Rule, 47 C.F.R. § 1.4000 ↩
9. Fair Housing Act, 42 U.S.C. § 3604(f)(3)(A) (reasonable modification of existing premises at the expense of the person with a disability) ↩
10. Michigan Legislature, MCL 559.208 (assessment lien; priority; foreclosure by judicial action or by advertisement; redemption period) ↩
11. Michigan Legislature, MCL 559.206 (attorney-fee recovery for co-owner default only where the condominium documents expressly so provide; fines after notice and hearing) ↩
12. Michigan Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs, The Condominium Buyer's Handbook (site condominium developments must comply with the Condominium Act) ↩
13. Janini v London Townhouses Condominium Ass'n, 514 Mich 86 (2024) (condominium ownership is governed by the Condominium Act, MCL 559.101 et seq.; administration is governed by the condominium bylaws attached to the master deed) ↩
14. Powers v Bone, unpublished per curiam opinion of the Michigan Court of Appeals, issued February 11, 2025 (Docket No. 367748) (enforceable anti-waiver clause; failure to enforce does not waive later enforcement) ↩
15. Kevin Hirzel, HB 5028 Passes: A Michigan HOAs' Guide to Solar Panels and Energy-Saving Improvements under the Homeowners' Energy Policy Act, The Michigan Community Association Law Blog (Hirzel Law, PLC) (plain language does not indicate the Act applies to condominium associations, cooperatives, or summer resorts; associations should comply to avoid liability; as of the January 2026 update, no lawsuit had been filed) ↩
16. Tilchin & Hall, P.C., Does Your Association Need to Adopt a Solar Energy Policy Statement? ("we take the interpretation that the Homeowners' Energy Policy Act does not apply to associations organized under the Condominium Act") ↩
17. Dearborn Hills Civic Ass'n, Inc. v Bittar, unpublished per curiam opinion of the Michigan Court of Appeals, issued November 20, 2025 (Docket Nos. 367782 and 367857) (unapproved exterior alteration violated pre-approval covenant; post-suit removal did not cure the violation) ↩
18. Szura & Delonis, PLC, Michigan's Homeowner Energy Policy Act: What Every HOA Board Needs to Know in 2026 (Michigan HOAs must adopt a compliant written solar energy policy by April 1, 2026, one year after the Act's effective date) ↩
19. Michigan Legislature, House Bill 5028 of 2023-2024 (enacted as Public Act 68 of 2024), bill history and enacted text ↩
20. Michigan Legislature, House Bill 5784 of 2026 (amends MCL 559.205 to modify reserve-study and reserve-funding-plan requirements for associations of co-owners) ↩