Michigan's solar law may not reach your condominium at all
Michigan's solar law may not reach your condominium at all
2026-09-12 · Michigan · Legislation
What happened. Nothing new happened; that is the point. Eighteen months after the Homeowners' Energy Policy Act took effect, the question of whether it governs Michigan condominiums has never been answered, by the Legislature or by a court. Two features of the statute create the gap, and boards on both sides of it are currently guessing.
The act never says what a homeowners' association is
Section 3 of 2024 PA 68 is a definitions section, and it is a long one. It defines common area, electric vehicle supply equipment, energy-saving improvement or modification, local unit of government, member, policy, shared roof, solar collector, solar energy, solar energy system and solar storage mechanism.1
It does not define homeowners' association — the entity every operative section addresses. Nor does it cross-reference the Condominium Act's own defined term, “association of co-owners” at MCL 559.103, which the Legislature has used freely elsewhere and used again as recently as the 2025 Marketable Record Title Act amendment.
Section 13 then removes most of a condominium anyway
MCL 559.313 provides that the act does not apply to a common area or to a shared roof, defined as “a roof that serves more than 1 home or unit, including… a contiguous roof that serves adjacent homes or units.”
Read against a typical Michigan attached condominium, that carve-out does most of the work regardless of the definitional gap. The roof over a stacked or townhouse-style building serves more than one unit. In many Michigan master deeds the roof is a general common element in the first place, which the act also excludes. So even an interpretation that brings condominiums inside the act would leave the roof of an attached building outside it.
Where it bites: the detached site condominium
Michigan builds an unusual amount of its detached single-family housing as site condominium. The homes look like subdivision lots and are legally condominium units, governed by a master deed and an association of co-owners under 1978 PA 59.
A detached site condo has neither of section 13's exits. Its roof serves one unit. It is not a common area. Whether the act reaches it therefore turns entirely on the undefined term — and a site condominium association is exactly the kind of body a legislator saying “homeowners association” in ordinary speech would have in mind.
The cautious reading, and the one most Michigan association counsel have landed on, is that a site condominium association acts as if covered: adopts the policy, runs the 30-day clock, and applies the act's aesthetic standards rather than its own.
The three consequences a board can price
- Architectural clauses are already void, coverage question or not. Section 5 invalidates any provision that prohibits or requires association approval for an energy-saving improvement. The section 3 list is broad — clotheslines, air-source and ground-source heat pumps, insulation, rain barrels, reflective roofing, energy-efficient appliances, solar water heaters, electric vehicle supply equipment, energy-efficient windows, insulation materials. A general “no exterior modification without board approval” clause reaches most of those, and to that extent it is unenforceable against a covered association.
- Getting it wrong in the association's favour is the expensive error. MCL 559.315 gives a prevailing member attorney fees and costs. Getting it wrong in the owner's favour — adopting a policy the association did not strictly need — costs a board meeting.
- The carve-out is a limit, not a licence. An attached condominium relying on section 13 is relying on the roof being shared. If the association also has detached units, carriage houses or standalone garages in the same project, the analysis differs unit by unit.
Why the Legislature is unlikely to fix it soon
The Condominium Act has not been amended once in 2024, 2025 or 2026. The Legislature's community-association work in this session has been narrow and targeted, and the only condominium bill with any floor movement is Senate Bill 272, which addresses an unrelated build-out question. There is no pending bill that would define the term or extend the act expressly.
What to watch next
The first Michigan appellate decision construing 2024 PA 68 will almost certainly answer the coverage question in passing, because a plaintiff has to establish the act applies before anything else. Until then the definitional gap is a live risk that boards allocate by choosing which way to guess.
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