Mississippi appeals court: a one-member architectural committee is no committee
Mississippi appeals court: a one-member architectural committee is no committee
2026-09-15 · Mississippi · Courts
A Mississippi architectural control committee that has shrunk to one person cannot approve or reject anything, and when it misses the covenants' own 30-day deadline the owner's plans are deemed approved. That is the holding of O'Neill-Marnecheck v. Val's Property Development, LLC, No. 2023-CA-01110-COA, decided March 24, 2026 and left standing when rehearing was denied on June 30, 2026.1
A paper association and a committee of one
Val's Property Development LLC developed the Estates of Penny Lane in Long Beach and recorded covenants in 2012 creating both a homeowners association and an architectural control committee of three to five members. The association existed on paper only. The Court of Appeals recorded what it did not do: it “adopted no by-laws, elected no formal board of directors, held no formal meetings, created no budget reports, recorded no minutes, and provided no annual reports to homeowners.”
By 2020 the ACC had shrunk to a single person, Val Mueller. When homeowners Mary and Philip Marnecheck covered a deck and built a porch without written approval, the developer obtained a temporary restraining order and ultimately a mandatory injunction ordering them to demolish more than $80,000 of construction — plus an award of $220,939.19 in attorney's fees.
The Court of Appeals affirmed in part, reversed and rendered in part, and reversed and remanded in part. Four of its rulings matter to every Mississippi association that enforces architectural covenants.
1. The declarant could sue — read the whole instrument
The owners argued that only “the Board” could bring an enforcement action, pointing at Article IV § 3. The court rejected that by reading the covenants as a whole: Article VII § 1 gave “The Association, the Board, the Declarant or any Owner” the right to enforce, so “VPD as the declarant had the authority to file suit.”1
2. A committee below its stated minimum cannot act
This is the ruling with the widest reach. “The unambiguous language in the covenant provision here reflects the intent of the declarant that the ACC function with a minimum of three members in reviewing submissions and approving construction plans… VPD was just as bound by the covenants as were the Marnechecks, and no one member could act unilaterally and arbitrarily to determine the sufficiency of the plans submitted.” Any ambiguity, the court added, is “construed in favor of the Marnechecks and against VPD” — the drafter.
3. The 30-day silence clause is self-executing
Because “a fully constituted ACC did not review or decide on the porch submission within thirty days, the Marnechecks were allowed under the covenants to proceed with the construction.” The covenant deemed approval given by operation of its own terms, and the owners “cured their breach by submitting the plans they had.”
Read together with ruling 2, the combination is unforgiving: a committee that is not properly constituted cannot stop the 30-day clock by acting, and the clock running out is approval.
4. Architectural discretion must be exercised reasonably
The court held that the sole committee member and the association's lawyer “unilaterally and arbitrarily rejected what the Marnechecks submitted and refused to meet with them as the ACC had with other homeowners, which was not reasonable.” Demanding removal of a six-foot fence and of a dormer matching the developer's own was “arbitrary and unreasonable.”
The demolition injunction was an abuse of discretion — “not customized to meet the needs of the situation” — and was vacated. The $220,939.19 fee award was reversed for recalculation.
What it means for a Mississippi board
Count the committee before it votes. If the declaration says three to five members, a decision by fewer is exposed. Filling vacancies is not housekeeping; it is what makes the committee's acts valid.
Docket the response deadline the day a submission arrives. Where the covenants deem silence to be approval, the deadline is the association's entire defence, and it runs whether or not anyone is watching it.
Treat like submissions alike, and meet with the owner. The court's reasonableness finding rested partly on the ACC having met with other homeowners and not these. An enforcement record that varies by owner is the record an owner's lawyer wants.
A fee award is not a judgment until it survives appeal. $220,939.19 in fees did not survive the reversal of the injunction it was attached to.
Status
Published and precedential. McDonald, J., wrote for the court, before Wilson, P.J., McDonald and Lassitter St. Pé, JJ. Westbrooks, J., concurred in part and dissented in part without written opinion; Wilson, P.J., and Weddle, J., concurred in result only. Rehearing was denied June 30, 2026 (Weddle, J., would grant). No certiorari order has appeared on a Supreme Court hand-down list through September 10, 2026.
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