Montana HOA Political Signs

Section 1: Overview — How political signs are regulated in Montana HOAs

Montana law makes it contrary to public policy for a covenant to prohibit an owner from displaying political signs, and courts won't enforce such a provision, while associations may still impose reasonable size, placement, and time rules.¹ Montana is a protective-statute state, and the protection sits spelled out in a single provision of the property code rather than left to the governing documents.

The controlling statute is Mont. Code Ann. § 70-1-522, which protects signs advocating the election, appointment, or defeat of a candidate for public office and signs supporting or opposing the passage or defeat of a ballot issue, using the definitions of "candidate" and "ballot issue" in Mont. Code Ann. § 13-1-101.^1,2 The protected location is property belonging to the owner who authorizes the sign, or a common area in which the owner holds an undivided interest.¹ Because the statute names "a person, homeowners' association, property owners' association, corporation, or other private entity," and sits in the general property provisions rather than the condominium act, it reaches both planned-community HOAs and condominium associations.¹

The protection is statutory, not constitutional. A Montana association is a private entity, so the First Amendment, which restrains government, doesn't apply to it.³ That places Montana among the owner-protective states alongside California, Indiana, Kansas, and Maryland. The sections ahead dissect the statute, explain why the source of the protection matters, and translate the rule into operational terms.

Section 2: The legal framework for political signs

2A. The statute that protects political signs

Mont. Code Ann. § 70-1-522 is titled "Certain restrictions on political free speech contrary to public policy -- enforcement prohibited -- definitions."¹ It has four operative subsections, and each one matters.

Subsection (1) states the protection. A person, homeowners' association, property owners' association, corporation, or other private entity may not, as a condition of property ownership within the jurisdiction of the private entity or by other means, prohibit the placement of a sign advocating the election, appointment, or defeat of a candidate for public office or the passage or defeat of a ballot issue. The protected locations are (a) property belonging to individual or joint property owners who authorize the placement of the sign, and (b) common areas in which an owner owns an undivided interest.¹

Subsection (2) preserves a bounded regulatory power. The same entities may impose limits on the size of signs allowed to be displayed within the jurisdiction of the private entity, and may regulate the location of sign placement and the time period during which signs may be displayed.¹

Subsection (3) supplies the enforcement mechanism. An ordinance, covenant, contract term, or other provision, whether agreed to or not between the association and the owner or tenant, that prohibits such signs is contrary to the public policy of the state, and a court may not enforce the terms of an ordinance, covenant, contract term, or other provision that is contrary to public policy under this section.¹ That's how the statute overrides a recorded covenant. The ban doesn't get voided in the abstract; instead, a Montana court is barred from enforcing it.

Subsection (4) defines the protected categories by cross-reference. "Ballot issue" and "candidate" have the meanings provided in Mont. Code Ann. § 13-1-101.¹ Under § 13-1-101, a "candidate" is, in general, an individual who has filed for nomination, acceptance of nomination, or appointment as a candidate for public office, and a "ballot issue" is a proposal submitted to the people at an election for approval or rejection, including initiatives, referenda, proposed constitutional amendments, recall questions, school levy questions, bond issue questions, and ballot questions.²

On its face, the statute uses a reasonableness standard for size, placement, and time. It doesn't set a numeric square-footage cap and doesn't fix a number of days before or after an election during which signs may be displayed. No specific figure should get attributed to § 70-1-522, because the current text contains none.¹ The statute was enacted by the 2009 Legislature; the official Montana Code Annotated history line reads "En. Sec. 1, Ch. 307, L. 2009," and the section hasn't been amended since.¹

Several other Montana statutes turn up in this area and should be kept separate. Mont. Code Ann. § 70-17-901, added by Senate Bill 300 in 2019, limits an association's ability to impose more onerous use restrictions on an existing owner without written consent; it's a use-restriction provision, not a sign provision.⁴ Mont. Code Ann. § 70-17-301 et seq. governs solar easements, a separate topic.⁵ The Montana Unit Ownership Act, Mont. Code Ann. § 70-23-101 et seq., governs condominiums that record a declaration.⁶ The Montana Nonprofit Corporation Act, Mont. Code Ann. § 35-2-113 et seq., governs the corporate form under which most associations are organized.⁷

2B. The First Amendment and the source of the protection

The First Amendment to the United States Constitution restrains government action. It provides that "Congress shall make no law" abridging the freedom of speech, and its protections trigger only with state action. A homeowners' association or condominium association is a private entity, usually a nonprofit corporation organized under Mont. Code Ann. § 35-2-113 et seq., and its relationship with owners is contractual, arising from recorded covenants and bylaws.⁷ Because an association isn't the government, the First Amendment doesn't, by its own force, require an association to permit political signs.

The source of the Montana protection is therefore statutory. Mont. Code Ann. § 70-1-522 is a legislative grant that reaches private entities by name and declares covenant bans against public policy.¹ An owner in a Montana association who wants to display a candidate or ballot-issue sign relies on the statute, not the Bill of Rights.

This distinction is frequently misunderstood, and the misunderstanding matters for how a dispute is framed. Owners sometimes assert a constitutional right to post signs; the accurate position is that the statute prevents a court from enforcing the ban.

Two recent Supreme Court decisions get cited often in sign disputes but don't apply to associations. Reed v. Town of Gilbert, 576 U.S. 155 (2015), decided unanimously on June 18, 2015, held that a municipality's sign code provisions were content-based regulations of speech that didn't survive strict scrutiny. City of Austin v. Reagan National Advertising of Austin, LLC, 596 U.S. 61 (2022), held that a city's on-premises/off-premises sign distinction read as facially content neutral. Both decisions concern the constitutionality of municipal sign codes; they constrain how a government regulates signs, not how a private association regulates them, and neither supplies a basis to challenge an association's sign rule.

The Montana Constitution protects freedom of speech in Article II, Section 7, which provides that "No law shall be passed impairing the freedom of speech or expression."³ That provision, like the First Amendment, addresses government action and isn't the operative source of the protection for association political signs. The page rests on § 70-1-522.

2C. How the statute interacts with covenants, and its limits

The order of precedence runs straightforward. If a covenant, rule, or contract term prohibits political signs, § 70-1-522 declares that provision contrary to the public policy of the state and directs that a court may not enforce it.¹ A recorded ban doesn't disappear from the document, but it becomes unenforceable in court. An association that attempts to fine an owner or compel removal under such a ban has no judicial remedy.

What the association retains is the regulatory authority in subsection (2): reasonable limits on the size of signs, the location of placement, and the time period of display.¹ Those limits get measured against a reasonableness standard, and the statute supplies no fixed number, so a rule that's effectively a ban — a size limit so small that no usable sign qualifies, say, or a display window so short that it excludes the relevant election — risks being treated as an unenforceable prohibition rather than a reasonable regulation.

What isn't protected is a display that's inconsistent with a reasonable, validly adopted regulation, and any sign that falls outside the statutory categories. The statute protects candidate signs and ballot-issue signs as defined in § 13-1-101; it doesn't, by its terms, extend to commercial signage or to messages unconnected to a candidate or a ballot issue.²

Two risk principles follow. First, consistent enforcement: an association that enforces size or placement rules against some owners but not others invites a selective-enforcement challenge. Second, content and viewpoint neutrality: because the statute protects the act of displaying candidate and ballot-issue signs, a regulation that turns on which candidate or which side of a ballot issue a sign supports falls outside the reasonable-regulation power. The operational takeaway: a Montana association can't enforce a ban on political signs, but it keeps bounded authority over size, placement, and time, applied reasonably and consistently.

Section 3: Operational rules for Montana associations

A. What an association may not do

An association may not enforce a covenant, rule, or other provision that prohibits the display of political signs; such a provision runs contrary to public policy, and a court may not enforce it (Mont. Code Ann. § 70-1-522).¹ This applies to both planned-community HOAs and condominium associations, because the statute names private entities generally and isn't limited to one form.¹

An association may not apply its sign rules selectively or by viewpoint, because the statute protects the display of candidate and ballot-issue signs as a category, leaving only content-neutral size, placement, and time regulation (Mont. Code Ann. § 70-1-522).¹

B. What an association may regulate

An association may impose reasonable limits on the size of signs, may regulate the location of placement, and may set the time period during which signs may be displayed, within the statute's reasonableness standard and without a fixed numeric cap supplied by statute (Mont. Code Ann. § 70-1-522).¹ This authority applies to HOAs and condominium associations alike.¹

C. Enforcement and fining constraints

Because a ban is unenforceable, an association has no lawful basis to remove a conforming political sign by self-help or to fine an owner for displaying one (Mont. Code Ann. § 70-1-522).¹ Any fine or enforcement action must rest on a reasonable size, placement, or time rule rather than a prohibition, and it must follow the notice and hearing procedures in the association's governing documents and, for associations organized as nonprofit corporations, the applicable provisions of the Montana Nonprofit Corporation Act (Mont. Code Ann. § 35-2-113 et seq.).⁷

D. Rule adoption and disclosure

A size, placement, or time rule is enforceable only if it's adopted and disclosed in the manner required by the association's governing documents and corporate procedures (Mont. Code Ann. § 35-2-113 et seq.).⁷ A rule or covenant that prohibits political signs outright is unenforceable regardless of how it was adopted, because § 70-1-522 bars a court from enforcing it.¹ This applies to both planned-community HOAs and condominiums.¹

Section 4: Recent legislative and judicial activity

A. Recent bills

No bill enacted in the past 24 months amends Mont. Code Ann. § 70-1-522 or otherwise changes the rules governing association political signs. Montana's Legislature meets in regular session only in odd-numbered years; the 69th Legislature's 2025 regular session convened January 6 and adjourned sine die April 30, 2025, and no special session has been called since.⁸ A review of the 2025 session turned up no qualifying sign measure. Bills addressing HOA governance in recent sessions concerned records access and property access rather than political signs, and the 2019 use-restriction law (Senate Bill 300, § 70-17-901) is a separate use-restriction provision, not a sign measure.⁴

B. Recent rulings

No Montana Supreme Court decision in the past 36 months construes Mont. Code Ann. § 70-1-522 or addresses the enforcement of political-sign rules by a homeowners' or property owners' association. The statute remains judicially uninterpreted as of the verification date. Because Montana has no intermediate appellate court, any future appellate decision on this statute would come from the Montana Supreme Court, with trial-level disputes proceeding through the Montana District Courts.

C. Active legislative debates

No active proposal to change Montana's political-sign rules is pending; the Legislature won't hold a regular session until January 2027.⁸

Section 5: National positioning and related coverage

Montana sits among the owner-protective states on political signs, alongside California (Cal. Civ. Code § 4710), Arizona (Ariz. Rev. Stat. §§ 33-1808 and 33-1261), Colorado (Colo. Rev. Stat. § 38-33.3-106.5), Indiana (Ind. Code § 32-21-13), Kansas (Kan. Stat. Ann. § 58-4601 et seq.), and Maryland (Md. Code, Real Prop. §§ 11-111.2 and 11B-111.2).⁹ Montana's mechanism runs distinctive: rather than a fixed election window or a set square-footage cap of the kind California uses (Cal. Civ. Code § 4710(c) lets an HOA prohibit noncommercial signs and posters larger than nine square feet and flags or banners larger than fifteen square feet), § 70-1-522 declares a covenant ban contrary to public policy and bars a court from enforcing it, while allowing reasonable size, placement, and time rules.¹ The protected location also reaches a common area in which the owner holds an undivided interest, not just the owner's lot.¹ For multi-state operators, the practical implication is clear: a covenant ban on political signs is unenforceable in Montana, and associations stay limited to reasonable size, placement, and time regulation.

HOA Weekly's Montana Political Signs coverage updates quarterly as the Legislature and the Montana Supreme Court act. Other federal frameworks — the Fair Housing Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act, and the FCC's OTARD rule — apply to Montana associations regardless of the state framework, but the federal First Amendment doesn't supply a basis to challenge an association's sign rules.

Footnotes

1. Mont. Code Ann. § 70-1-522, Certain restrictions on political free speech contrary to public policy -- enforcement prohibited -- definitions (Montana Code Annotated, official; history line "En. Sec. 1, Ch. 307, L. 2009") ↩
2. Mont. Code Ann. § 13-1-101, Definitions (Montana Code Annotated, official) ↩
3. Montana Constitution, Article II, Section 7, Freedom of speech, expression, and press ↩
4. Mont. Code Ann. § 70-17-901, Homeowners' association restrictions -- real property rights (enacted by Senate Bill 300, 2019) ↩
5. Mont. Code Ann. § 70-17-301, Creation of solar easements (Montana Code Annotated, official) ↩
6. Mont. Code Ann. § 70-23-101 et seq., Unit Ownership Act -- Condominiums (Montana Code Annotated, official) ↩
7. Mont. Code Ann. § 35-2-113, Short title, Montana Nonprofit Corporation Act (Montana Code Annotated, official) ↩
8. Montana Legislature, Sessions (regular session in odd-numbered years; 2025 session convened January 6, adjourned sine die April 30, 2025) ↩
9. Comparative state statutes as cited; Montana provision at Mont. Code Ann. § 70-1-522 ↩