A New York HOA banned front-yard ice rinks through its architectural guidelines. A court voided the rule and the fines.
A New York HOA banned front-yard ice rinks through its architectural guidelines. A court voided the rule and the fines.
2026-09-15 · New York · Courts
New York has no homeowners association statute, so New York HOA law gets made in decisions like this one. On January 6, 2026 a New York Supreme Court justice declared a homeowners association's rule against front-yard ice rinks invalid, voided roughly $2,000 in accumulated fines, and held that the business judgment rule did not protect the board — because the board had used the wrong instrument to make the rule.
The case is Zinno v Waterford Village Association, Inc., 2026 NY Slip Op 50137(U), decided by Hon. Peter Allen Weinmann, A.J.S.C., on cross-motions for summary judgment. It is a trial-level, unreported decision, so it is persuasive rather than binding — but the reasoning is the clearest recent statement of a rule that reaches every New York HOA.1
The question the court set itself
The opinion opens by asking it directly: “May a Home Owner's Association prohibit a homeowner from erecting a winter ice rink in their front yard? … The Zinnos continued to erect an ice rink each of the next two years, and their HOA began levying weekly fines of $100, resulting in a current balance approximating $2000.”
But the real question was structural, and the court framed it precisely:
“The ultimate legal issue, therefore, is whether the Board was obligated to follow the protocol in the Declaration to obtain a 67% affirmative vote of all lot owners to restrict ice rinks in front yards, or whether the Board was authorized to restrict ice rinks in front yards by simply amending the Architectural Standards and Guidelines by a majority vote of the Board of Directors.”
The declaration is the constitution
The court's description of the hierarchy is the part with the widest reach:
“The Declaration, which functions as a constitution, was created in 2004 by the developer and sets out all the governing rules and regulations in 15 articles, schedules and exhibits spanning almost 60 pages. It is lawfully a part of the deed to every property in the association (approximately 100, according to counsel at oral argument).”
And the conclusion that follows:
“Rather, the Board took unilateral action to amend the Architectural Guidelines, which plainly are a subsidiary set of regulations— the authority of which was created by the Declaration. In other words, the Declaration supersedes the Architectural Guidelines because the Declaration— the constitution— came first and established the subsidiary authority of the architectural committee, which in turn created follow-up guidelines.”
The sentence that matters most
Having found the board acted outside the declaration, the court drew the consequence that boards most need to understand:
“Accordingly, because the Board's action at bar was not authorized by the Declaration, the business judgment rule is inapplicable.”
This is the point at which a great many New York HOA disputes are actually decided, and it is widely misunderstood. The business judgment rule is generous to boards — but it protects the exercise of authority the governing documents grant. It does not supply authority the documents withhold. A board acting outside its powers is not making a business judgment; it is acting without a mandate, and the rule has nothing to attach to.
The court supported that with the Third Department's statement of the same proposition, quoting Olszewski v Cannon Point Assoc., 148 AD3d 1366 (3d Dept 2017): “absent appropriate amendments to the relevant governing documents… the rules constitute an impermissible exercise of the [HOA's] powers (citation omitted). Further, as the [HOA's] actions were unauthorized, their actions were not protected by the business judgment rule.”
The fines went with the rule
The disposition is worth quoting because it shows how the two things travel together:
“In conclusion, the Board appeared to be faced with a choice: amend the Declaration and set up a homeowners' vote, or take unilateral action and apply a restrictive rule through a subsidiary vehicle that circumvents the democratic voting process required by the HOA Declaration. The Board chose the latter and now finds itself in violation of its own governing documents. The HOA's rule prohibiting ice skating rinks in front yards is therefore declared invalid. Accordingly, it is not protected by the business judgment rule. … Furthermore, the accumulated fines against the Zinnos are hereby ruled null and void. If the HOA wishes to regulate ice skating rinks, they will need to follow the HOA Declaration and schedule a duly noticed vote of all homeowners, which will require 67% approval to pass.”
Two years of weekly fines, gone, because the rule they enforced was never validly made. Our New York fining authority page covers what a New York association can and cannot charge, and it is worth reading alongside this: a fine is only as good as the rule underneath it.
The construction canons the court applied
The decision also recites the rules New York courts use to read restrictive covenants, quoting the Fourth Department's Ludwig v Chautauqua Shores Imp. Assoc., 5 AD3d 1119 (4th Dept 2004):
“'The law has long favored the free and unencumbered use of real property, and covenants restricting use are strictly construed against those seeking to enforce them (citations omitted)…. The presence of an ambiguity in a restrictive covenant requires the court to construe the covenant to limit, rather than extend, its restriction (citation omitted). Moreover, when the language used in a restrictive covenant is equally susceptible of two interpretations, the less restrictive interpretation must be adopted.'”
Strict construction against the enforcing party; ambiguity resolved to limit the restriction; the less restrictive of two available readings wins. That is the interpretive environment a New York HOA enforces in, and it is not a friendly one.
What this means for a New York board
Map which of your rules came from where. Take the current rules and design guidelines and sort them into two piles: those that implement a restriction the declaration already imposes, and those that add a new one. The second pile is the exposure.
Look specifically for use restrictions added by board vote. The pattern in Zinno is common: a declaration comprehensively lists what is restricted and sets a supermajority owner vote to amend, and over years a board adds new prohibitions — on parking, on storage, on seasonal structures, on decorations, on vehicles — through architectural guidelines or rules and regulations adopted by the board alone. Each of those is potentially unenforceable, and each fine levied under them potentially void.
Do the arithmetic on the amendment threshold before deciding it is impossible. The court was explicit that the association can regulate ice rinks; it just has to hold the vote. A 67% threshold in a 100-lot community is 67 owners, which is hard and not hopeless. Our New York governing statute page covers the amendment mechanics, and our architectural review page covers where guideline authority properly stops.
Do not rely on the business judgment rule to cover an authority problem. It is the most common mistake in this area. The rule is a defence to the reasonableness of a decision, not to the power to make it.
Two honest limits on this decision
It is trial-level and unreported, which means it does not bind any other court. And the opinion contains two internal citation errors we are not going to repair: it cites Turon v Meadowbrook Pointe HOA, Inc. as “211 AD2d 985 [2d Dep't. 2022]”, which cannot be right because an AD2d volume cannot carry a 2022 decision, and it cites Field Enterprises v Bristol Harbor Village Assoc. Inc. with the page printed literally as “blank.” Anyone relying on the decision should read it themselves rather than its citations.
We also cannot confirm the county. The opinion's facts place the community in Clarence and refer to “Western New Yorkers,” and the index number is an 8-series, which together point to Erie County — but the text available to us does not say so, and we are not going to assert it.
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