North Dakota HOA ADUs & Modifications

Key Findings

North Dakota legislates community-association modifications with a light hand, and that restraint decides most of what follows: the recorded declaration does the heavy lifting. Here is what that means, point by point.

• North Dakota runs on a covenant-first model. Chapter 47-04.1 governs declarations, bylaws, assessments, liens, and owner rights, and it runs from § 47-04.1-01 through § 47-04.1-16. It is not a UCIOA chapter.^1,2
• There is no stand-alone planned-community statute. A planned community answers to its recorded covenants, to the North Dakota Nonprofit Corporations Act (Chapter 10-33) when the association incorporates, and to common law.³
• The declaration governs solar. N.D.C.C. § 47-05-01.1 gives an owner the right to obtain a written solar easement, but it does not void an association's restrictions on solar. North Dakota sits in the easement-only group, not among the states that strike down solar prohibitions.⁴
• ADUs turn on municipal and county zoning plus the declaration. No North Dakota statute overrides association documents on ADUs, which sets the state apart from California (Civ. Code § 4751) and Colorado (HB 24-1152).⁵
• North Dakota has no HOA or condominium regulator and licenses no community-association manager. The courts do the enforcing. Appeals run from the District Courts straight to the North Dakota Supreme Court; there is no standing intermediate appellate court.^6,7

Details

Section 1: Overview — ADUs and modifications in North Dakota

North Dakota takes a light regulatory approach to community-association modifications, so most questions about changing a property come back to the recorded declaration rather than a statute. The state keeps a concise condominium chapter, the Condominium Ownership of Real Property statute (N.D.C.C. Chapter 47-04.1), which lawmakers recently expanded to protect political yard signs and to make electric-vehicle-charging installations easier, and it has no stand-alone planned-community statute.² Start every modification question by asking a single thing: is this community a condominium that a recorded declaration submitted to Chapter 47-04.1, or a covenant-governed planned community? Condominiums answer to that chapter; planned communities are contract-first, governed by the covenants, by the North Dakota Nonprofit Corporations Act (Chapter 10-33) where the association incorporated, and by common law — and North Dakota is not a UCIOA state.³ The declaration governs solar, because North Dakota's solar law is easement-and-access-based (N.D.C.C. § 47-05-01.1) and no statute bars an association from restricting solar installations.⁴ ADU permissibility follows local zoning — the municipal and county codes plus the declaration — with no confirmed association-level state preemption.⁵ Four federal overlays bind every North Dakota association no matter what state law says: the Freedom to Display the American Flag Act of 2005 (the U.S. flag), the FCC OTARD rule (antennas and satellite dishes), the Fair Housing Act (resident-paid reasonable modifications for disability), and ADA Title III (common-area facilities that operate as public accommodations).^8,9,10 The sections that follow lay out the legal framework, the compliance duties it creates, the recent legislative activity, and where North Dakota lands nationally.

Section 2: The legal framework

2A. The condominium statute and the planned-community gap

North Dakota's only community-association statute is the Condominium Ownership of Real Property chapter, N.D.C.C. Chapter 47-04.1. It is concise — it runs from § 47-04.1-01 through § 47-04.1-16 — and it handles the formation and administration of condominiums: recording a declaration to submit property to a project (§§ 47-04.1-02, 47-04.1-03), the declaration of restrictions (§ 47-04.1-04), the incidents of a condominium grant (§ 47-04.1-06), administration and bylaws (§ 47-04.1-07), owner compliance (§ 47-04.1-08), and assessments and liens (§§ 47-04.1-11 through 47-04.1-13).² Lawmakers expanded the chapter to add a political-sign protection (§ 47-04.1-14), a lender-approval provision (§ 47-04.1-15), and an electric-vehicle-charging provision (§ 47-04.1-16).² It is not a UCIOA chapter, and it imports none of UCIOA's architectural-review or alternative-dispute machinery.

North Dakota has no stand-alone planned-community or homeowners-association statute. A covenant-governed planned community is therefore contract-first: the recorded covenants govern it, the North Dakota Nonprofit Corporations Act (Chapter 10-33) governs it where it incorporated as a nonprofit, and common law fills the gaps.³ In both settings, the declaration creates the architectural-review authority. Chapter 47-04.1 demands strict owner compliance with the covenants, conditions, and restrictions in the declaration and with duly adopted bylaws and rules (§ 47-04.1-08), but it prescribes no architectural-review process; the declaration and bylaws set up any review committee, standards, timelines, and appeal steps.² When a North Dakota court reviews an architectural decision, it treats the declaration as a contract and enforces reasonable restrictions. Section 47-04.1-04 makes a recorded declaration of restrictions "enforceable equitable servitudes where reasonable, and shall inure to and bind all owners of condominiums in the project," which frames the test: the court asks whether the restriction is reasonable and whether the association acted within the authority the declaration grants.²

2B. Solar, EV charging, and political signs

Solar in North Dakota is easement-based. N.D.C.C. § 47-05-01.1 provides that an owner who obtains an easement to expose a solar energy device to the direct rays of the sun must create it in writing, subject to the same conveyancing and recording requirements as other easements, and § 47-05-01.2 spells out what a solar easement must contain — the vertical and horizontal angles, the terms and conditions, and any compensation.⁴ These are voluntary access instruments between neighboring owners. No North Dakota statute bars an association or a covenant from restricting solar installations, so inside a community the declaration is the binding authority on solar.

The condominium statute handles electric-vehicle charging. Section 47-04.1-16 makes void and unenforceable any covenant, bylaw, or instrument provision that effectively prohibits or unreasonably restricts the installation or use of a charging station within an owner's unit or designated parking space, while it still allows reasonable restrictions on the number, size, location, and manner of installation that do not significantly raise cost or cut performance.¹¹ The provision makes the association process approval applications in writing and deems an application approved if the association does not deny it in writing within sixty days (subject to a reasonable request for more information); it puts installation, electricity, maintenance, and insurance costs on the owner, and § 47-04.1-16(4)(a)(3) requires the owner, within fourteen days of approval, to hand over a certificate of insurance naming the association as an additional insured, renewed annually. An administrative body that willfully violates the section "is liable for actual damages and shall pay a civil penalty to the applicant or other party in an amount not to exceed one thousand dollars" (§ 47-04.1-16(8)).¹¹ This provision reaches condominiums. In a planned community, the declaration governs EV charging, because no comparable planned-community statute exists.

The condominium statute also handles political signs. Section 47-04.1-14 provides that, notwithstanding any covenant, declaration, bylaw, or rule of a project, an association may not prohibit an owner or resident from displaying a political yard sign on the owner's property within sixty days before any primary, general, or special election, though it may still impose reasonable placement-and-manner restrictions.² This is a condominium provision; a covenant-governed planned community answers to its own declaration on signs. The practical effect across these three categories runs the same way: with no broad association-restriction bar on solar, and with the EV-charging and political-sign provisions confined to condominiums, the declaration is the operative authority in most modification disputes — subject to the federal overlays below.

2C. ADUs and federal overlays

North Dakota has no confirmed statute that overrides association documents on accessory dwelling units. ADU permissibility runs on two layers. The first layer is local: municipal and county zoning codes decide whether an ADU is allowed, in what form (attached, internal, or detached), and under what use standards. The City of Bismarck, for example, allows only one ADU per lot, imposes an owner-occupancy requirement that runs with the lot on sale, and limits occupancy to one family or up to four unrelated people.⁵ Secondary guidance describes other common local conditions, such as capping an internal ADU at a share of the main floor's gross floor area and requiring owner-occupancy of one of the two units.¹² The second layer is the declaration: even where local zoning permits an ADU, a recorded covenant or condominium declaration may restrict or bar a second dwelling, and that private restriction governs inside the community. That is a materially different posture from the HOA-preemption states. California voids covenants that effectively prohibit ADUs (Civ. Code § 4751), and Colorado's HB 24-1152 limits local and, in defined respects, association barriers to ADUs. North Dakota belongs with neither; it stays a local-zoning-plus-declaration state.

Four federal overlays bind every North Dakota association regardless of the state framework. The Freedom to Display the American Flag Act of 2005 stops an association from barring an owner's display of the United States flag, subject to reasonable time, place, and manner rules.⁸ The FCC's OTARD rule, 47 C.F.R. § 1.4000, voids restrictions that impair the installation, maintenance, or use of covered antennas and satellite dishes within an area the owner controls.⁹ The Fair Housing Act, 42 U.S.C. § 3604(f)(3), makes an association permit reasonable modifications of a dwelling or common area that a disabled resident needs for full enjoyment, generally at the resident's expense.¹⁰ ADA Title III reaches association common-area facilities that operate as public accommodations.¹³ These are federal duties, not North Dakota statutes.

Section 3: Compliance obligations created by the framework

A. Architectural review process obligations

• Review authority and standards come from the declaration and bylaws. Chapter 47-04.1 demands strict owner compliance with recorded restrictions and duly adopted rules (§ 47-04.1-08), but it prescribes no review process. That is state statute for condominiums and the declaration for planned communities.²
• Written decisions and defined timelines apply as state statute only where the condominium EV-charging provision governs — § 47-04.1-16 requires a written approval or denial and defaults to approval after sixty days. Otherwise the declaration sets the process. This reaches condominiums; the EV provision does not touch planned communities.¹¹
• Recordkeeping for an incorporated association comes from the Nonprofit Corporations Act (Chapter 10-33) and the declaration, not from Chapter 47-04.1 — the declaration and corporate law.³

B. Modifications the association must permit

• Solar: North Dakota imposes no broad association-restriction bar, so the declaration governs, and § 47-05-01.1 offers only a voluntary written-easement right. That is state statute (easement only); the declaration controls the association question, in both condominiums and planned communities.⁴
• EV charging: the association may not effectively prohibit or unreasonably restrict a charging station, and it must process applications in writing within sixty days (§ 47-04.1-16). That is state statute for condominiums only; planned-community EV charging is declaration-governed.¹¹
• The U.S. flag, antennas and dishes, disability modifications, and public-accommodation access are federal overlays (the Freedom to Display the American Flag Act; OTARD, 47 C.F.R. § 1.4000; the FHA, 42 U.S.C. § 3604(f)(3); ADA Title III), and they bind every association regardless of form.^8,9,10

C. ADU obligations and limits on HOA authority

• No statutory duty makes a North Dakota association permit an ADU against the declaration. The declaration controls inside the community.
• Municipal and county zoning binds the locality and sets baseline ADU permissibility. That is local code, not a state HOA statute, and it applies to both community types.⁵

D. Enforcement, dispute resolution, and appeal obligations

• Any required internal procedure comes from the declaration or bylaws; Chapter 47-04.1 authorizes enforcement of recorded servitudes through the courts (§§ 47-04.1-04, 47-04.1-08). That is state statute for condominiums and the declaration for planned communities.²
• Court path: parties litigate disputes in the District Courts, and appeals go directly to the North Dakota Supreme Court. North Dakota convenes a temporary Court of Appeals only for cases the Supreme Court assigns; it is not a standing intermediate appellate court. That is the state structure, for both community types.^6,7

Section 4: Recent legislative and judicial activity

A. Recent bills

The one substantial recent addition to the condominium statute is the electric-vehicle-charging provision, and it arrived in the 2023 session.

The condominium statute also protects political yard signs at § 47-04.1-14, which stops any covenant, declaration, bylaw, or rule from barring an owner's political yard sign in the sixty days before an election.² We could not independently confirm the specific enacting bill or effective date for the political-sign section against a primary source, so we leave that metadata out; the codified section text itself checks out in the current Century Code.

B. Recent appellate rulings

We found no North Dakota Supreme Court decision from the past thirty-six months that addressed covenant enforcement, architectural control, or the condominium statute. North Dakota runs a small community-association market and keeps no standing intermediate appellate court, so published association-law decisions come rarely. Do not lean on out-of-state covenant decisions as North Dakota precedent. A recent illustration of that risk is the South Dakota Supreme Court's decision in Hood v. Straatmeyer, 2025 S.D. 12 (decided March 5, 2025), which voided a 1976 Meade County subdivision covenant because widespread, unchallenged violations made selective enforcement inequitable; that reasoning instructs, but it does not bind North Dakota.¹⁵

C. Active legislative debates

The North Dakota Legislative Assembly meets biennially in odd-numbered years; the 69th Assembly (2025–27) held its 2025 regular session and adjourned, and the next regular session falls in 2027.¹⁶ We identified no verified 2025 amendment to Chapter 47-04.1 touching modifications, ADUs, or solar, and no confirmed active statewide proposal to preempt association documents on ADUs or solar. ADU policy activity in North Dakota is playing out at the municipal level rather than through statewide association preemption.

Section 5: National positioning and related coverage

North Dakota belongs to the thin-statute, covenant-first group of states. A concise condominium chapter sets it apart (Chapter 47-04.1, recently expanded for political signs and EV charging), along with the absence of a stand-alone planned-community statute, an easement-based solar law (N.D.C.C. § 47-05-01.1) rather than a bar on association solar restrictions, and the absence of a standing intermediate appellate court. On ADUs, North Dakota contrasts sharply with HOA-preemption states such as California (Civ. Code § 4751) and Colorado (HB 24-1152); its ADU question is a local-zoning-plus-declaration matter, not a statewide association preemption. For a multi-state operator, the implication is direct: in North Dakota the declaration is the operative authority on most modifications, solar is easement-based and declaration-governed, and ADUs stay a zoning-and-declaration question.

HOA Weekly's North Dakota ADUs and Modifications coverage updates quarterly as the Legislative Assembly and the North Dakota Supreme Court act. The federal frameworks noted above — the Freedom to Display the American Flag Act, OTARD, the Fair Housing Act, and the ADA — apply to North Dakota associations regardless of the state framework, and a fuller treatment of those federal rules will follow.

Recommendations

• Classify first, then apply. Before you answer any modification question, confirm whether the community is a Chapter 47-04.1 condominium or a covenant-governed planned community, because the EV-charging and political-sign statutes reach only condominiums.
• Treat the declaration as the operative document for solar and ADUs. Absent a statutory bar, the recorded restriction controls; for ADUs, layer local zoning underneath the declaration analysis.
• For condominiums, build a written EV-charging application workflow with a sixty-day docket so you never back into a deemed approval, and require the owner insurance the statute contemplates — a certificate naming the association as an additional insured within fourteen days, renewed annually — along with the statutory cost allocations.
• Apply the federal overlays as a compliance floor in every community: flag display, OTARD antennas and dishes, FHA reasonable modifications, and ADA common-area access.
• Watch for the escalation benchmark. If the Legislative Assembly enacts a planned-community statute, a solar-restriction bar, or an ADU preemption in a future odd-year session, or if the North Dakota Supreme Court issues a covenant or architectural-control decision, revisit this page's conclusions.

Caveats

• We could not confirm the exact enacting bill and effective date for the political-sign section (§ 47-04.1-14) against a primary source, so we omitted that metadata; the section text itself checks out in the current Century Code.
• The federal overlays are federal law, not North Dakota statutes, and their application can turn on the facts — for example, what area an owner controls under OTARD, or what modification counts as reasonable under the FHA.
• Municipal and county ADU rules change and vary; verify the specific local code for any community before you advise on ADU permissibility. The Bismarck and other city figures cited here illustrate local standards, not statewide rules.
• This page is a stable reference updated quarterly, and it is not legal advice for a specific community.

1. N.D. Cent. Code ch. 47-04.1, Condominium Ownership of Real Property (full chapter text), North Dakota Legislative Branch ↩
2. N.D. Cent. Code ch. 47-04.1, §§ 47-04.1-01 to -16 (including § 47-04.1-04 (restrictions), § 47-04.1-07 (administration and bylaws), § 47-04.1-08 (compliance), § 47-04.1-14 (political signs), and § 47-04.1-15 (lender approval)), North Dakota Legislative Branch ↩
3. N.D. Cent. Code ch. 10-33, North Dakota Nonprofit Corporations Act, North Dakota Legislative Branch ↩
4. N.D. Cent. Code §§ 47-05-01.1 to -01.2, Solar Easement — Creation and Contents (ch. 47-05, Servitudes), North Dakota Legislative Branch ↩
5. City of Bismarck, Accessory Dwelling Units (one ADU per lot; owner-occupancy running with the lot; one family or up to four unrelated occupants) ↩
6. North Dakota Court System, Court of Appeals (temporary court; hears only cases the Supreme Court assigns; authorized every four years) ↩
7. N.D. Sup. Ct. Admin. R. 27, Court of Appeals, North Dakota Court System ↩
8. Freedom to Display the American Flag Act of 2005, Pub. L. No. 109-243 ↩
9. Over-the-Air Reception Devices (OTARD) Rule, 47 C.F.R. § 1.4000, Federal Communications Commission ↩
10. 42 U.S.C. § 3604(f)(3), Fair Housing Act (reasonable modifications) ↩
11. N.D. Cent. Code § 47-04.1-16, Electric Vehicle Charging Station Installation — Penalty (written-decision and 60-day deemed-approval rule; certificate of insurance at subsecs. 4(a)(3), (4)(c); civil penalty up to $1,000 at subsec. 8), North Dakota Legislative Branch ↩
12. Steadily, ADU Housing Laws and Regulations in North Dakota (illustrative local standards: internal-ADU floor-area share; owner-occupancy of one unit) ↩
13. Americans with Disabilities Act, Title III (public accommodations), U.S. Department of Justice ↩
14. North Dakota Secretary of State, Signed Legislative Bills (regular-session laws take effect August 1 after filing) ↩
15. Hood v. Straatmeyer, 2025 S.D. 12 (S.D. Mar. 5, 2025) (out-of-state; covenant voided for inequitable selective enforcement) ↩
16. North Dakota Legislative Assembly, 69th Legislative Assembly (2025–27), Regular Session ↩