North Dakota HOA Political Signs

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

North Dakota protects political signs for condominiums by a recent statutory amendment, while non-condominium HOAs remain governed by their recorded covenants. The split turns entirely on community type, and it's the operative fact for every board and manager in the state. The condominium protection sits in the North Dakota Condominium Ownership of Real Property chapter, N.D.C.C. ch. 47-04.1,¹ which the 68th Legislative Assembly added to in its 2023 regular session as section 47-04.1-14, a provision stating that no covenant, declaration, bylaw, or other rule of a condominium project may prohibit an owner or resident from displaying a political yard sign within sixty days before any primary, general, or special election.² Non-condominium HOAs have no comparable statute. They operate under their recorded declarations and the North Dakota Nonprofit Corporations Act, N.D.C.C. ch. 10-33,³ neither of which protects political signs, so the recorded declaration controls. For non-condominium HOAs, the First Amendment doesn't apply, because a North Dakota association is a private entity created by contract, not a state actor; for condominiums, the protection is a statutory grant under ch. 47-04.1, not a constitutional right.² That structure makes North Dakota a split state and the inverse of Missouri, where the statutory protection (RSMo § 442.404) runs to homeowners associations and excludes condominiums.⁴ In North Dakota, the statute runs to condominiums, and HOAs stay covenant-primary. The sections ahead set out the legal framework, the operational do's and don'ts for each community type, the recent legislative activity, and where North Dakota sits nationally.

Section 2: The legal framework for political signs

2A. The condominium protection and the HOA gap

The condominium protection runs short and specific. N.D.C.C. § 47-04.1-14, titled "Covenant, declaration, bylaw, or other rule may not prohibit display of political signs," provides that "notwithstanding any provision in a covenant, declaration, bylaw, or other rule of a project, an owner or resident may not be prohibited from displaying a political yard sign on the owner's property within sixty days before any primary, general, or special election." The section adds that "a covenant, declaration, bylaw, or rule may include reasonable restrictions regarding the placement and manner of display of political signs."² Three points follow directly from that text. First, the protected activity is a condominium unit owner's or resident's display of a political yard sign on the owner's property. Second, the protection runs time-bound: it attaches within the sixty-day window before any primary, general, or special election. Third, the statute contains no size limit and no numerical limit; it authorizes only reasonable restrictions on placement and manner of display. Any size cap, count cap, or aesthetic rule must fit within that "reasonable placement and manner" allowance and can't amount to a prohibition during the window.

Section 47-04.1-14 was added to the condominium chapter by the 68th Legislative Assembly during its 2023 regular session, which convened January 3, 2023, and adjourned April 30, 2023; the section appears in the 2023 edition of the North Dakota Century Code.⁵ The same 2023 cycle also added section 47-04.1-16, which addresses electric vehicle charging station installation in condominiums.⁶ The EV-charging provision is a separate topic, noted here only because it entered ch. 47-04.1 in the same period; its terms don't bear on political signs.

Non-condominium HOAs have no equivalent. North Dakota has no dedicated HOA or planned-community statute. A non-condominium association operates under its recorded declaration and, if incorporated, the North Dakota Nonprofit Corporations Act (ch. 10-33), which governs corporate structure and procedure and says nothing about political signs.³ For those communities, the declaration controls, and there's no statutory floor. That's the split, and it's the key point of this page: the statutory protection runs to condominiums, not HOAs — the inverse of the Missouri model.

For context, several states protect signs by statute regardless of community type. North Carolina, for example, protects political sign displays in planned communities by section 47F-3-121 of its Planned Community Act; under that section an association "may prohibit the display of political signs earlier than 45 days before the day of the election and later than seven days after an election day," and "may regulate the size and number of political signs... if the association's regulation is no more restrictive than any applicable city, town, or county ordinance."⁷ That protective-statute model, clearly a different state's law, is what North Dakota applies to condominiums only.

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

A recurring misconception holds that the First Amendment guarantees a homeowner the right to post political signs against an association. It doesn't. The First Amendment constrains government action; it limits what the state and its subdivisions may do, not what private parties may agree to by contract. A North Dakota community association, whether a condominium association or a non-condominium HOA, is a private entity created by a recorded declaration and, usually, incorporated under the Nonprofit Corporations Act.³ Because there's no state action, the First Amendment doesn't reach covenant enforcement.

That principle cuts differently for the two community types. For a non-condominium HOA, the absence of state action means covenant enforcement isn't constrained by the First Amendment at all; the declaration governs. For a condominium, the homeowner's protection doesn't come from the Constitution either. It comes from a statute, N.D.C.C. § 47-04.1-14, which the Legislature chose to enact.² The distinction matters in litigation: a condominium owner enforcing a sign right invokes the statute, not the First Amendment.

Government sign-regulation cases don't change this. Reed v. Town of Gilbert (2015) and City of Austin v. Reagan National Advertising (2022) concern municipal sign codes and the limits the First Amendment places on government regulation of signs. They govern city and county ordinances, not the private rules of an association, and they supply no basis to challenge an association's sign restrictions. The North Dakota Constitution's free-speech clause (Article I, Section 4)⁸ likewise constrains government, not associations; it isn't the operative source of the condominium protection, which is statutory, and no North Dakota decision has applied the state clause to compel a private HOA to permit signs.

2C. How the rules interact with governing documents

For condominiums, § 47-04.1-14 sets a floor, and the declaration operates within it. The statute overrides any covenant, declaration, bylaw, or other project rule that would prohibit a political yard sign during the sixty-day pre-election window, but it expressly preserves the association's power to adopt reasonable restrictions on the placement and manner of display.² A condominium board may therefore regulate where and how signs get displayed, so long as the regulation stays reasonable and doesn't become a prohibition during the protected window.

For non-condominium HOAs, the order of precedence is different because no statute occupies the field. Any applicable statute would come first, but none protects political signs for HOAs, so the analysis runs to the recorded declaration, then the bylaws, then board-adopted rules, in that order. The declaration controls. Where the declaration bans or limits signs, that restriction governs.

North Dakota enforces recorded condominium restrictions as equitable servitudes where they're reasonable. Section 47-04.1-04 states that recorded condominium restrictions "shall be enforceable equitable servitudes where reasonable."⁹ Enforceability turns on whether the restriction is reasonable, whether it was validly adopted under the governing documents, and whether the association applies it consistently rather than selectively. What an association may regulate follows from those principles: for condominiums, placement and manner within the statutory protection; for non-condominium HOAs, placement, size, number, duration windows, and even total bans where the declaration provides for them. The first operational question in any North Dakota sign dispute is therefore whether the community is a condominium, where § 47-04.1-14 applies, or a non-condominium HOA, where the declaration controls.

Section 3: Operational rules for North Dakota associations

A. What an association may not do

For condominiums, an association may not prohibit a unit owner or resident from displaying a political yard sign on the owner's property within sixty days before any primary, general, or special election; § 47-04.1-14 voids any covenant, declaration, bylaw, or rule to the contrary.² For non-condominium HOAs, North Dakota imposes no statutory prohibition on banning or restricting political signs; the only limits come from the recorded declaration and general covenant-enforcement law under the declaration and ch. 10-33.³ For both community types, an association may not enforce sign rules selectively or on the basis of viewpoint, because inconsistent enforcement undermines the validity of the restriction.

B. What an association may regulate

For condominiums, an association may adopt reasonable restrictions on the placement and manner of display of political signs — the only regulatory authority § 47-04.1-14 preserves; it may not impose a size cap, a numerical cap, or a display rule that operates as a prohibition during the protected window.² For non-condominium HOAs, the association may regulate placement, size, number, and duration windows, and may impose a total ban, where the recorded declaration provides for it, because the declaration is the source of authority in the absence of a statute.

C. Enforcement and fining constraints

Before fining an owner or removing a sign, a condominium association must act consistently with § 47-04.1-14 and its recorded declaration, and a non-condominium HOA must act consistently with its declaration and bylaws; the authority to fine comes from the governing documents, not from a state HOA statute, because North Dakota has none.² Where the governing documents require notice and a chance to be heard before a fine or removal, the association must follow that process, and it should document enforcement to rebut a selective-enforcement claim. Self-help removal of a sign from an owner's property carries legal risk and deserves caution, particularly for condominiums during the statutory window, where removal could itself violate § 47-04.1-14.

D. Rule adoption and disclosure

For condominiums, rules must be adopted and made available in writing to every owner under § 47-04.1-07, which requires bylaws, rules, and regulations to be reduced to writing and made available, and any placement-and-manner rule must stay within § 47-04.1-14 to be enforceable.¹⁰ For non-condominium HOAs, rules must be adopted and disclosed as the declaration and bylaws require, and a restriction that isn't properly recorded or adopted may be unenforceable. Associations of both types should keep records of adopted rules, notices, and enforcement actions, both because § 47-04.1-07 requires condominium documents to stay available to owners and because consistent records support enforceability.

Section 4: Recent legislative and judicial activity

A. Recent bills

The key recent development is the addition of N.D.C.C. § 47-04.1-14, the condominium political-sign provision, to the Condominium Ownership of Real Property chapter. The section was enacted by the 68th Legislative Assembly during its 2023 regular session and appears in the 2023 edition of the North Dakota Century Code.⁵

A companion 2023 condominium bill, House Bill 1310 (68th Legislative Assembly), added N.D.C.C. § 47-04.1-16 on electric vehicle charging station installation in condominiums. The bill title reads: "AN ACT to create and enact a new section to chapter 47-04.1 of the North Dakota Century Code, relating to electric vehicle charging station installation in condominiums; and to provide a penalty," and the measure was signed by the Governor and filed with the Secretary of State on April 28, 2023.⁶ That change concerns EV charging, not political signs; it's noted here only to keep the two 2023 amendments distinct.

B. Recent rulings

No North Dakota Supreme Court decision in the past thirty-six months has construed § 47-04.1-14 or addressed the enforcement of political-sign rules in a condominium or HOA. Because the provision is recent, no appellate interpretation yet exists. North Dakota's intermediate appellate court, the North Dakota Court of Appeals, is a temporary court convened only rarely, so any appellate decision on this topic would most likely come from the North Dakota Supreme Court, which hears appeals from the district courts in practice.¹¹

C. Active legislative debates

No pending North Dakota proposal has been identified that would extend a political-sign protection to non-condominium HOAs or amend § 47-04.1-14. The Legislative Assembly meets biennially in odd-numbered years, so the next regular opportunity to amend the provision is the 2027 session.

Section 5: National positioning and related coverage

North Dakota is a split state on political signs. Condominiums are protected by statute (N.D.C.C. § 47-04.1-14), while non-condominium HOAs stay covenant-primary, which makes North Dakota the inverse of Missouri, where § 442.404 protects "homeowners' associations" but by its own terms "shall not include a condominium unit owners' association."⁴ North Dakota's condominium-only approach also contrasts with the broader protective-statute states, which protect signs regardless of community type: California (Cal. Civ. Code § 4710),¹² Nevada (NRS 116.325),¹³ Maryland (Md. Code, Real Property §§ 11-111.2 and 11B-111.2),¹⁴ and Montana (Mont. Code Ann. § 70-1-522),¹⁵ as well as the many covenant-primary states where the declaration alone governs. In North Dakota, the community type determines whether a statutory protection applies at all. For multi-state operators, the practical implication is direct: North Dakota condominium boards face a statutory floor they can't contract around during the pre-election window, while North Dakota HOA boards look to the recorded declaration.

HOA Weekly's North Dakota Political Signs coverage updates quarterly as the Legislative Assembly and the North Dakota courts act. Other federal frameworks — the FHA, ADA, FDCPA, SCRA, and OTARD — apply to North Dakota 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. N.D.C.C. ch. 47-04.1, Condominium Ownership of Real Property (North Dakota Legislative Branch, Century Code chapter index) ↩
2. N.D.C.C. § 47-04.1-14, "Covenant, declaration, bylaw, or other rule may not prohibit display of political signs" (North Dakota Legislative Branch, Century Code ch. 47-04.1, full text) ↩
3. N.D.C.C. ch. 10-33, North Dakota Nonprofit Corporations Act (North Dakota Legislative Branch, Century Code) ↩
4. RSMo § 442.404, display of political signs; definition of "homeowners' association" excluding condominium unit owners' associations (Missouri Revisor of Statutes) ↩
5. 2023 North Dakota Century Code, Title 47, Chapter 47-04.1 (showing §§ 47-04.1-14, -15, and -16 as codified for 2023, reflecting enactments through the 68th Legislative Assembly regular session, convened Jan. 3, 2023, adjourned Apr. 30, 2023) ↩
6. HB 1310 Overview, 68th Legislative Assembly (2023): "AN ACT to create and enact a new section to chapter 47-04.1... relating to electric vehicle charging station installation in condominiums; and to provide a penalty" (North Dakota Legislative Branch) ↩
7. N.C. Gen. Stat. § 47F-3-121, American and State flags and political sign displays (North Carolina General Assembly) ↩
8. North Dakota Constitution, Article I, Section 4 (freedom of speech) (North Dakota Legislative Branch) ↩
9. N.D.C.C. § 47-04.1-04, Declaration of restrictions ("enforceable equitable servitudes where reasonable") (North Dakota Legislative Branch, Century Code ch. 47-04.1) ↩
10. N.D.C.C. § 47-04.1-07, Administration – Bylaws – Rules and regulations (North Dakota Legislative Branch, Century Code ch. 47-04.1) ↩
11. North Dakota Court of Appeals, a temporary court convened only when the Supreme Court refers cases (North Dakota Courts) ↩
12. Cal. Civ. Code § 4710, noncommercial signs, posters, flags, and banners (California Legislative Information) ↩
13. NRS 116.325, display of political signs within a common-interest community (Nevada Legislature) ↩
14. Md. Code, Real Property §§ 11-111.2 and 11B-111.2, condominium and homeowners association signs (Maryland General Assembly) ↩
15. Mont. Code Ann. § 70-1-522, political signs on residential property (Montana Legislature) ↩