An Ohio solar restriction survives only if the board built a record
An Ohio solar restriction survives only if the board built a record
2026-09-15 · Ohio · Courts
Ohio's Third District has given the state its first appellate construction of R.C. 5312.16, the section governing an association's power to restrict solar installations — and the most useful paragraph in the opinion is a list of exactly what was missing from the board's file.1
Horne v. Adena Pointe Homeowners Association, Inc., 2025-Ohio-4916, Case No. 14-25-03, was decided October 27, 2025 in Union County. The Supreme Court of Ohio declined jurisdiction on March 3, 2026.
Two owners were denied a variance to install solar panels as proposed and sued for a declaration that the association's solar restriction was unreasonable under R.C. 5312.16. Their only affirmative evidence of unreasonableness was that the restriction would cut energy production by 36 percent. The trial court granted the owners summary judgment.
Reversed — and neither side won
The court held the trial court had inverted the burden. R.C. 5312.16 does not shift onto the association the burden of affirmatively proving its restriction reasonable. But that did not hand the association a victory, because the association had put on nothing either.
“The only affirmative evidence that the Homeowners presented to support their claim of unreasonableness was the fact that the restrictions would result in a 36 percent reduction in energy production.” (¶ 26)
Then the paragraph that reaches every Ohio board:
“To counter the Homeowners' evidence of a substantial impairment to the functionality of their solar panels, the Association placed nothing on its side of the scale. That is, instead of producing affirmative evidence—such as affidavits from board members detailing a consistent aesthetic rationale, meeting minutes where the rule was discussed, or data regarding property values—the Association rested on the Homeowners' failure of proof.” (¶ 30)
The result: “the question of whether the Association's restriction is reasonable under R.C. 5312.16 is an inherently fact-dependent inquiry that cannot be resolved in an evidentiary vacuum” (¶ 32), and so “genuine issues of material fact preclude summary judgment for either party.” (¶ 33)
The court also declined to lay down a single statewide test: “While we do not formally adopt the Montgomery test for all cases involving R.C. 5312.16, we find no error with the trial court's decision to apply persuasive authority in this matter of first impression.” (¶ 24)
R.C. 5312.16 is the section that governs solar restrictions in an Ohio planned community. Our Ohio solar rights page sets out what it requires.
Paragraph 30 as a to-do list
The court named three categories of evidence. Each is something a board can create at the moment it adopts a rule, at almost no cost, and cannot create afterwards without it looking manufactured.
Board affidavits detailing a consistent aesthetic rationale. Not “the board thought it looked bad” but a stated, articulable standard that the association applies across comparable requests. Consistency is the operative word — a rationale applied to solar panels but not to satellite dishes, skylights or roof vents is not a rationale, it is a preference about solar.
Meeting minutes where the rule was discussed. Minutes that record a vote and nothing else prove the rule exists. Minutes that record the discussion — what was considered, what alternatives were weighed, what the board was worried about — prove the rule was reasoned. Ohio minutes are frequently the former. Our Ohio records inspection page covers what minutes have to contain and who can see them.
Data regarding property values. This is the one boards skip, and it is the one that converts an aesthetic claim into evidence. It does not require an appraisal for every rule; it requires something in the file beyond assertion.
What this means for the owner's side
An owner challenging a restriction cannot win on a single performance number either. The 36 percent production reduction was real evidence — it got the owners past a bare assertion and it defeated the association's summary judgment — but it did not establish unreasonableness as a matter of law.
Owners planning a solar challenge in Ohio should expect a fact trial, and should build for one: quotes for compliant and non-compliant configurations, the production differential for each, the payback difference, and evidence about what the association has permitted elsewhere on the same roofs.
The wider rule this states
The reasonableness standard in R.C. 5312.16 is not unique. R.C. 5312.06 requires planned-community rules generally to be reasonable, and Ohio courts apply similar scrutiny to architectural restrictions across the board. Horne's evidentiary lesson travels.
It also sits inside a clear 2025-2026 pattern in the Ohio appellate courts: associations are losing on evidence, not on law. One district required a board to build an evidentiary record for its restriction. Another required an association to produce individual owners' deeds before enforcing an amendment against them. A third required a title-search showing before enforcing covenants against a foreclosure purchaser. In each case the association's legal position was sound and its file was not.
Three things to do this quarter
When you adopt or amend an architectural rule, write the rationale into the minutes at the time. Two paragraphs. What problem the rule addresses, what the board considered, why this version.
Keep a decision log for variance requests. What was asked, what was granted, what was refused, and why. Consistency is provable only if it is recorded.
Review your existing solar rule against the statute now. A restriction adopted before anyone in Ohio had construed R.C. 5312.16 was drafted without the benefit of this opinion. A rule that bans roof-facing installations outright, or that in practice makes solar unviable, is the kind that ends up needing the evidence the board never gathered.
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