Ohio HOA Short-Term Rentals

Quick-Reference Table

Last verified: July 17, 2026

Section 1: Overview — Can an HOA restrict short-term rentals in Ohio?

Yes. An Ohio condominium restricts short-term rentals through its recorded declaration under the Ohio Condominium Act, and an Ohio planned community does so through its recorded declaration under the Ohio Planned Community Law, once the community has been correctly classified as one form or the other. Ohio has two mutually exclusive statutes: the Condominium Act, Ohio Rev. Code Chapter 5311,¹ and the Planned Community Law, Ohio Rev. Code Chapter 5312, enacted in 2010.² The Planned Community Law expressly provides that condominium property is not a planned community,³ so the threshold step in any Ohio analysis is to classify the community and then apply only the correct chapter. Both statutes are Ohio-specific enactments, not versions of the Uniform Common Interest Ownership Act, so neither carries the 2008 UCIOA rental owner-protection provision. Ohio does not appear to preempt local short-term-rental regulation, which is primarily local: the tourism markets in the Hocking Hills region and the Lake Erie islands regulate locally, and Columbus, Cleveland, and Cincinnati each require registration or a permit. Contested disputes proceed through the Court of Common Pleas, then to the Ohio Court of Appeals (organized into twelve appellate districts), and then to the Supreme Court of Ohio. The sections that follow set out the classification rule, the amendment and grandfathering mechanics, the tax and local layer, and the recent legislative and judicial activity.

Section 2: The legal framework for HOA short-term rental restrictions

2A. The two mutually exclusive statutes and classification

The first question in any Ohio short-term-rental analysis is not what the declaration says but which statute governs the community. Ohio regulates condominiums under the Ohio Condominium Act, Ohio Rev. Code Chapter 5311, which applies only to property specifically submitted to its provisions by a recorded declaration.¹ It regulates non-condominium associations under the Ohio Planned Community Law, Ohio Rev. Code Chapter 5312, which took effect on September 10, 2010, and created the first statutory framework for planned communities in the state.² Before 2010, Ohio planned communities were governed only by their recorded covenants and the common law.

The two chapters are mutually exclusive. Chapter 5312 states that a condominium property as defined in Section 5311.01 is not a planned community.³ A community is therefore either a Chapter 5311 condominium or a Chapter 5312 planned community, never both. The practical consequence is that the two chapters carry parallel purposes but different section numbers and different rules, and applying one chapter's provisions to the other form is a legal error. A board that cites the condominium amendment provision to a lot-and-declaration subdivision, or the planned-community lien provision to a condominium, has misclassified the community.

Because Chapter 5312 supplies a statute for planned communities, Ohio is not a covenant-primary state. Both forms of community sit inside a statutory framework. Neither statute, however, is based on UCIOA, and neither addresses short-term rentals as a substantive matter. The source of rental authority is the recorded declaration, read against the backstops of the correct chapter. Where the declaration is silent on rentals, the chapter does not supply a default rental rule; the analysis returns to the governing documents and Ohio common law.

2B. Restricting rentals, amendments, and grandfathering

An association that wants to add or strengthen a short-term-rental restriction generally does so by amending the recorded declaration under the applicable chapter. For condominiums, the Condominium Act sets a default amendment threshold of 75% of the voting power unless the declaration provides otherwise.⁴ For planned communities, the Planned Community Law sets a default of 75% of the owners unless the declaration or bylaws specify otherwise.⁵ Both defaults yield to the governing documents, so the declaration's own amendment clause controls where it sets a different figure.

Neither chapter is UCIOA-based, and neither contains the 2008 UCIOA provision that shields owners who bought before a rental restriction was adopted. Grandfathering in Ohio therefore runs through the applicable chapter, the declaration, and Ohio common law rather than a statutory shield. Ohio courts review association restrictions under a reasonableness test that asks whether a decision or rule was arbitrary, whether it was applied evenhandedly, and whether it was made in good faith for the common welfare.⁶ Where a restriction already existed in the declaration when an owner bought, that reasonableness test has less force, because the owner took title on notice of the recorded terms. Where an amendment changes a fundamental use, the declaration's own amendment clause can require more than a simple supermajority. In one Ohio appellate decision, a declaration that required unanimous consent to change the fundamental purposes of a unit defeated an owner-occupancy amendment approved by more than 75% of owners, because the necessary unanimous consent was lacking.⁷ The lesson for boards is that the declaration's amendment mechanics, not a generic percentage, decide whether a new rental restriction binds existing owners.

Whether either chapter limits an association's authority to restrict rentals is answered plainly: neither does. Unlike California, which limits rental restrictions by statute, and unlike Arizona, which addresses association rental authority by statute, Ohio has no single provision in Chapter 5311 or Chapter 5312 that caps or governs the substance of a rental restriction. Ohio is declaration-driven within each chapter. For the same reason, a Florida-style or California-style statutory grandfathering shield should not be imported into an Ohio analysis. The conservative course, and the one Ohio practitioners commonly recommend, is to restrict leasing by a recorded declaration amendment adopted at the threshold the declaration requires, with clear grandfathering language for existing rentals to reduce the risk of a reasonableness challenge.

2C. State law, tax, and the local layer

Ohio does not appear to have a statute preempting local short-term-rental regulation, and short-term-rental regulation is primarily local. Columbus requires an annual short-term-rental permit under City Code Chapter 598, costing $75 per year for a primary residence and $150 per year for a non-primary residence, plus a $20 application fee and a $32 background-check fee.⁸ Cleveland requires annual registration with its Department of Building and Housing at a fee of $70 per unit.⁹ Cincinnati requires registration under Cincinnati Municipal Code Chapter 856 at $250 per unit for a three-year, non-transferable term, and imposes a 7% excise tax on gross short-term-rental revenue under Chapter 315.¹⁰ The large tourism markets regulate at the county or municipal level, including the Hocking Hills cabin market and the Lake Erie island market at Put-in-Bay on South Bass Island.

On tax, Ohio treats lodging as a taxable sale. The state sales tax rate is 5.75%,¹¹ and the sales-tax statute defines a "sale" to include transactions by which lodging by a hotel is furnished to transient guests, with a transient guest defined as a person occupying sleeping accommodations for fewer than thirty consecutive days.¹² Counties, municipalities, and townships layer local lodging and transient-guest taxes on top of the state rate.¹³¹⁴ The thirty-day threshold is the operative dividing line: stays of fewer than thirty days are the taxable short-term category, and stays of thirty or more consecutive days generally fall outside the lodging tax.

The distinction that matters most for this page is that the local layer governs the owner-to-government relationship. Local registration, permitting, and the lodging tax neither grant nor remove an association's authority. An owner can hold a valid Columbus permit and remit the lodging tax in full and still violate a declaration that bars leases shorter than a stated term. Conversely, an owner can satisfy every provision of the declaration and still owe a local permit and the lodging tax. The two systems run in parallel, and compliance with one is not compliance with the other.

Section 3: Operational mechanics and enforcement

A. Adopting a valid restriction (the tools)

The most common mechanism is a minimum-lease-term restriction, typically stated as a prohibition on leases shorter than a set number of days, adopted as a recorded amendment to the declaration under the applicable chapter. The number of days is not a statutory default; it is a drafting choice recorded in the declaration, so any day-count comes from the governing documents rather than from Chapter 5311 or Chapter 5312. Rental caps, such as a limit on the percentage of units that may be leased at once, are likewise not addressed by either chapter and depend on the declaration; where a cap is adopted, it should be recorded as a declaration amendment at the required threshold. An association may also impose internal administrative requirements, such as registration of tenancies, owner-contact and tenant-contact information, and the filing of leases with the board, through its rulemaking and enforcement powers, which for planned communities are enumerated in Section 5312.06¹⁵ and for condominiums in Section 5311.081.⁶ These internal tools support enforcement but do not substitute for a recorded use restriction.

B. Enforcement

Before imposing a fine, both chapters require notice and an opportunity to be heard. For condominiums, Section 5311.081(C) requires written notice describing the violation and the proposed charge, gives the owner until the tenth day after receiving notice to request a hearing, requires at least seven days' advance notice of the hearing, bars the board from levying the charge before the hearing, and requires written notice of the charge within thirty days after the hearing.⁶ Section 5312.11(C) and (D) impose a parallel process for planned communities.¹⁶ These procedures apply to a short-term-rental fine like any other enforcement assessment.

The available remedies are fines where the governing documents authorize them, injunctive relief, and the assessment lien. Condominium associations may seek damages or injunctive relief for violations of the declaration, bylaws, and rules under Section 5311.19,¹⁷ and may record an assessment lien under Section 5311.18.¹⁸ Planned-community associations may seek damages or injunctive relief under Section 5312.13,¹⁹ and may record a lien under Section 5312.12.²⁰ Under both chapters the lien is effective when the certificate of lien is recorded, is valid for five years, is subordinate to earlier-recorded first mortgages and to real-estate tax liens, and may be foreclosed only judicially, in the same manner as a mortgage. Ohio has no super-priority lien.

A contested enforcement action proceeds in the Court of Common Pleas of the county where the property sits, with appeal to the appropriate district of the Ohio Court of Appeals and then to the Supreme Court of Ohio. Ohio's Courts of Appeals are organized into twelve districts, so the district depends on the county; a Lake Erie island dispute in Erie County, for example, falls in the Sixth District. Association enforcement runs separately from local-government enforcement: a city or county may cite an owner for operating without a permit at the same time the association pursues a declaration violation, and each proceeds on its own track.

Section 4: Recent legislative and judicial activity

A. Recent bills

B. Recent rulings

No qualifying rental-restriction or covenant-enforceability ruling from the Ohio Court of Appeals or the Supreme Court of Ohio falls within the past 36 months. The controlling Ohio appellate authority predates that window but remains the reference point for practitioners: in Kinzel v. Ebner, 2020-Ohio-4165, the Sixth District Court of Appeals held that short-term vacation rental of single-family homes near South Bass Island did not violate deed restrictions limiting the property to residential use, adopting the majority view that short-term renting does not convert residential use into commercial use.²² A later appeal in the same litigation, Kinzel v. Ebner, 2023-Ohio-164 (Sixth District, January 20, 2023), concerned the validity of the City of Sandusky's short-term-rental zoning ordinances rather than the deed restrictions, and turned on municipal enactment procedure and constitutionality.²³ The practical takeaway for Ohio associations is that a generic "residential use only" clause is unlikely to bar short-term rentals; an association that wants to prohibit them should adopt an explicit, recorded restriction under the correct chapter.

C. Active legislative or local debates

At the state level, Senate Bill 104 and House Bill 109 remain the active proposals, and both were still pending as of early 2026. At the local level, Hocking County advanced a draft short-term-rental ordinance in late 2025 that would create a county permit and safety requirements for cabin rentals, drawing organized opposition from rental owners.²⁴

Section 5: National positioning and related coverage

Ohio sits among the states that provide comprehensive statutory coverage of community associations rather than leaving them to covenants alone, but it does so through two mutually exclusive, Ohio-specific statutes, the Condominium Act and the Planned Community Law, so the threshold question is always classification. Ohio is not a covenant-primary state, and neither statute is a UCIOA enactment. Ohio does not appear to preempt local short-term-rental bans, unlike Florida and Arizona, and it does not limit association rental authority by a single statutory provision, unlike California and Arizona. Local registration and the lodging tax restrain local governments and owners, not associations. For a multi-state operator entering Ohio, the practical rule is to classify each community first, apply only the correct chapter, and read the recorded declaration as the source of rental authority, all in a state with large cabin-rental and Lake Erie island markets where local regulation is active and evolving.

HOA Weekly's Ohio Short-Term Rentals coverage updates quarterly as the General Assembly, the Ohio Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court of Ohio, and local governments act. Federal frameworks, including 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, also apply to Ohio associations regardless of the state framework.

Footnotes

1. Ohio Rev. Code § 5311.02 (Condominium Act applies only to property submitted by recorded declaration) ↩
2. Ohio Rev. Code § 5312.01 ("A condominium property as defined in section 5311.01 of the Revised Code is not a 'planned community.'") ↩
3. Ohio Rev. Code § 5312.02 (applicability; enacted by S.B. 187, eff. Sept. 10, 2010; pre-2010 recorded provisions preserved) ↩
4. Ohio Rev. Code § 5311.05(B)(10) (condominium declaration amendment requires affirmative vote of not less than 75% of voting power) ↩
5. Ohio Rev. Code § 5312.05(A) (planned-community amendment by consent of 75% of owners unless the declaration or bylaws specify otherwise) ↩
6. Worthinglen Condominium Unit Owners' Assn. v. Brown, 57 Ohio App.3d 73 (10th Dist. 1989) (reasonableness test for association restrictions); see also Ohio Rev. Code § 5311.081 (condominium board powers and enforcement process) ↩
7. Horne v. Northland Condominium Owners Assn., Inc. (2d Dist. 2002) (owner-occupancy amendment ineffective where declaration required unanimous consent) ↩
8. Ohio Rev. Code § 5311.19 (compliance with declaration, bylaws, and rules; damages or injunctive relief) ↩
9. Ohio Rev. Code § 5312.06 (powers and duties of the owners association) ↩
10. Ohio Rev. Code § 5312.11(C), (D) (notice and hearing before an enforcement assessment) ↩
11. Ohio Rev. Code § 5311.18 (condominium lien for common expenses and charges) ↩
12. Ohio Rev. Code § 5312.12 (planned-community lien; judicial foreclosure; subordinate to first mortgages and tax liens) ↩
13. Ohio Rev. Code § 5312.13 (compliance; civil action for damages, injunctive relief, or both) ↩
14. Ohio Rev. Code § 5739.01 (sale includes lodging by a hotel to transient guests; transient guest defined as occupancy for fewer than thirty consecutive days) ↩
15. Ohio Department of Taxation, Sales and Use Tax ("The state tax rate is currently 5.75 percent.") ↩
16. Ohio Rev. Code § 5739.08 (municipal and township lodging excise taxes) ↩
17. Ohio Rev. Code § 5739.09 (county lodging taxes) ↩
18. City of Columbus, Short-Term Rental Permit ($75/year primary residence; $150/year non-primary; City Code ch. 598) ↩
19. City of Cleveland, Rental Properties registration ($70 per unit annually) ↩
20. Cincinnati Municipal Code ch. 856 (Short-Term Rentals; $250 per unit for a three-year term) and ch. 315 (7% short-term-rental excise tax) ↩
21. WOUB Public Media, Hocking County draft short-term-rental ordinance (Nov. 21, 2025) ↩
22. Ohio Senate Bill 104, 136th General Assembly (status, bill text, and analysis; $20 fee cap and platform collection) ↩
23. Kinzel v. Ebner, 2020-Ohio-4165 (6th Dist.) ↩
24. Kinzel v. Ebner, 2023-Ohio-164 (6th Dist., Jan. 20, 2023) ↩