Pennsylvania HOA Architectural Review

Quick-reference table of architectural authority in Pennsylvania. Each row cites the controlling authority; where no Pennsylvania statute governs a mechanic, the row says so rather than inventing a protection.

1. Overview: How architectural review works in Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania does something unusual. Rather than govern its common interest communities under a single statute, it uses three separate uniform acts, and in each one, architectural authority rests on the community's recorded declaration rather than on any state architectural code.¹ Condominiums answer to the Uniform Condominium Act — the UCA — at 68 Pa.C.S. §§ 3101–3414. Planned communities, the category that covers most homeowners associations, answer to the Uniform Planned Community Act — the UPCA — at 68 Pa.C.S. §§ 5101–5414, which generally reaches communities of more than 12 units.² Cooperatives answer to the Real Estate Cooperative Act, 68 Pa.C.S. §§ 4101 et seq.³ And most associations sit inside a nonprofit corporation under 15 Pa.C.S.⁴ So classify the community first, because applying the wrong act produces the wrong answer. The acts also reach communities created before their effective dates, at least for events that occur afterward (68 Pa.C.S. §§ 3102(a) and 5102).⁵

Pennsylvania has no solar-access law, so an association may restrict or even deny solar installations through its declaration and rules.⁶ The one confirmed statutory carve-out is the American, Commonwealth and Military Flag Act — Act 93 of 2006 — which protects the display of the U.S., Commonwealth, and military flags, subject to reasonable rules on how they are flown.⁷ A planned community of more than 12 units has to register with the Pennsylvania Attorney General and post deposit protection before it collects any unit deposits, but that is a front-end developer requirement, not ongoing operational oversight; no state agency sits in judgment of architectural disputes.⁸ And because Pennsylvania runs two intermediate appellate courts, a private association dispute climbs from the Court of Common Pleas to the Superior Court and then, by allowance of appeal, to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court — not the Commonwealth Court.⁹ The sections that follow lay out the framework, the compliance obligations, and the recent legislative and judicial activity.

2. The architectural-review framework

2A. Source and scope of architectural authority

Architectural control in Pennsylvania starts in the recorded declaration, and the executive board or an architectural committee administers it within whichever uniform act governs the community. The acts let the association adopt and enforce rules, but they do not supply a state architectural code; the substantive standards, the application steps, and the review body all come from the declaration and any architectural guidelines adopted under it.¹⁰ For planned communities, the UPCA says so directly: the applicable building code sets the ceiling for structures, but nothing in the act stops an association — if the declaration or bylaws authorize it — from reviewing the architecture of units, landscaping, building exteriors, and aesthetics.¹¹

Classify the community before you apply any rule. The UCA (68 Pa.C.S. §§ 3101–3414, adopted in 1980 to replace the repealed Unit Property Act) governs condominiums and runs in four chapters: general provisions (Ch. 31); creation, alteration, and termination (Ch. 32); management (Ch. 33); and protection of purchasers (Ch. 34).¹ The UPCA (68 Pa.C.S. §§ 5101–5414, effective February 2, 1997, and amended since) governs planned communities of generally more than 12 units in four parallel chapters.² The Real Estate Cooperative Act (68 Pa.C.S. §§ 4101 et seq.) governs cooperatives.³ The three acts share much of their wording, and most associations sit atop a nonprofit corporate shell under 15 Pa.C.S.⁴ Pennsylvania never adopted a single Uniform Common Interest Ownership Act, so you cannot apply the UCA to a planned community, or the UPCA to a condominium.

The retroactive-applicability provisions extend a defined set of sections to communities that already existed. Under 68 Pa.C.S. § 3102(a), enumerated UCA sections — association powers, the assessment lien, the records provisions — apply to condominiums created before the act's effective date, but only for events and circumstances that occur afterward, and they do not invalidate existing declaration provisions.⁵ The UPCA works the same way through § 5102, subject to the many exceptions in § 5102(a) for smaller and limited-purpose communities.² So the order of precedence is fixed: the applicable act first, then the declaration, then the bylaws, then the rules and architectural guidelines.

2B. The approval process, standards, and registration

Pennsylvania imposes no statutory architectural application deadline, no deemed-approval rule, and no mandatory written-denial requirement — not in the UCA, and not in the UPCA. The architectural process is a creature of the declaration; whatever timelines, hearing steps, or written-decision obligations exist are the ones the governing documents create, not commands from the statute.¹⁰ For a board or manager trying to make a defensible approve-or-deny call, that is the single most important point: the source of the process is contractual.

The governing standard blends contract and statute. The uniform acts authorize the association to enforce the declaration, bylaws, and rules, and Pennsylvania courts enforce valid covenant terms while construing restrictions strictly against the party seeking to enforce them.¹² So architectural standards should be reasonable, applied consistently, and grounded in express declaration language — because a restriction that is not plainly stated is unlikely to survive a challenge.¹²

Enforcement rests on two pillars. First, the association holds a statutory lien for unpaid assessments, enforceable by foreclosure, and it can pursue judicial enforcement of the rights the acts declare (68 Pa.C.S. § 3315 for condominiums, § 5315 for planned communities).¹³ Second, on the front end, a planned community of more than 12 units must register with the Pennsylvania Attorney General and place deposits in escrow — or post a corporate surety bond or an irrevocable letter of credit — before it collects deposits on units, all to secure UPCA compliance (68 Pa.C.S. § 5408).⁸ That registration is a developer and deposit-protection function, not ongoing architectural regulation; Pennsylvania has no operations regulator that hears architectural disputes. The practical sequence is straightforward: classify the community, apply the correct act, ground the decision in the declaration, document your consistency, and remember that Pennsylvania does not shield solar installations from association restrictions.

2C. Statutory and federal limits on architectural authority

On solar, Pennsylvania has no solar-access law. An association may restrict or deny solar installations through its declaration and rules, subject only to whatever reasonable placement and manner limits the governing documents impose.⁶ Neighboring states protect solar by statute, but none of those statutes reaches Pennsylvania, and none should be attributed to it.

On flags, the American, Commonwealth and Military Flag Act (Act 93 of 2006), codified at 44 P.S. §§ 50.1 et seq., provides that no matter what the declaration, covenants, bylaws, or rules say, an association may not prohibit the outdoor display of one U.S. flag, one Commonwealth flag, and one military flag by a unit owner on the owner's property or an area of exclusive control.⁷ The U.S. flag has to be displayed consistent with the U.S. Flag Code (4 U.S.C. §§ 4 through 10), and while the association may adopt reasonable placement, size, and flagpole rules for the Commonwealth and military flags, it cannot ban wall brackets, and the protected flag may not exceed five feet by three feet.⁷

Pennsylvania offers no carve-out for political or campaign signs, for drought-tolerant or native landscaping, or for EV charging stations. Each of those items stays governed by the declaration.

Three federal overlays apply in Pennsylvania, just as they do in every state, and they add to the declaration rather than replace it. The Freedom to Display the American Flag Act of 2005 (Pub. L. 109-243, codified as a note to 4 U.S.C. § 5) stops an association from restricting a member's display of the U.S. flag on property the member owns or exclusively uses, while it still permits reasonable time, place, and manner limits.¹⁴ The FCC's OTARD rule (47 C.F.R. § 1.4000) limits restrictions on antennas and satellite dishes one meter or less in an area of exclusive use.¹⁵ And the Fair Housing Act's reasonable-modification right (42 U.S.C. § 3604(f)(3)(A)) requires an association to permit owner-funded, reasonable modifications that a person with a disability needs in order to enjoy the premises.¹⁶

3. Compliance obligations in the architectural-review process

A. Adopting and maintaining architectural standards

The authority to adopt architectural standards is statutory; the standards themselves are contractual. The UCA and the UPCA give the association power to adopt and amend rules and to regulate how owners use, maintain, and present their units and the common elements (68 Pa.C.S. § 3302; § 5302), and the UPCA specifically authorizes declaration-based architectural review of units, landscaping, and exteriors (§ 5106).¹⁰ The duty to keep those standards anchored in the recorded declaration — and to amend the declaration or bylaws through the act's own procedures rather than by an informal board vote — comes from the declaration and the applicable act working together.¹¹

B. Reviewing and deciding applications

The duty to review applications on a set timeline, to issue a written decision, or to explain a denial in writing is a creature of the declaration, not the statute; neither the UCA nor the UPCA imposes an architectural deadline or a deemed-approval rule.¹⁰ What the statute does supply is the standard of decision: the association must act reasonably and enforce the declaration as written, because Pennsylvania courts construe restrictive covenants strictly against the party enforcing them and demand nothing less than a plain disregard of a covenant's express terms before they will find a violation.¹² Consistent treatment of similar requests is the practical safeguard.

C. Honoring statutory and federal owner protections

The association also has to honor the narrow set of protections that override the declaration. Under state law, that set is the flag act, which bars an association from prohibiting the U.S., Commonwealth, and military flags, subject to reasonable manner rules (44 P.S. §§ 50.1 et seq.).⁷ There is no state solar protection, so the no-solar-access-law position holds and the association keeps its authority to restrict solar through the declaration.⁶ The additive federal obligations — federal, not declaration-based — are the Freedom to Display the American Flag Act (4 U.S.C. § 5 note), the OTARD rule (47 C.F.R. § 1.4000), and the Fair Housing Act's reasonable-modification right (42 U.S.C. § 3604(f)(3)(A)).¹⁴

D. Enforcement and dispute resolution

Enforcement authority is statutory. The association may impose and record a lien for unpaid assessments and foreclose on it (68 Pa.C.S. § 3315 for condominiums; § 5315 for planned communities; § 4315 for cooperatives), and it may go to court to enforce the rights and obligations the acts declare.¹³ A planned community of more than 12 units carries the front-end Attorney General registration and deposit-protection duty (68 Pa.C.S. § 5408), which protects purchaser deposits rather than policing architectural decisions.⁸ Because no state agency adjudicates architectural disputes, contested matters proceed as civil actions in the Court of Common Pleas, with appellate review in the Superior Court.⁹

4. Recent legislative and judicial activity

A. Recent bills

One bill dominates the architectural conversation in Pennsylvania right now, and it is about solar.

Two related Title 68 bills are also pending in the 2025-2026 session: HB 1174, on association meetings, and HB 1377, on the applicability of local ordinances and the creation of communities.¹⁷

B. Recent rulings

One recent decision frames the outer limit of a Pennsylvania association's architectural authority.

No precedential Pennsylvania Superior Court or Supreme Court decision squarely on architectural enforcement under the UCA or the UPCA came down within the review window; the leading recent covenant-enforcement decisions on short-term rentals came out of the Commonwealth Court and travel a different appellate track.

C. Active legislative debates

The active debate that touches architectural authority is over solar access, carried by HB 1239 and its predecessors — Senate Bill 826 (2021-2022) and Senate Bill 31 (2023-2024), neither of which advanced. No political-sign, landscaping, or EV-charging carve-out is pending.¹⁷

5. National positioning and related coverage

Pennsylvania is a multi-statute, uniform-act state: parallel condominium and planned-community acts, a cooperative act, an Attorney General registration requirement, and a flag act — but no solar-access law, which leaves it less protective on solar than several of its neighbors. For a multi-state operator, the practical takeaways are these. The community type decides the governing act. The retroactive provisions reach older communities for events that occur after the effective date. Pennsylvania does not shield solar from association restrictions. And a private association dispute goes up to the Superior Court, not the Commonwealth Court. That posture stands in sharp contrast to solar-protective neighbors like New Jersey, whose Solar Rights Act (N.J.S.A. 45:22A-48.2) bars an association from enforcing a restriction "prohibiting the installation of solar collectors" on solely owned single-family and townhouse roofs, and Delaware, whose Code Title 25 § 318 makes any covenant that "effectively prohibits or unreasonably restricts" a roof-mounted solar system "void and unenforceable" — a protection Pennsylvania has not enacted.

HOA Weekly's Pennsylvania Architectural Review coverage updates quarterly as the General Assembly, the Pennsylvania Superior Court, and the Pennsylvania Supreme Court act. Federal frameworks — including the Freedom to Display the American Flag Act, the FCC OTARD rule, and the Fair Housing Act — apply to Pennsylvania associations on top of state law.

1. Pennsylvania Uniform Condominium Act, 68 Pa.C.S. §§ 3101–3414 (Title 68, Ch. 31 et seq.) ↩
2. Pennsylvania Uniform Planned Community Act, 68 Pa.C.S. §§ 5101–5414; § 5102 applicability (more than 12 units) ↩
3. Real Estate Cooperative Act, 68 Pa.C.S. §§ 4101 et seq. ↩
4. Pennsylvania Nonprofit Corporation Law of 1988, 15 Pa.C.S. ↩
5. 68 Pa.C.S. § 3102(a), Applicability of subpart (retroactive sections for pre-existing condominiums) ↩
6. Community Associations Institute, Solar Rights & Easements map (Pennsylvania has no solar-access law) ↩
7. American, Commonwealth and Military Flag Act, Act of July 7, 2006, P.L. 608, No. 93 (codified at 44 P.S. §§ 50.1 et seq.) ↩
8. Pennsylvania Office of Attorney General, Uniform Planned Community Registration (68 Pa.C.S. § 5408) ↩
9. 42 Pa.C.S. § 742 (Superior Court appellate jurisdiction) and § 762 (Commonwealth Court jurisdiction) ↩
10. 68 Pa.C.S. § 5302 (powers of unit owners' association); § 3302 (condominium association powers) ↩
11. 68 Pa.C.S. § 5106 (association may provide for architectural review of units, landscaping, exteriors, aesthetics) ↩
12. Tractman v. Conner, Nos. 2750 & 2784 EDA 2023 (Pa. Super. Feb. 13, 2025) (non-precedential; strict construction of restrictive covenants) ↩
13. 68 Pa.C.S. § 5315 (lien for assessments, planned communities); § 3315 (condominiums); § 4315 (cooperatives) ↩
14. Freedom to Display the American Flag Act of 2005, Pub. L. 109-243 (4 U.S.C. § 5 note) ↩
15. FCC Over-the-Air Reception Devices Rule, 47 C.F.R. § 1.4000 ↩
16. Fair Housing Act, 42 U.S.C. § 3604(f)(3)(A) (reasonable modification at the disabled person's expense) ↩
17. Pennsylvania House Bill 1239 (2025-2026 Regular Session), Homeowners Associations: Solar Access (passed House July 1, 2026; in the Senate) ↩