Rhode Island HOA Architectural Review

Section 1: Overview

Rhode Island is a condominium-statute, covenant-primary state. That means an association draws its power to review and to approve or deny exterior modifications from the recorded governing documents, not from a general homeowners-association code. The state regulates condominiums under the Rhode Island Condominium Act, R.I. Gen. Laws Chapter 34-36.1 — a statute modeled on the Uniform Condominium Act that governs condominiums created after July 1, 1982.¹ Condominiums created before that date still answer to the older Rhode Island Condominium Ownership Act, Chapter 34-36, though several Chapter 34-36.1 provisions reach back to pre-1982 condominiums for events that occur after July 1, 1982.^2,3 Rhode Island has no separate planned-community or HOA act. Non-condominium homeowners associations operate under their recorded declarations and covenants and, when they incorporate, under the Rhode Island Nonprofit Corporation Act, Title 7, Chapter 6.⁴

For condominiums, the statute supplies one important procedural floor. Under § 34-36.1-3.20, an association that wants to impose a fine to enforce the declaration, bylaws, or rules must first give the owner notice and the opportunity for a hearing before it imposes and assesses that fine.⁵ On solar energy, Rhode Island offers a voluntary solar-easement framework under Chapter 34-40, but it does not override anti-solar covenants.⁶ Disputes go to the Superior Court and appeal directly to the Rhode Island Supreme Court, because Rhode Island has no intermediate appellate court. No dedicated state agency regulates HOAs, so enforcement stays private.

Section 2: The Architectural-Review Framework

2A. Where the authority comes from

In a Rhode Island condominium, architectural authority lives in the recorded declaration and bylaws, and the executive board — or an architectural or design committee to which the board delegates review — exercises it. The Condominium Act confirms that power. Section 34-36.1-3.02 lists the powers of a unit owners' association, and those powers include adopting and amending rules and regulations and regulating the use, maintenance, repair, replacement, and modification of the common elements.⁷ The Act treats architectural and design standards as a proper subject of the declaration. The declaration and bylaws — not the statute — set the substance of what owners may build, alter, paint, or install, and they set the process for review.

Non-condominium homeowners associations sit entirely outside the Condominium Act. Their authority to review exterior changes comes from the covenants, conditions, and restrictions recorded against the lots and, if the association incorporates, from the Nonprofit Corporation Act, which governs corporate governance rather than architectural review.⁴ The Condominium Act and its fine procedure do not reach these associations. For both community types, the recorded instrument is the operative source of architectural power, and a rule that goes unrecorded or a restriction that falls outside the chain of title is hard to enforce.

2B. What process the association must follow

Rhode Island imposes no statutory architectural-review timeline, no deemed-approval rule, and no mandatory written-denial requirement. Those are governing-document terms. If a declaration gives the committee 30 or 45 days to act, that deadline binds the association as a matter of contract, not statute; if the declaration says nothing, no default statutory clock fills the gap. Boards should therefore treat the declaration and any adopted architectural guidelines as the controlling process document, and apply them consistently.

The one process rule the Condominium Act does supply attaches to enforcement, not to the approval decision. Section 34-36.1-3.02(a)(11) lets an association, after notice and an opportunity to be heard, levy reasonable fines for violations of the declaration, bylaws, and rules as § 34-36.1-3.20 provides.⁷ Section 34-36.1-3.20 then requires the association to give an alleged violator notice and the opportunity for a hearing before it imposes and assesses a fine, and it directs that the hearing take place before the executive board or a person the board designates.⁵ This procedure governs when the association moves to penalize an unapproved modification. It does not turn the architectural decision itself into a statutory hearing right.

A 2024 amendment sharpened the recording discipline that makes rules enforceable in the first place. Effective June 17, 2024, House Bill 7867 and its Senate companion, S2647, require associations to record condominium bylaws and rules in the municipal land evidence records of every city or town where any part of the condominium sits, and they require at least two members of the executive board to certify any rule recorded after the declaration.^8,9 For architectural rules, that recording step matters: a rule the association never properly adopted and recorded is exposed to challenge the moment the association tries to enforce it.

2C. What limits constrain the authority

Three kinds of limits check architectural authority in Rhode Island. The first is the governing standard itself: reasonableness, with covenants read against the drafter. Rhode Island courts construe restrictive covenants strictly in favor of the free use of land, while recognizing that strict construction will not defeat the plain purpose of a valid restriction. The Rhode Island Supreme Court has held that the Condominium Act "as a whole contains a strong consumer protection flavor," America Condominium Association, Inc. v. IDC, Inc., 844 A.2d 117, 128 (R.I. 2004),¹⁰ and § 34-36.1-1.11 imposes an obligation of good faith on the performance and enforcement of every duty under the Act.¹¹ When the administration of a condominium is at issue, the condominium statutes and the declaration control the relationship between the parties. Town Houses at Bonnet Shores Condominium Ass'n v. Langlois, 45 A.3d 577, 582 (R.I. 2012).¹² Selective or arbitrary enforcement remains a recognized defense: an association that overlooks similar violations may find a particular covenant unenforceable in that case.

The second limit is the Condominium Act's cap on fines. Under § 34-36.1-3.20, a non-daily fine may run "no more than five hundred dollars ($500) for residential condominiums" (and $1,000 for commercial), a daily fine may run "no more than one hundred dollars ($100) per day for residential condominiums" (and $500 per day for commercial), and "[a]ny condominium declaration, bylaw, rule or regulation which purports to establish a maximum fine or daily fine shall be invalid."⁵ Every fine becomes a lien on the unit.

The third limit is federal, and it applies in Rhode Island as it does everywhere. The Freedom to Display the American Flag Act of 2005 limits an association's power to bar display of the United States flag, subject to reasonable time, place, and manner restrictions.¹³ The FCC's OTARD rule, 47 C.F.R. § 1.4000, limits restrictions on most antennas and on satellite dishes one meter or less in diameter that sit in an owner's area of exclusive use or control.¹⁴ The Fair Housing Act, 42 U.S.C. § 3604(f)(3)(A), requires associations to permit reasonable, owner-funded, disability-related modifications.¹⁵ Each federal rule carries its own boundaries, so none of them hands an owner an unlimited right.

Section 3: Compliance Obligations

A. Adopt, record, and apply architectural standards from the governing documents (document-based, with a statutory recording step for condominiums)

The architectural standard an association enforces must trace back to the recorded declaration, bylaws, or properly adopted rules. This is a governing-document obligation, not a statutory architectural mandate. For condominiums, § 34-36.1-3.02 supplies the underlying power to adopt rules and to regulate modification of the common elements,⁷ and the 2024 recording law (H7867/S2647, effective June 17, 2024) requires associations to record bylaws and rules in the municipal land evidence records and to have at least two board members certify any post-declaration rule.^8,9 Boards should confirm that they have adopted and recorded their architectural guidelines before they try to enforce them.

B. Follow notice-and-hearing before fining, and keep records available (statutory for condominiums)

For condominiums, § 34-36.1-3.20 makes notice and the opportunity for a hearing a precondition to imposing and assessing a fine, and it puts the hearing before the board or its designee.⁵ Separately, § 34-36.1-3.18 requires the association to make all financial and other records reasonably available for examination within 30 days of a written request by a unit owner or an authorized agent.¹⁶ Incorporated non-condominium associations carry a parallel records duty under the Nonprofit Corporation Act: § 7-6-30 requires correct and complete books and records and lets any member inspect them for a proper purpose.¹⁷ These are statutory obligations for the entities named; otherwise, a non-condominium HOA's fining procedure depends on its covenants.

C. Solar energy: honor the voluntary easement framework, not a solar override (statutory framework; no override)

Rhode Island's solar statute, Chapter 34-40, lets any property owner grant a written solar easement, created and recorded like any other interest in real property (§§ 34-40-1, 34-40-2).⁶ This is an enabling, voluntary framework. It does not void or override anti-solar provisions in a declaration or covenant, and it does not create a statewide right to install solar over an association's objection. An association may therefore still enforce a valid, reasonable architectural restriction on solar panels unless its own governing documents say otherwise. Boards and counsel should not treat Rhode Island as a solar-access-mandate state.

D. Enforce through the statutory fine procedure, liens, and court action (statutory for condominiums; document-based and private for HOAs)

Condominium enforcement runs through § 34-36.1-3.20 — fines after notice and hearing, capped as described, and constituting a lien⁵ — and § 34-36.1-4.17, under which a person adversely affected by a violation of the Act, the declaration, or the bylaws has a claim for appropriate relief, punitive damages are available for a willful failure to comply, and the court may award reasonable attorney's fees.¹⁸ Section 34-36.1-3.20 goes further: a hearing decision must include costs and reasonable attorney's fees where a member of the Rhode Island Bar represents the prevailing party.⁵ Non-condominium associations enforce their covenants in court under contract and property principles. Because Rhode Island has no dedicated HOA regulator, enforcement stays private in both settings; the Secretary of State maintains corporate status for incorporated associations, and the Rhode Island Commission for Human Rights handles housing-discrimination complaints.

Section 4: Recent Legislative and Judicial Activity

A. Recent bills

Rhode Island has spent its recent condominium legislation on recording discipline, governance, and insurance rather than on architectural review. One 2024 law still bears directly on architectural authority, because it decides which rules an association can enforce at all.

Two further 2025 condominium laws, both effective on passage on June 24, 2025, amended the Act's governance and insurance provisions but left architectural-review authority untouched: a meetings law that allows electronic meetings and requires the board to hold a special meeting when 20% of unit owners request one,¹⁹ and Senate Bill 507 (Chapter 178), which requires the association to give unit owners at least 30 days' notice of any change in its master-policy insurance deductible (R.I. Gen. Laws § 34-36.1-3.13(d)).²⁰

B. Recent rulings

Rhode Island's recent case law reinforces two themes that matter for architectural review: the courts will enforce a clearly drafted appearance covenant, and they read the Condominium Act in favor of owners.

C. Active legislative debates

The General Assembly has kept refining the Condominium Act on governance, meetings, and insurance rather than on architectural review. No active proposal in this window creates a solar, flag, sign, landscaping, or EV-charging carve-out for Rhode Island associations.

Section 5: National Positioning and Related Coverage

Rhode Island sits among the condominium-statute, covenant-primary states. It regulates condominiums through a Uniform-Condominium-Act-based statute, Chapter 34-36.1; it has no separate planned-community or HOA act; and it leaves non-condominium associations to their recorded covenants and the Nonprofit Corporation Act. Its distinctive features are a notice-and-hearing condominium fine procedure with a $500 residential non-daily cap and a $100-per-day residential daily cap, a voluntary solar-easement framework under Chapter 34-40 rather than a solar-access override, and an appellate structure with no intermediate court, so appeals move straight from the Superior Court to the Rhode Island Supreme Court.

For a multi-state operator, the practical takeaway is direct: in Rhode Island, the condominium declaration or the recorded covenants govern the architectural process, the condominium fine procedure requires notice and a hearing before any fine, Rhode Island does not void anti-solar covenants, and appeals go straight to the Supreme Court. That posture contrasts sharply with comprehensive or carve-out-rich states such as California and Oregon, which impose the detailed statutory review timelines and protected-modification categories that Rhode Island does not.

HOA Weekly updates its Rhode Island architectural-review coverage each quarter as the General Assembly and the Rhode Island Supreme Court act. Federal frameworks — including the Freedom to Display the American Flag Act, the FCC's OTARD rule, and the Fair Housing Act — apply to Rhode Island associations on top of state law.

1. R.I. Gen. Laws § 34-36.1-1.01, Short title (Rhode Island Condominium Act) ↩
2. R.I. Gen. Laws § 34-36.1-1.02, Applicability (Condominium Act applies to condominiums created after July 1, 1982; certain provisions reach pre-1982 condominiums for later events) ↩
3. R.I. Gen. Laws ch. 34-36, Condominium Ownership Act (governing condominiums created before July 1, 1982) ↩
4. R.I. Gen. Laws ch. 7-6, Rhode Island Nonprofit Corporation Act (governing incorporated associations' corporate governance) ↩
5. R.I. Gen. Laws § 34-36.1-3.20, Enforcement of declaration, by-laws and rules (notice and hearing before a fine; residential caps of $500 non-daily and $100 per day; a governing-document maximum fine "shall be invalid"; fines become a lien; costs and attorney's fees) ↩
6. R.I. Gen. Laws §§ 34-40-1 to 34-40-2, Solar Easements (definitions; creation of a written solar easement recorded like any other interest in real property) ↩
7. R.I. Gen. Laws § 34-36.1-3.02, Powers of unit owners' association (adopting and amending rules; regulating use, maintenance, and modification of the common elements; levying reasonable fines after notice and an opportunity to be heard) ↩
8. 2024 R.I. Pub. Laws (H7867), An Act Relating to Property — Condominium Law (recording of condominium bylaws and rules in municipal land evidence records; two-member board certification; effective June 17, 2024) ↩
9. 2024 R.I. Pub. Laws (S2647), An Act Relating to Property — Condominium Law (Senate companion to H7867) ↩
10. America Condominium Ass'n, Inc. v. IDC, Inc., 844 A.2d 117, 128 (R.I. 2004) (Condominium Act "as a whole contains a strong consumer protection flavor") ↩
11. R.I. Gen. Laws § 34-36.1-1.11, Obligation of good faith (good faith in the performance and enforcement of duties under the Act) ↩
12. Town Houses at Bonnet Shores Condominium Ass'n v. Langlois, 45 A.3d 577, 582 (R.I. 2012) (condominium statutes and the declaration control the relationship between the parties) ↩
13. Freedom to Display the American Flag Act of 2005, Pub. L. No. 109-243, 120 Stat. 572 (codified at 4 U.S.C. § 5 note) ↩
14. 47 C.F.R. § 1.4000, Restrictions impairing reception of television broadcast signals, direct broadcast satellite services or multichannel multipoint distribution services (OTARD rule) ↩
15. 42 U.S.C. § 3604(f)(3)(A), Fair Housing Act (reasonable, owner-funded modifications for persons with disabilities) ↩
16. R.I. Gen. Laws § 34-36.1-3.18, Association records (financial and other records reasonably available within 30 days of a written request) ↩
17. R.I. Gen. Laws § 7-6-30, Books and records (correct and complete books and records; inspection by any member for a proper purpose) ↩
18. R.I. Gen. Laws § 34-36.1-4.17, Effect of violations on rights of action — Attorney's fees (claim for appropriate relief; punitive damages for willful noncompliance; reasonable attorney's fees) ↩
19. P.L. 2025, ch. 123 (S0509 Sub A), amending R.I. Gen. Laws § 34-36.1-3.08, Meetings (electronic and remote participation; special meeting on request of 20% of unit owners; effective June 24, 2025) ↩
20. R.I. Gen. Laws § 34-36.1-3.13, Insurance (S507 / Chapter 178, 2025; written notice to unit owners of a change in the association property-insurance deductible) ↩
21. Knudsen v. DeJean, 311 A.3d 102 (R.I. 2024) (affirming enforcement of a view-preservation covenant and injunctive relief to restore obscured view corridors) ↩
22. Song v. Lemoine, No. 2024-34-Appeal (R.I. May 19, 2025) (owners satisfied the signature and notice requirements for a special meeting; trial justice erred in reviewing the merits of owners' proposed motions) ↩