Texas HOA Political Signs

1. Overview: How political signs are regulated in Texas HOAs

Texas bars a property owners' association from prohibiting political signs on an owner's property during the window beginning on the 90th day before an election and ending on the 10th day after the election, subject to a defined set of regulations the association may impose.¹ The protection is codified in Texas Election Code § 259.002, "Regulation of Display of Political Signs by Property Owners' Association." It began in the Property Code as § 202.009, added in 2005, and was transferred, redesignated, and amended into the Election Code in 2019; the current operative provision is the Election Code section, and citations to Property Code § 202.009 now point to a repealed location.^2,3 Within the protected window an association may still require ground-mounting and limit the number of signs, and may prohibit signs that exceed four feet by six feet, use nonstandard building or landscaping materials, are attached to structures or vehicles, threaten public health or safety, violate a law, are offensive to the ordinary person, or distract motorists; the association may remove a sign displayed in violation of a permitted covenant.¹ This protection is statutory, not constitutional. A common error, repeated even in some legal-answer sources, describes the Texas right as a First Amendment right that applies regardless of HOA rules; that's incorrect, because a property owners' association is a private entity, not a government actor, and the First Amendment constrains government. Texas belongs among the owner-protective states, alongside California, Arizona, Maryland, Nevada, and Montana, and it's distinctive in defining both an election-tied display window and a specific list of permitted association regulations. The sections that follow set out the statute, the source of the protection, and the operational rules that flow from it.

2. The legal framework for political signs

2A. The statute that protects political signs

The operative provision is Texas Election Code § 259.002. Subsection (b) states that, except as otherwise provided in the section, "a property owners' association may not enforce or adopt a restrictive covenant that prohibits a property owner from displaying on the owner's property one or more signs advertising a candidate or measure for an election," during a window that runs (1) on or after the 90th day before the date of the election to which the sign relates, and (2) before the 10th day after that election date.¹ The right attaches to the owner's own property and to signs tied to a candidate or a ballot measure.

The section then defines the latitude an association retains. Subsection (c) permits a covenant that requires a sign to be ground-mounted or that limits an owner to one sign for each candidate or measure. Subsection (d) permits a covenant prohibiting a sign that: contains roofing material, siding, paving materials, flora, balloons or lights, or other similar nonstandard building, landscaping, or decorative components; is attached to plant material, a traffic control device, a light, a trailer, a vehicle, or any other existing structure or object; includes the painting of architectural surfaces; threatens public health or safety; is larger than four feet by six feet; violates a law; contains language, graphics, or any display that would be offensive to the ordinary person; or is accompanied by music, other sounds, or streamers, or is otherwise distracting to motorists. Subsection (e) provides that an association may remove a sign displayed in violation of a restrictive covenant permitted by the section.¹

The statutory home must be stated with care because it moved. The protection was added as Texas Property Code § 202.009 by Acts 2005, 79th Legislature, Chapter 1010 (H.B. 873), effective June 18, 2005.² It was then transferred, redesignated, and amended from Property Code § 202.009 to Election Code § 259.002 by Acts 2019, 86th Legislature, Regular Session, Chapter 824 (H.B. 2554), effective September 1, 2019.³ The move was structural rather than substantive; the operative language carried over largely intact. The consequence for research is direct: the current citation is Election Code § 259.002, and materials still citing Property Code § 202.009 are citing a repealed section.

A structural point matters for enforcement. The statute sets the parameters within which an association may regulate, but it doesn't by itself create default sign rules that bind owners. To impose the permitted regulations — ground-mounting, one-per-candidate limits, the size cap, material restrictions, and the offensive-content standard — an association must have a recorded restrictive covenant or policy in place and must enforce it uniformly. Under Texas Property Code § 202.006, a property owners' association must file its dedicatory instruments in the real property records of each county where the property is located, and a dedicatory instrument has no effect until filed.⁴ Absent a recorded, uniformly applied policy, the owner's display right governs and the association's regulatory latitude isn't self-executing.

For orientation, the protection operates against Texas's broader association framework. Residential subdivisions and their associations are governed by the Texas Residential Property Owners Protection Act, Property Code Chapter 209, and restrictive covenants generally by Chapter 202.⁵ Condominiums are governed by the Texas Uniform Condominium Act, Property Code Chapter 82 (condominiums created on or after January 1, 1994), and the older Condominium Act, Chapter 81 (pre-1994 condominiums).^6,7 Section 259.002 borrows the definition of "property owners' association" from Property Code § 202.001, which reaches condominium associations as well as subdivision associations, so the political-sign protection applies across both.⁸

Three neighboring provisions are frequently conflated with the political-sign right and belong on their own pages. Flag display is governed by Property Code § 202.012, religious items by Property Code § 202.018, and solar energy devices by Property Code § 202.010.^9,10,11 None of these is the political-sign protection, and each carries its own standards.

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

The First Amendment to the United States Constitution restrains government, not private parties. Its protections are triggered by state action, meaning conduct fairly attributable to a government actor. A Texas property owners' association is a private entity, created by contract through recorded covenants and operated by owners; it's not a government. As a result, the First Amendment doesn't, by its own force, require an association to permit political signs, and it doesn't supply an owner with a constitutional claim against an association's sign rules.

This is the single most important point to state correctly for Texas. The protection Texas owners enjoy for political signs comes from a statute, Election Code § 259.002, not from the Constitution.¹ Some legal-answer and consumer-facing sources describe the Texas right as a "First Amendment right" that applies regardless of the HOA's rules. That characterization is wrong on both counts: the source is statutory, and the association isn't a state actor. The practical significance is real, because the statutory source defines both the scope of the right (the election-tied window and the candidate-or-measure subject matter) and the association's retained latitude.

Government sign regulation is a separate body of law and shouldn't be imported into the association context. Reed v. Town of Gilbert (2015) concerned a municipal sign code and the First Amendment limits on content-based government regulation. City of Austin v. Reagan National Advertising of Austin (2022) concerned the City of Austin's municipal sign code and is a Texas municipal-government case. Both address what governments may do; neither constrains a private association, and neither is the basis for the Texas association protection.

The Texas Constitution's free-expression clause, Article I, Section 8, protects expression and in some respects reads more broadly than the federal provision, but it, too, is generally understood to guard against government action.¹² The operative protection for association political signs is the statute. Absent Texas authority applying Article I, Section 8 to a private HOA's sign restrictions, the state constitution isn't the source of the association protection and shouldn't be asserted as one.

2C. How the statute interacts with covenants, and its limits

Within the protected window, the statute overrides a conflicting covenant. If a declaration purports to ban political signs outright, that ban is unenforceable during the 90-days-before to 10-days-after window as to signs advertising a candidate or measure on the owner's own property.¹ An association may not prohibit such signs even where its recorded documents say otherwise.

What the association may still do is defined by the statute's own carve-outs. Through a recorded and uniformly applied covenant or policy, it may require ground-mounting, limit an owner to one sign per candidate or measure, cap sign size at four feet by six feet, restrict the enumerated materials and attachments, and prohibit signs that are offensive to the ordinary person or that create a traffic hazard. It may remove a sign that violates a permitted restriction.¹

Several things fall outside the protection or remain subject to regulation. Signs displayed outside the election window aren't protected by § 259.002, so a covenant restricting signs during non-election periods isn't preempted by the section. Signs that violate a valid permitted regulation, such as an oversized sign or one attached to a vehicle, may be regulated or removed. The right runs to displays "on the owner's property," so signs placed on common areas owned or maintained by the association aren't covered by the owner's statutory display right. Enforcement carries its own risk frame: the association must have a recorded policy or covenant and must enforce it uniformly across all non-compliant signage, not selectively or by viewpoint, or it exposes itself to challenge.⁴ The operational takeaway: within the window, a Texas association may enforce only the statute's permitted regulations, and only through a recorded, uniformly applied policy, and may not otherwise prohibit political signs on the owner's property.

3. Operational rules for Texas associations

A. What an association may not do

• An association may not enforce or adopt a restrictive covenant that prohibits an owner from displaying, on the owner's own property, one or more signs advertising a candidate or measure for an election during the window from the 90th day before through the 10th day after the election (Election Code § 259.002(b)).¹ This applies to property owners' associations as defined in Property Code § 202.001, which include condominium associations.⁸
• An association may not enforce sign rules selectively or by viewpoint. Uniform enforcement across all non-compliant signage is the standard that keeps enforcement defensible, and cherry-picking specific signs invites a legal challenge.
• An association may not enforce sign restrictions it hasn't recorded. Under Property Code § 202.006, a dedicatory instrument has no effect until filed in the county real property records, so an unrecorded policy isn't enforceable (all property owners' associations).⁴

B. What an association may regulate

• Through a recorded, uniformly applied covenant or policy, an association may require that a political sign be ground-mounted and may limit an owner to one sign for each candidate or measure (Election Code § 259.002(c)) (property owners' associations, including condominiums).¹
• The association may prohibit a sign that is larger than four feet by six feet, that uses roofing, siding, paving, flora, balloons, lights, or similar nonstandard components, that is attached to plant material, a traffic control device, a vehicle, a trailer, or another structure, that involves painting architectural surfaces, that threatens public health or safety, that violates a law, that is offensive to the ordinary person, or that distracts motorists (Election Code § 259.002(d)).¹
• Outside the 90-days-before to 10-days-after window, § 259.002 doesn't protect the display, so covenant-based sign restrictions during non-election periods aren't preempted by the section.¹

C. Enforcement and fining constraints

• An association may remove a sign displayed in violation of a restrictive covenant permitted by the statute (Election Code § 259.002(e)). Self-help removal beyond what a permitted covenant authorizes isn't sanctioned by the section.¹
• Fining authority isn't automatic in Texas. It must be granted by the governing documents, and an association that fines must adopt a written enforcement policy, including a fine schedule and hearing information, under Property Code § 209.0061 (residential subdivision associations).¹³
• Before enforcing a curable covenant violation in a residential subdivision, an association must give the owner written notice and an opportunity to cure and to request a hearing under Property Code §§ 209.006 and 209.007 (residential subdivision associations).¹⁴

D. Rule adoption and disclosure

• To enforce any sign restriction, an association must record its dedicatory instrument or policy in the county real property records; an unrecorded instrument has no effect (Property Code § 202.006) (all property owners' associations).⁴
• Rules must otherwise be adopted and disclosed consistent with the governing documents and Chapter 209, including the enforcement-policy disclosure requirement of § 209.0061 for associations that levy fines.¹³

4. Recent legislative and judicial activity

A. Recent bills

No bill enacted in the past 24 months amended Election Code § 259.002 or otherwise changed Texas's association political-sign rules. The most recent substantive change to the provision was its 2019 relocation from Property Code § 202.009 to Election Code § 259.002 by H.B. 2554 (86th Legislature), which predates this window.³ Several bills to strengthen the owner protection were filed in the 89th Legislature (2025) but didn't pass; they're noted under active debates below.

B. Recent rulings

No decision from a Texas Court of Appeals district or the Texas Supreme Court in the past 36 months construed Election Code § 259.002 or the enforcement of association political-sign rules in a published, on-point holding.

A widely circulated 2026 appellate decision involving a "Let's Go Brandon" flag and a covenant barring "political campaign signs," in which the court held that a political viewpoint isn't a prohibited campaign sign unless it advocates the election or defeat of a candidate, promotes a campaign, urges a vote, or supports or opposes a ballot measure, was decided by the Intermediate Court of Appeals of West Virginia (Wilber v. Locust Hill Unit Owner's Association, Inc., opinion filed June 11, 2026), not a Texas court, and doesn't bind Texas associations.¹⁵ It's noted here only to correct its frequent misattribution to Texas.

For context on where such a dispute would be heard: Texas has two courts of last resort, the Texas Supreme Court (the highest court for civil matters) and the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (the highest court for criminal matters). An HOA sign dispute is civil, so the appellate path runs from a District Court to one of the fourteen geographically based Texas Courts of Appeals and then to the Texas Supreme Court. The Court of Criminal Appeals isn't in that path. A separate Fifteenth Court of Appeals, operational since 2024, hears statewide civil appeals involving state government and appeals from the Texas Business Court, so it isn't the venue for a private HOA sign dispute.¹⁶

C. Active legislative debates

In the 89th Legislature (2025), House Bill 2280 would have barred an association from issuing a violation for a sign displayed in compliance with § 259.002 and entitled a wrongly cited owner to injunctive relief and reasonable attorney's fees on prevailing; it didn't pass.¹⁷ House Bill 4356 would have added a subsection (b-1) to § 259.002 barring an association from prohibiting at least one sign containing primarily a political message; it also didn't pass.¹⁸ A separate 2025 proposal to let owners display a candidate, official, or party flag during the § 259.002 window (amending Property Code § 202.012) likewise failed to advance.

5. National positioning and related coverage

Texas sits among the owner-protective states on political signs, alongside California (Civil Code § 4710), Arizona (A.R.S. §§ 33-1808 and 33-1261), Maryland (Real Property §§ 11-111.2 and 11B-111.2), Nevada (NRS 116.325), and Montana (Mont. Code Ann. § 70-1-522). What distinguishes the Texas approach is that it fixes both a defined display window, from the 90th day before an election through the 10th day after, and a specific list of permitted association regulations, rather than imposing a flat ban on any restriction.¹ The Texas protection also sits in an unusual statutory location, having moved from the Property Code to the Election Code in 2019, so a current citation reads Election Code § 259.002 rather than the older Property Code § 202.009.³ For multi-state operators, the practical rule in Texas is narrow: an association may impose only the statute's enumerated regulations, and only through a recorded, uniformly applied policy, and may not otherwise ban political signs on an owner's property inside the window.

HOA Weekly's Texas Political Signs coverage updates quarterly as the Legislature and the Texas courts act. Federal frameworks (the FHA, ADA, FDCPA, SCRA, and OTARD) apply to Texas associations regardless of the state framework, but the federal First Amendment doesn't supply a basis to challenge an association's sign rules, because an association isn't a government actor.

Footnotes

1. Texas Election Code § 259.002, Regulation of Display of Political Signs by Property Owners' Association (Texas Statutes, statutes.capitol.texas.gov) ↩
2. H.B. 873, 79th Legislature (2005), enacting former Property Code § 202.009, eff. June 18, 2005 (Texas Legislature Online, capitol.texas.gov) ↩
3. H.B. 2554, 86th Legislature (2019), enrolled text transferring and redesignating Property Code § 202.009 as Election Code § 259.002, eff. Sept. 1, 2019 (Texas Legislature Online, capitol.texas.gov) ↩
4. Texas Property Code § 202.006, Public Records (dedicatory instruments must be filed and have no effect until filed) (Texas Statutes, statutes.capitol.texas.gov) ↩
5. Texas Property Code Chapter 209, Texas Residential Property Owners Protection Act (Texas Statutes, statutes.capitol.texas.gov) ↩
6. Texas Property Code Chapter 82, Texas Uniform Condominium Act (Texas Statutes, statutes.capitol.texas.gov) ↩
7. Texas Property Code Chapter 81, Condominiums (pre-1994) (Texas Statutes, statutes.capitol.texas.gov) ↩
8. Texas Property Code § 202.001, Definitions ("property owners' association," incorporated by Election Code § 259.002(a)) (Texas Statutes, statutes.capitol.texas.gov) ↩
9. Texas Property Code § 202.012, Flag Display (Texas Statutes, statutes.capitol.texas.gov) ↩
10. Texas Property Code § 202.018, Regulation of Display of Certain Religious Items (Texas Statutes, statutes.capitol.texas.gov) ↩
11. Texas Property Code § 202.010, Regulation of Solar Energy Devices (Texas Statutes, statutes.capitol.texas.gov) ↩
12. Texas Constitution, Article I, Section 8, Freedom of Speech and Press (Texas Statutes, statutes.capitol.texas.gov) ↩
13. Texas Property Code § 209.0061, Association Policy Regarding Fines (Texas Statutes, statutes.capitol.texas.gov) ↩
14. Texas Property Code §§ 209.006 and 209.007, Notice Required Before Enforcement Action and Hearing Before Board (Texas Statutes, statutes.capitol.texas.gov) ↩
15. Wilber v. Locust Hill Unit Owner's Association, Inc., Intermediate Court of Appeals of West Virginia, opinion filed June 11, 2026 (CourtListener; a West Virginia case, cited only to correct misattribution to Texas) ↩
16. Texas Judicial Branch, About Texas Courts: Courts of Appeals (fourteen geographic districts plus the statewide Fifteenth Court) (txcourts.gov) ↩
17. H.B. 2280, 89th Legislature (2025), Relating to the authority of a property owners' association to regulate a property owner's display of political signs (did not pass) (Texas Legislature Online, capitol.texas.gov) ↩
18. H.B. 4356, 89th Legislature (2025), Relating to restrictive covenants prohibiting the display of a sign containing a political message (did not pass) (Texas Legislature Online, capitol.texas.gov) ↩