Utah HOA Solar Rights

Section 1 — Overview: Solar rights for HOAs in Utah

Utah limits a community association's authority over an owner's solar energy system, but through a single statute that applies to planned communities and stops short of a blanket ban on restrictions. Under Utah Code § 57-8a-701, a governing document other than the recorded declaration — association rules, architectural guidelines, and design criteria — may not prohibit an owner of a detached dwelling from installing a solar energy system.¹ The protection isn't absolute: the recorded declaration itself may still prohibit solar on a detached dwelling, and any permitted restriction on size, location, or manner of placement stays bounded by objective numeric limits — a production decrease of 5% or less and a cost increase of 5% or less — rather than a general reasonableness test.¹ The provision sits inside the Community Association Act, Part 7 (Solar Access). The Condominium Ownership Act contains no solar counterpart, so the placement runs single-act rather than mirrored across both community-association statutes.² Utah's framework separates planned communities, Chapter 8a, from condominiums, Chapter 8, and all associations must register with the Utah Department of Commerce.³ Nationally, this places Utah among states that limit association solar prohibitions, though its declaration carve-out makes the protection narrower than the outright-void statutes of California or Florida.⁴ The sections below detail the provision, the framework, and the operational rules.

Section 2 — The statutory framework

2A. The solar provision

Utah's HOA solar provision is Utah Code § 57-8a-701, titled "Solar energy system -- Restriction in declaration or association rule," in Part 7 (Solar Access) of the Community Association Act.¹ The core limit is that a governing document other than a declaration may not prohibit an owner of a lot with a detached dwelling from installing a solar energy system, and, for attached dwellings, may not prohibit installation where the association has no ownership interest and no maintenance, repair, or replacement obligation in the roof or building exterior and all owners in the building agree.¹ Solar restrictions on such a lot must be imposed by declaration or by association rule, not by other documents. The standard is not a general reasonableness test and it is not an outright ban on restrictions. A recorded declaration may still prohibit solar on a detached dwelling, and both a declaration and an association rule may impose a restriction on size, location, or manner of placement only if the restriction decreases the system's production by 5% or less and increases the cost of installation by 5% or less.¹ To amend a declaration to newly impose a solar prohibition, an association needs a vote of greater than 67% of allocated voting interests; to amend an existing declaration prohibition so as to allow solar, House Bill 119 (2025) lowered the threshold to greater than 51%.⁵ The provision lives entirely within the Community Association Act; the Condominium Ownership Act has no solar section, so the two acts treat solar differently, with statutory protection existing only for planned communities.² A separate and distinct provision, the voluntary solar easement statute at Utah Code § 57-13-1 et seq., lets any property owner grant a recorded easement to ensure sunlight access to a system.⁶ That easement statute works as a private-conveyance tool between owners and doesn't by itself constrain an association. Net metering and distributed-generation export compensation are utility-customer matters before the Utah Public Service Commission and sit outside § 57-8a-701.⁷

2B. The two-statute framework and the registration requirement

Utah governs community associations through two separate acts. The Community Association Act, Utah Code § 57-8a-101 et seq., governs planned communities, non-condominium associations of lot owners. The Condominium Ownership Act, Utah Code § 57-8-1 et seq., governs condominiums.² The two stay distinct by statute: the Community Association Act's definition of "association" excludes an association created under the Condominium Ownership Act, and 2026 legislation clarified which act applies when a declaration is silent — the Condominium Act applies if the plat is a condominium plat; otherwise the Community Association Act applies.⁸ Utah is not a Uniform Common Interest Ownership Act state, and the features of UCIOA shouldn't be read into either chapter. On the corporate side, an association organized as a nonprofit corporation also answers to the Utah Revised Nonprofit Corporation Act, Title 16, Chapter 6a.⁹ Separately, Utah requires every community association and condominium association to register with the Utah Department of Commerce and to keep the registration current; House Bill 217 (2025) moved this to an annual renewal with a fee set by the department.¹⁰ This is a registration requirement, not a solar regulator. The Department of Commerce maintains the registry and doesn't adjudicate individual solar disputes; the practical consequence of failing to register is that the association cannot create or enforce assessment liens, not any solar-specific penalty.³ Registration of an association is also distinct from manager licensing: H.B. 217 exempts common-interest community association managers from Utah's property-manager licensing requirement, so Utah doesn't require a dedicated community association manager license.¹⁰

2C. The reasonable-restriction boundary and the role of governing documents

Within a planned community, an association may adopt rules and requirements governing how a solar system is installed, but it may not use rules to prohibit installation outright.¹ It may require compliance with health, safety, and building codes; certification by the Solar Rating and Certification Corporation for water-heating systems; compliance with National Electric Code, IEEE, or Underwriters Laboratories standards for electric systems; roof-mounted panels that don't extend above the roofline or that match roof color and texture; ground-mounted systems not visible from the fronting street; payment of the association's reasonable application-review costs; and a recorded deed restriction indemnifying the association for damage caused by the system.¹ On order of precedence, § 57-8a-701 overrides conflicting governing-document provisions within its scope, so a rule or design guideline purporting to ban solar is unenforceable. Architectural review continues to operate for placement and appearance, but only within the statute's limits. Because the statute reaches only planned communities, a condominium's architectural committee operates under its declaration and general Utah covenant-enforcement doctrine, without the § 57-8a-701 floor.²

Section 3 — What a Utah association can and cannot do regarding solar

A. What an association cannot do

An association may not use any governing document other than the declaration — rules, architectural guidelines, design criteria — to prohibit a detached-dwelling owner from installing a solar energy system. This mandatory rule under § 57-8a-701 applies to planned communities.¹ It may not amend the declaration to impose a new solar prohibition without a vote of greater than 67% of allocated voting interests, under § 57-8a-701 as amended by H.B. 119.⁵

B. What an association may do

An association may, by declaration or rule, restrict a system's size, location, or manner of placement, but only if the restriction decreases production by 5% or less and increases installation cost by 5% or less, a mandatory limit under § 57-8a-701.¹ A recorded declaration may prohibit solar on a detached dwelling outright, and may impose the code-compliance, certification, cost-reimbursement, and indemnification conditions the statute lists.¹

C. The standard and approval process

The standard runs objective, not a discretionary reasonableness balancing: a restriction is permissible only if it stays within the 5% production and 5% cost thresholds and the enumerated installation requirements.¹ The provision doesn't apply to express prohibitions or restrictions in declarations recorded before January 1, 2017, or to official association action taken before that date, and it doesn't apply during the period of declarant administrative control, per § 57-8a-703, tracing to the 2017 origin in Senate Bill 154.¹¹

D. Dispute resolution and remedies

Utah has no dedicated HOA regulator that adjudicates solar disputes. Trial-level disputes proceed in the Utah District Courts, appeals go to the Utah Court of Appeals, and the Utah Supreme Court exercises discretionary review and may retain or assign certain appeals. Part 7 carries a fee-shifting provision: in an action to enforce it, a court may award the prevailing party its costs and reasonable attorney fees, under § 57-8a-702.⁶ The Office of the Homeowners' Association Ombudsman, created by H.B. 217 (2025) as Title 13, Chapter 79 and launched in September 2025, issues nonbinding advisory opinions and doesn't render binding solar judgments.¹⁰

Section 4 — Recent legislative and judicial activity

A. Recent bills

H.B. 119 (2025), Solar Panel Restrictions in Homeowners Associations Amendments, sponsored by Rep. Doug Owens, amended § 57-8a-701 to bar an association from prohibiting solar installation through any document other than the declaration.

A separate 2025 bill, H.B. 340, Solar Power Amendments, addressed small portable plug-in solar generation devices on the utility-customer side and didn't change HOA authority; it gets noted here only to distinguish it from the HOA provision.¹²

B. Recent appellate rulings

No published decision of the Utah Court of Appeals or the Utah Supreme Court within the past 36 months has interpreted § 57-8a-701 or an association's solar authority. Utah's appellate solar-rights record stays untested, and boards and owners rely on the statutory text.¹

C. Active legislative debates

No proposal to amend § 57-8a-701 was pending in the 2026 general session; that session's HOA legislation addressed which-act-applies rules and ombudsman procedures rather than solar authority.⁸

Section 5 — National positioning and related coverage

Solar-rights regimes fall into three broad categories: strong-protection states whose statutes void or limit association solar restrictions — California Civil Code § 714, Florida Fla. Stat. § 163.04, Arizona A.R.S. § 33-1816, Colorado C.R.S. § 38-30-168, Nevada, and Texas Property Code § 202.010; solar-easement-only states, which enable voluntary easements but don't override associations; and no-protection states, where the declaration fully controls.⁴ Utah belongs in the strong-protection group, because § 57-8a-701 bars associations from banning solar through rules and caps permitted restrictions with objective 5% thresholds, though its protection runs narrower than the outright-void statutes because a recorded declaration may still prohibit solar on a detached dwelling. Utah's distinctive features are that the solar limit lives only in the Community Association Act, with no condominium counterpart, and that all associations must register with the state. For multi-state operators, the practical implication is that a Utah planned-community portfolio needs its rules and design guidelines scrubbed of solar bans, while condominium portfolios are governed by their declarations without a statutory solar floor.

HOA Weekly's Utah Solar Rights coverage updates quarterly as the legislature and the Utah courts act. No federal rule comparable to the FCC's OTARD rule, 47 C.F.R. § 1.4000, extends to rooftop solar, so Utah's state law controls here.

Recommendations

Immediate, for planned communities. Audit every non-declaration document — rules, architectural guidelines, design criteria — and remove any provision that prohibits solar on detached dwellings; such provisions are unenforceable under § 57-8a-701 and expose the association to fee-shifting under § 57-8a-702. Confirm any surviving size, location, or placement restriction stays within the 5% production and 5% cost limits.

Near term, for declaration review. Identify whether the recorded declaration contains a solar prohibition and when it was recorded. A prohibition in a declaration recorded before January 1, 2017 is grandfathered; a post-2017 prohibition, and any amendment, is governed by the 67% (impose) and 51% (repeal) vote thresholds. Advise boards that only an owner vote, not board action, can change the declaration's solar stance.

Condominium portfolios. Recognize that § 57-8a-701 doesn't reach condominiums. Solar authority in a condominium is set by the declaration and general covenant-enforcement doctrine, so review the declaration directly rather than assuming a statutory floor exists.

Administrative. Keep the association's Department of Commerce registration current on the annual cycle; lapsed registration blocks lien enforcement, an unrelated but severe consequence. Don't conflate net-metering or Public Service Commission export-rate matters with HOA solar authority.

Thresholds that would change this guidance. A future amendment to § 57-8a-701, watch for successors to H.B. 119, the first published Utah appellate decision interpreting the provision, or any enactment of a condominium solar section in Chapter 8 would each warrant a revision of this page.

Caveats

Popular homeowner-facing summaries overstate Utah's protection by claiming "any prohibition is void." That is inaccurate: the recorded declaration may lawfully prohibit solar on a detached dwelling; only non-declaration documents, rules and guidelines, cannot. Several third-party sources also attribute a "10% rule" to H.B. 340 (2025); that bill concerns portable plug-in solar devices on the utility side and doesn't govern HOA authority, and the HOA statute retains 5% thresholds. Official le.utah.gov code pages render via JavaScript and were verified through the fetchable H.B. 119 bill text and cross-checked mirrors; the codified section heading and thresholds were confirmed against the enrolled bill. One secondary source paraphrases the vote thresholds as "at least 51%/67%," but the official statutory language uses "greater than," which controls. No Utah appellate case has yet construed § 57-8a-701, so the operational rules here rest on statutory text rather than judicial interpretation.

Footnotes

1. Utah State Legislature, Utah Code § 57-8a-701, "Solar energy system -- Restriction in declaration or association rule" (Community Association Act, Part 7): le.utah.gov/xcode/Title57/Chapter8A/57-8a-S701.html ↩
2. Utah State Legislature, Utah Code Title 57, Chapter 8 (Condominium Ownership Act), chapter index (contains no solar section; the technology-access provision is § 57-8-8.2 on electric vehicle charging): le.utah.gov/xcode/Title57/Chapter8/57-8.html ↩
3. Utah Department of Commerce, HOA New Registration (registry requirement; lapsed registration blocks lien creation and enforcement): commerce.utah.gov/hoa/new-registration ↩
4. FindLaw, "Solar Panel Dispute Laws: Your Rights and Solutions" (national overview of state HOA solar-access statutes and categories, for cross-verification of comparative citations): findlaw.com/realestate/neighbors/neighbor-disputes/solar-panel-dispute-laws-your-rights-and-solutions.html ↩
5. Utah State Legislature, H.B. 119 (2025 General Session), "Solar Panel Restrictions in Homeowners Associations Amendments," amending § 57-8a-701 (effective May 7, 2025): le.utah.gov/Session/2025/bills/introduced/HB0119.pdf ↩
6. Community Associations Institute, reproduction of Utah Code § 57-8a-702 (Attorney fees), § 57-8a-703 (Applicability), and § 57-13-1 et seq. (Solar Easements): caionline.org/advocacy/.../utah-solar-restrictions-and-clothesline-placement ↩
7. Utah Clean Energy, "New Case Before Utah's Supreme Court Considers the Cost of Climate" (documenting that solar export/net-metering rates are set by the Utah Public Service Commission, separate from association governance): utahcleanenergy.org/press-release/new-case-before-utahs-supreme-court-considers-the-cost-of-climate ↩
8. Utah State Legislature, Utah Code Chapter 8a (Community Association Act), § 57-8a-102 (definition of "association" excluding condominium associations) and § 57-8a-103 (scope, amended by Chapter 62, 2026 General Session): le.utah.gov/xcode/Title57/Chapter8a/C57-8a_1800010118000101.pdf ↩
9. Homeowners Protection Bureau, Utah HOA Laws and Resources (Utah Revised Nonprofit Corporation Act, Title 16, Chapter 6a, governing the corporate side of associations organized as nonprofit corporations): hopb.co/utah ↩
10. Utah State Legislature, H.B. 217 (2025 General Session), "Homeowners' Association Amendments" (annual registration renewal, Office of the Homeowners' Association Ombudsman under Title 13, Chapter 79, and CAM licensing exemption; effective May 7, 2025): le.utah.gov/Session/2025/bills/introduced/HB0217.pdf ↩
11. Utah State Legislature, S.B. 154 (2017 General Session), "Solar Access Amendments," enacting § 57-8a-701 through 703 (effective May 9, 2017; source of the pre-January 1, 2017 grandfather clause): le.utah.gov/~2017/bills/sbillenr/SB0154.pdf ↩
12. Utah State Legislature, H.B. 340 (2025 General Session), "Solar Power Amendments" (portable plug-in solar generation devices; utility-side, not HOA authority): le.utah.gov/~2025/bills/static/HB0340.html ↩