Washington HOA Fence & Exterior

Quick-reference panel

Section 1: Overview — How fence and exterior rules work in Washington

In Washington, fence and exterior control runs through each community's recorded covenants, conditions, and restrictions—the CC&Rs—and the architectural guidelines beneath them. But the Washington Uniform Common Interest Ownership Act, WUCIOA, RCW 64.90, frames that authority, caps it, and overrides it outright on landscaping, flags, signs, and solar.¹ The substantive design standards—fence height, materials, setbacks, colors, the approval requirements—come from the declaration, not the state code. The code supplies the governance framework and a set of targeted limits.

Which statute applies depends on vintage. WUCIOA governs the common interest communities—condominiums, planned communities, and cooperatives—created on or after July 1, 2018. For earlier communities, three older laws still do the work by type and creation date: the Washington Condominium Act (RCW 64.34), the Horizontal Property Regimes Act (RCW 64.32), and the Homeowners' Associations Act (RCW 64.38). All of them consolidate into WUCIOA on a scheduled date, January 1, 2028.² The override layer includes RCW 64.90.512 on landscaping and RCW 64.90.510, which restricts association rules and covers flags, political signs, and solar.³

No Washington statute sets a general deadline for architectural review. The declaration and the adopted procedures set the timelines and spell out what happens when an association fails to act, all within the WUCIOA framework. The lone statutory deemed-approval clock is a 60-day rule specific to electric-vehicle-charging applications.⁴ Nationally, Washington belongs to the comprehensive-UCIOA states: it runs a mandatory governance framework that caps the declaration, which sets it apart from states that have no comprehensive statute at all.⁵ The sections below lay out the sources of authority, the state and federal limits, the architectural process, the compliance mechanics, and the recent activity.

Section 2: The legal framework for exterior and fence control

2A. Where exterior and fence authority comes from

Any fence or exterior dispute starts in the same place: the recorded declaration and the architectural guidelines adopted under it. WUCIOA lets an association adopt rules "to establish and enforce construction and design criteria and aesthetic standards"—but only "if the declaration so provides." Where the declaration does provide for it, the association has to adopt procedures both to enforce those standards and to approve construction applications.⁶ So the substantive design standards are contractual at the root, layered on top of whichever statute applies.

That statute turns on classification—vintage and type. WUCIOA (RCW 64.90) applies to condominiums, plat communities (the planned communities), and cooperatives created on or after July 1, 2018.² Condominiums created between July 1, 1990 and June 30, 2018 fall under the Washington Condominium Act (RCW 64.34); condominiums created before July 1, 1990 fall under the Horizontal Property Regimes Act (RCW 64.32); and planned-community homeowners' associations created before July 1, 2018 fall under the Homeowners' Associations Act (RCW 64.38).⁷ The corporate matters—board authority, elections, and the like—run through the Washington Nonprofit Corporation Act, RCW 24.03A.

WUCIOA is Washington's version of the Uniform Law Commission's 2008 Uniform Common Interest Ownership Act. The Legislature enacted it as Senate Bill 6175, effective July 1, 2018.¹ Its mandatory provisions cap conflicting governing documents, and it reaches back to earlier communities in part. Under RCW 64.90.080, certain WUCIOA sections apply to pre-2018 communities for events and circumstances that occur on or after July 1, 2018, and RCW 64.90.095 and 64.90.525 supersede existing provisions in the governing documents of plat and miscellaneous communities that had been subject to RCW 64.38.⁸

The single largest structural change is the consolidation itself. Engrossed Substitute Senate Bill 5796 (chapter 321, Laws of 2024) repeals RCW 64.32, RCW 64.34, RCW 64.38, and the Land Development Act (chapter 58.19 RCW) effective January 1, 2028, and it moves every Washington common interest community onto WUCIOA.⁹ Lawmakers have enacted the repeal, but it has not taken effect; until January 1, 2028, the older statutes still govern pre-2018 communities by vintage.⁹ For a fence or exterior question, the order of precedence runs like this: the mandatory statutory provisions of the applicable statute first, then the declaration, then the architectural guidelines, then the board rules.

2B. State-law limits on association exterior authority

WUCIOA's landscaping override is the headline provision for anyone working on fences and exteriors. Under RCW 64.90.512, the declaration and governing documents "may not prohibit the installation of drought resistant landscaping, pollinator habitat, including beehives compliant with local regulation, or wildfire ignition resistant landscaping." The association may still adopt reasonable rules on placement and appearance—so long as those rules don't make the protected landscaping "unreasonably costly or otherwise effectively infeasible."¹⁰ The section defines, word for word, that a "'[b]uilding ignition zone' means a building and surrounding area up to two hundred feet from the foundation," and it does not restrict maintaining a fire buffer within that zone—which ties directly into defensible-space fencing and vegetation questions.¹⁰ Subsection (1) of RCW 64.90.512 does not reach condominium associations, and the pre-2018 analogs are RCW 64.38.057 for HOAs, RCW 64.34.394 for condominiums, and the RCW 64.32 counterpart.¹¹

RCW 64.90.510 limits what association rules may regulate, and it voids conflicting document provisions across several exterior features. It bars any prohibition of the U.S. flag or the Washington state flag—allowing only reasonable time, place, or manner restrictions needed to protect a substantial interest—and it bars any prohibition of a flagpole, subject to reasonable rules on location and size.¹² It bars any prohibition of outdoor signs about candidates or ballot issues, again allowing reasonable placement-and-manner rules, and it bars any prohibition of solar energy panels that meet the applicable standards. On electricity-producing panels, RCW 64.90.510(3) bars prohibition of a panel that "meets all applicable safety and performance standards established by the national electric code, the institute of electrical and electronics engineers, accredited testing laboratories, such as underwriters laboratories, and, where applicable, rules of the utilities and transportation commission." It still permits reasonable rules—coordinated painting of visible components, for instance, or, per RCW 64.90.510(5)(b)(ii), a requirement to "shield a ground-mounted solar energy panel if shielding the panel does not prohibit economic installation of the solar energy panel or degrade the operational performance quality of the solar energy panel by more than 10 percent."¹³ The pre-2018 HOA analogs are RCW 64.38.033 (U.S. flag), RCW 64.38.034 (political yard signs), and RCW 64.38.055 (solar).¹⁴ Subsection (10) confines rules that affect residential use, occupancy, or behavior to three things: implementing the declaration, regulating conduct that violates the declaration or adversely affects others, and lender-driven leasing restrictions.¹⁵

WUCIOA also limits exterior control over electric vehicle charging. Under RCW 64.90.513, an association may not adopt or enforce a provision that effectively prohibits or unreasonably restricts installing or using an EV charging station for personal, noncommercial use within a unit or a designated parking space—though it may impose reasonable restrictions and require an application processed like an architectural modification.¹⁶ For antennas and satellite dishes, the federal Over-the-Air Reception Devices rule, 47 C.F.R. § 1.4000, preempts association restrictions that impair installing, maintaining, or using a covered antenna.¹⁷ For fences in particular, residential pool and spa barrier requirements set a safety floor: Washington adopts the International Swimming Pool and Spa Code through the State Building Code, and pools serving the public are separately regulated under WAC 246-260, with barriers generally at least 48 inches high—60 or 72 inches for regulated limited-use and general-use pools—and self-closing, self-latching gates.¹⁸ Washington also has a codified boundary-fence cost-sharing statute—the "good neighbor" and livestock-fence provisions of RCW 16.60—but that is a private-property allocation rule, not an association authority.¹⁹ On the U.S. flag, the federal Freedom to Display the American Flag Act of 2005 sets the baseline; flag-display protection is not solely a Washington creation.²⁰

2C. The architectural review process and procedural limits

WUCIOA imposes no general statutory deadline for architectural review. Where the declaration authorizes design control, RCW 64.90.505(3) requires the association to adopt procedures for approving construction applications, "including a reasonable time within which the association must act after an application is submitted and the consequences of its failure to act."⁶ So the declaration or the rules—not a statutory clock—set the specific number of days and any deemed-approval consequence. The one WUCIOA exception is EV charging: under RCW 64.90.513(3)(c), effective January 1, 2026, "[i]f an application is not denied in writing within 60 days from the date of receipt of the application, the application is deemed approved, unless that delay is the result of a reasonable request for additional information."¹⁶

WUCIOA frames the association's powers through RCW 64.90.405, requires that every rule be reasonable under RCW 64.90.505(5), and caps what rules may regulate through RCW 64.90.510.²¹ A governing-document provision that conflicts with a mandatory WUCIOA provision is unenforceable—which is exactly why architectural standards belong in the declaration or in duly adopted rules, and why an association should apply them uniformly. Washington case law drives the same point home: an architectural committee cannot impose standards stricter than the ones in the governing documents.²² Before a board levies fines or forces removal, it is expected to give notice and an opportunity to be heard, and enforcement ultimately runs through the courts, with attorney fees and alternative dispute resolution available under RCW 64.90.685.²³

Section 3: Compliance obligations and operational mechanics

3A. Association and architectural-committee obligations

Associations have to maintain their architectural standards and governing documents and make them available to owners. Under WUCIOA, an association must answer records requests within 10 days, and at most 21 days unless a court orders otherwise—a window the 2024 amendments added.²⁴ Rules and standards must not conflict with the applicable statute; a conflicting provision is unenforceable under WUCIOA, and every rule must be reasonable (RCW 64.90.505; RCW 64.90.510).²¹ Boards must honor the landscaping override in RCW 64.90.512 and the restrictions on rules in RCW 64.90.510 whenever they review a fence, vegetation, or exterior application.³ Boards should also plan now for the 2028 consolidation by auditing their governing documents against WUCIOA, because conflicting provisions get superseded by operation of law on January 1, 2028.⁹ And notice and an opportunity to be heard should come before enforcement.⁶

3B. Owner obligations and rights

An owner has to submit an application and get approval before installing a fence or doing exterior work wherever the declaration or the rules require it, and then has to comply with the approved plans and the published standards—all set by the declaration within the WUCIOA framework.⁶ Owners also hold statutory rights that survive contrary CC&Rs: the right to install drought-resistant, pollinator, or wildfire-ignition-resistant landscaping (RCW 64.90.512, subject to the condominium carve-out and reasonable placement rules), and the right to display the U.S. and state flags, political and ballot signs, and solar energy devices (RCW 64.90.510), each subject to its statutory conditions.²⁵ Where a rule or governing-document provision conflicts with WUCIOA or one of these overrides, the owner's position is straightforward: the conflicting provision is unenforceable.⁸

3C. Enforcement, remedies, and defenses

An association's remedies include injunctive relief, fines, forced removal or restoration, and recovery of reasonable attorney fees and costs where authorized, with alternative dispute resolution available. RCW 64.90.685 authorizes an action to enforce a right or obligation and lets the court award reasonable attorney fees and costs.²³ The assessment lien under the applicable statute backs collection of unpaid charges.²⁶ Enforcement is limited by the mandatory statutory provisions, the override layer, and the association's own obligation to follow the declaration's procedure. An owner's defenses include that a restriction or rule conflicts with WUCIOA and is unenforceable, that it conflicts with the landscaping or flag/sign/solar overrides, that enforcement has been selective, or that the restriction exceeds the authority granted by statute or the declaration.²²

Section 4: Recent legislative and judicial activity

4A. Recent bills

4B. Recent appellate rulings

4C. Active legislative debates

The Legislature has kept refining WUCIOA in back-to-back sessions—SB 5796 in 2024, SB 5129 in 2025—and the transition-related amendments and phase-in adjustments ahead of the January 1, 2028 consolidation remain the likeliest near-term source of change affecting exterior regulation.²⁸

Section 5: National positioning and related coverage

Washington sits in the middle of three broad groups. The strong-statutory-override states, such as California and Texas, pair a general governance statute with detailed subject-specific overrides—California Civil Code § 4735 on drought-tolerant landscaping, for example, and Texas Property Code § 202.008 on drought-related watering restrictions.³¹ The comprehensive-UCIOA states, where Washington belongs, apply a mandatory governance framework that caps the declaration plus targeted overrides; Washington's WUCIOA is its adaptation of the 2008 Uniform Common Interest Ownership Act, a law the Washington State Law Library notes the state "shares with 9 other states, including Alaska."⁵ The largely contractual states have no comprehensive statute and leave most exterior control to the recorded documents. What makes Washington distinctive is its adoption of the 2008 UCIOA across condominiums, planned communities, and cooperatives; the scheduled 2028 consolidation of the legacy statutes into WUCIOA; the landscaping override in RCW 64.90.512; and a Court of Appeals that sits in three divisions. For multi-state operators, the practical implication comes down to this: a community's vintage decides which statute applies today, the 2028 consolidation forces a document review, and the landscaping and flag/sign/solar overrides constrain design review.

HOA Weekly's Washington Fence and Exterior coverage updates quarterly as the Legislature and the Washington appellate courts act, and as the 2028 consolidation approaches. Federal frameworks also apply to Washington associations regardless of the state framework, including the Freedom to Display the American Flag Act of 2005, the FCC OTARD antenna rule, and the Fair Housing Act and ADA for reasonable accommodations affecting exterior features.

1. Chapter 64.90 RCW, Washington Uniform Common Interest Ownership Act (enacted as SB 6175, effective July 1, 2018) ↩
2. RCW 64.90.080, Common interest communities, preexisting ↩
3. RCW 64.90.512 (landscaping) and RCW 64.90.510 (restrictions on rules) ↩
4. RCW 64.90.505(3), Rules—Notice (reasonable time to act on construction applications) ↩
5. Washington State Law Library, on WUCIOA as a uniform act shared with nine other states including Alaska; and Chapter 64.90 RCW ↩
6. RCW 64.90.505, Rules—Notice ↩
7. Senate Bill Report, SB 5796 (classification of pre-2018 communities under RCW 64.32, 64.34, 64.38) ↩
8. RCW 64.90.080 (supersession of pre-2018 HOA governing documents by RCW 64.90.095 and .525) ↩
9. ESSB 5796, chapter 321, Laws of 2024 (signed; effective June 6, 2024; legacy repeal effective January 1, 2028) ↩
10. RCW 64.90.512, Installation of drought resistant landscaping, pollinator habitat, or wildfire ignition resistant landscaping ↩
11. RCW 64.38.057 and RCW 64.34.394 (pre-2018 landscaping analogs) ↩
12. RCW 64.90.510(1), flag and flagpole display ↩
13. RCW 64.90.510(2)-(8), signs and solar energy panels ↩
14. RCW 64.38.033 (flag), RCW 64.38.034 (political signs), RCW 64.38.055 (solar) ↩
15. RCW 64.90.510(10), limits on rules affecting residential use, occupancy, or behavior ↩
16. RCW 64.90.513, Electric vehicle charging stations (60-day deemed-approval in subsection (3)(c)) ↩
17. FCC Over-the-Air Reception Devices Rule, 47 C.F.R. § 1.4000 ↩
18. WAC 246-260-031 (regulated pool barriers) and Washington Swimming Pool and Spa Code ↩
19. Chapter 16.60 RCW, fences ↩
20. Freedom to Display the American Flag Act of 2005, Pub. L. 109-243 ↩
21. RCW 64.90.405, Powers and duties; RCW 64.90.505(5), rules must be reasonable ↩
22. Washington case law on architectural-committee authority (Riss v. Angel; Wimberly v. Caravello) ↩
23. RCW 64.90.685, Action to enforce right; attorney fees; ADR ↩
24. Summary of 2024 WUCIOA amendments (10-to-21-day records-request window) ↩
25. RCW 64.90.512 and RCW 64.90.510 (owner statutory rights) ↩
26. RCW 64.90.485, assessment lien ↩
27. ESSB 5796 bill history, Washington State Legislature (Governor signed; chapter 321, 2024 Laws; effective 6/6/2024) ↩
28. ESSB 5129 (2025), chapter 119, Laws of 2025, accelerating WUCIOA to January 1, 2026 and expanding the small-community exemption ↩
29. Landesberg v. Fairway Village Homeowners Ass'n, Wash. Ct. App. Div. II, April 9, 2024 ↩
30. View Ridge Estates Homeowners Ass'n v. Guetter, Wash. Ct. App. Div. I, 30 Wn. App. 2d 612 (2024) ↩
31. California Civil Code § 4735 (comparison; drought-tolerant landscaping override) ↩