West Virginia HOA Political Signs

1. Overview: How political signs are regulated in West Virginia HOAs

West Virginia has no statute protecting political signs, so display rights are governed by each community's recorded declaration rather than by any state political-sign law. The state's governing statute for community associations, the West Virginia Uniform Common Interest Ownership Act (W. Va. Code § 36B-1-101 et seq.), is a detailed governance code that says nothing about political or campaign signs.¹ That silence is the operative fact for this topic: being a Uniform Common Interest Ownership Act (UCIOA) state doesn't create a political-sign right, because the model act contains no sign provision and West Virginia didn't add one. As a result, whether an owner may post a yard sign for a candidate turns on the covenants, conditions, and restrictions (CC&Rs) recorded against the community, read against the statute's rules for how associations adopt and enforce restrictions.

Owners and boards frequently assume the First Amendment protects political signs inside an association. It doesn't. The federal free-speech clause limits government actors, and a West Virginia association is a private entity created by contract, so enforcement of its recorded covenants isn't state action. This places West Virginia in the CC&R-primary category, alongside states such as Pennsylvania, Ohio, and New York, and apart from protective-statute states such as California, Nevada, Maryland, and Montana, which forbid associations from banning political signs while allowing reasonable time, place, and manner rules. The sections that follow set out the legal framework, the operational rules that flow from it, and the recent West Virginia activity on this topic.

2. The legal framework for political signs

2A. A detailed statute, silent on signs

West Virginia has enacted no political-sign protection for association residents. The controlling body of law, the West Virginia Uniform Common Interest Ownership Act, is codified at W. Va. Code § 36B-1-101 et seq. and is based on the 1982 UCIOA.¹ By its own applicability provision, the act governs all common interest communities (condominiums, planned communities, and real estate cooperatives) created in West Virginia after its effective date of July 1, 1986, and it displaced the prior condominium and planned-community acts for communities created after that date.² A limited set of its sections also reaches communities created before that date.³ The statute is organized into four articles: General Provisions; Creation, Alteration and Termination; Management; and Protection of Purchasers.⁴ None of them contains a political-sign provision.

This is the teaching point for West Virginia. A detailed UCIOA governance statute doesn't, by its existence, create a right to display political signs. The 1982 model act contains no standard sign provision, and West Virginia didn't write one into Chapter 36B, so the recorded declaration controls the sign question. Two further statutes are relevant for orientation, and neither protects political signs. The older West Virginia Unit Property Act (W. Va. Code § 36A-1-1 et seq., enacted 1963) still governs certain legacy condominiums that expressly elected coverage by recording a declaration under it.⁵ The West Virginia Nonprofit Corporation Act (W. Va. Code § 31E-1-101 et seq.) governs corporate structure and procedure for associations organized as nonprofit corporations, which is the typical form in West Virginia.⁶ Flags are a separate topic: display of the United States flag is protected against association restriction by the federal Freedom to Display the American Flag Act of 2005 (Pub. L. 109-243), which concerns flags and not political signs. By contrast, a protective-statute state such as California expressly bars associations from prohibiting noncommercial signs on an owner's separate interest, subject to size limits (Cal. Civ. Code § 4710).⁷ West Virginia has no equivalent.

2B. The First Amendment and the state constitution

The federal First Amendment restrains only government actors. Under the state-action requirement, the free-speech clause doesn't reach the conduct of private parties. A homeowners association or condominium association is a private entity created by a recorded declaration that functions as a contract among the owners, so when an association enforces its sign covenant it's enforcing a private agreement, not exercising governmental power. Enforcement of a recorded covenant is therefore not state action, and the First Amendment doesn't limit a West Virginia association's sign rules. This is the single most common error in lay and law-firm-blog discussion of the topic, and it should be stated plainly: an owner cited for a political sign inside an association has no First Amendment claim against the association arising from the covenant itself.

Two U.S. Supreme Court sign-code decisions are frequently cited in this area but don't apply to associations. Reed v. Town of Gilbert, 576 U.S. 155 (2015), and City of Austin v. Reagan National Advertising, 596 U.S. 61 (2022), concern content-neutrality limits on municipal (government) sign codes. They constrain city and county ordinances, not private community associations.

A small minority of states read their state constitution's free-speech clause to reach private community associations. New Jersey is the leading example: in Mazdabrook Commons Homeowners' Ass'n v. Khan, 210 N.J. 482 (2012), the New Jersey Supreme Court, per Chief Justice Rabner, held that "[b]alancing the minimal interference with Mazdabrook's private property interest against Khan's free speech right to post political signs on his own property, we conclude that the sign policy in question violates the free speech clause of the State Constitution" (the dispute arose from a $25 fine against Wasim Khan for two signs supporting his 2005 Parsippany Town Council candidacy).⁸ The West Virginia Constitution contains a free-speech and free-press guarantee at Article III, Section 7, which provides that "no law abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, shall be passed."⁹ No West Virginia court has applied that provision to a private association's sign restriction. Absent such authority, the state-action principle controls and West Virginia covenants are enforced as private contracts.

2C. The role of CC&Rs and permissible restrictions

Because no statute protects political signs, the recorded declaration is the operative rulebook for signs in a West Virginia community. The order of precedence runs from any applicable statute (none of which protects political signs in West Virginia), to the recorded declaration, to the bylaws, to board-adopted rules. The Uniform Common Interest Ownership Act doesn't protect signs, but it does govern how an association adopts and enforces rules: it authorizes the association to adopt and amend bylaws and rules and, after notice and an opportunity to be heard, to levy reasonable fines for violations of the declaration, bylaws, and rules.¹⁰

West Virginia courts treat a restrictive covenant as a contract and enforce clearly drafted, validly adopted covenants, while construing ambiguous covenants strictly against the party seeking enforcement and in favor of the free use of land. The rule dates to Wallace v. St. Clair, 147 W. Va. 377, 127 S.E.2d 742 (1962), and remains good law. As the court put it, "[t]he fundamental rule in construing covenants and restrictive agreements is that the intention of the parties governs. That intention is gathered from the entire instrument by which the restriction is created, the surrounding circumstances and the objects which the covenant is designed to accomplish."¹¹ A restriction will not be extended by implication. Within that framework, a West Virginia association may, through its declaration or validly adopted rules, regulate the placement of signs on a lot or unit versus common areas, their size and number, and duration windows, and it may impose a total ban where the declaration so provides. Content-neutral drafting and consistent enforcement matter as a risk frame even though West Virginia imposes no statutory sign standard, because selective or discriminatory enforcement can render a covenant unenforceable. The operational takeaway is direct: in West Virginia, the answer to whether a sign may be posted is found in the community's recorded declaration, read against the Uniform Common Interest Ownership Act's governance rules, not in a sign statute.

3. Operational rules for West Virginia associations

Because West Virginia has no political-sign statute, the rules below flow from the recorded declaration and from the Uniform Common Interest Ownership Act's governance provisions, not from a sign-specific protection. For communities created on or after July 1, 1986, Chapter 36B supplies the governance rules; certain legacy condominiums remain under the older Unit Property Act (Chapter 36A).

A. What an association may not do

• An association may not enforce a sign restriction that wasn't validly adopted under the declaration and the Uniform Common Interest Ownership Act, because covenant authority derives from the recorded documents and the statute's rulemaking provisions.¹⁰
• An association may not enforce a sign rule through selective or discriminatory enforcement, because West Virginia courts may treat inconsistently applied covenants as unenforceable.¹¹
• An association may not prohibit display of the United States flag; that protection comes from the federal Freedom to Display the American Flag Act of 2005 (Pub. L. 109-243) and concerns flags, not political signs.
• West Virginia imposes no statutory prohibition on banning or restricting political signs, so the floor is the declaration plus general covenant law, not a sign statute.

B. What an association may regulate

• Placement (lot or unit versus common areas), size, number, and duration windows for political signs, where the declaration or validly adopted rules so provide.¹⁰
• A total ban on political signs, where the recorded declaration so provides, because absent a protective statute the covenant controls.¹¹

C. Enforcement and fining constraints

• Before levying a fine for a sign violation, an association governed by Chapter 36B must give notice and an opportunity to be heard, and any fine must be reasonable.¹⁰
• An association should follow the hearing and notice steps set out in its own declaration and bylaws before enforcing; in the 2026 Locust Hill case the association cured an alleged hearing deficiency by holding the required board hearing and voting 3-0 that the display violated the covenant, which mooted the owner's counterclaim.¹²
• Self-help removal of an owner's sign carries litigation risk; enforcement generally proceeds through the covenant process and, if needed, the courts.¹¹

D. Rule adoption and disclosure

• Sign rules must be adopted as bylaws or rules under the authority granted by the declaration and the Uniform Common Interest Ownership Act to be enforceable.¹⁰
• The controlling restriction for the sign question itself must appear in, or be authorized by, the recorded declaration; board rules cannot exceed the authority the declaration grants.¹¹

4. Recent legislative and judicial activity

West Virginia's framework is light-touch, with little association-specific activity on political signs. The state has no dedicated HOA regulator with operational authority, no HOA ombudsman, and no community-association-manager license; enforcement is largely private, through the governing documents and the courts.

A. Recent bills (past 24 months)

No West Virginia bill enacted or introduced in the 2025 or 2026 regular sessions created or altered political-sign rules for community associations. A review of the Legislature's completed-legislation list for the 2025 regular session shows no association political-sign measure.¹³ The topic remains governed by recorded declarations.

B. Recent rulings (past 36 months)

C. Active legislative debates

No active West Virginia proposal would create a political-sign protection for community associations.

5. National positioning and related coverage

On political signs, states fall into three broad groups. Protective-statute states forbid associations from prohibiting political signs while allowing reasonable time, place, and manner rules, including California (Cal. Civ. Code § 4710), Nevada (NRS 116.325), Maryland (Md. Code, Real Property §§ 11-111.2 and 11B-111.2), and Montana (Mont. Code Ann. § 70-1-522). A second group follows a state-constitutional approach, led by New Jersey through Mazdabrook Commons v. Khan. West Virginia sits in the third group, the CC&R-primary states with no political-sign statute, where the declaration controls, alongside Vermont, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Mexico, New York, Ohio, Oklahoma, and South Dakota. West Virginia, though a UCIOA state with a detailed common interest statute, has no political-sign provision, so the question turns on the declaration. Owners and boards commonly raise the First Amendment; the correct rule is that it doesn't constrain a private association's sign covenants.

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

Footnotes

1. W. Va. Code § 36B-1-101 (short title, West Virginia Uniform Common Interest Ownership Act) ↩
2. W. Va. Code § 36B-1-201 (applicability to new common interest communities; effective date) ↩
3. W. Va. Code art. 36B-1 (including § 36B-1-204, applicability to preexisting communities) ↩
4. W. Va. Code ch. 36B (four articles of the WVUCIOA) ↩
5. W. Va. Code § 36A-1-1 (Unit Property Act, short title) ↩
6. W. Va. Code § 31E-1-101 (West Virginia Nonprofit Corporation Act) ↩
7. Cal. Civ. Code § 4710 (California, cited for contrast) ↩
8. Mazdabrook Commons Homeowners' Ass'n v. Khan, 210 N.J. 482 (2012) (New Jersey, cited for contrast) ↩
9. W. Va. Const. art. III, § 7 (freedom of speech and press) ↩
10. W. Va. Code § 36B-3-102 (powers of unit owners' association, including notice-and-hearing fines) ↩
11. Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia opinion restating Wallace v. St. Clair, 147 W. Va. 377, 127 S.E.2d 742 (1962) (strict construction of restrictive covenants) ↩
12. Wilber v. Locust Hill Unit Owner's Ass'n, Inc., No. 25-ICA-280 (W. Va. Int. Ct. App. June 11, 2026) (memorandum decision) ↩
13. West Virginia Legislature, completed legislation, 2025 Regular Session ↩