With improved technologies and the ability to work from anywhere in the world, more and more neighborhoods are finding residents who work from home. From business professionals who work from home one or two days a week, to small business owners running companies from their living rooms. It is apparent that working from home has grown. As an HOA it is important to have guidelines for home-based business to protect your community from conflicts with the city and even congestion caused by increased traffic.

As a board, it is your job is to create a list of simple, concise, and enforceable rules for residents to follow. Here are our recommendations.

  1. Designate resident and visitor parking, and mark them clearly. This is especially important for condos, town-homes, or apartments where parking is limited. This helps avoid parking conflicts!
  2. Limit types of vehicles. If someone has a delivery van that they park in a garage or in the driveway and move daily that is probably OK. If you have someone who parks a limousine or moving van and only moves it once or twice a month, then that may be something your HOA restricts.
  3. Limit deliveries. If a residential area is seeing big commercial sized deliveries, that isn’t going have a positive impact on the community. Don’t worry about regular UPS, USPS, FedEx or similar type deliveries.
  4. Always reference and lean on local zoning laws. This gives your HOA the backing of city/county laws and it is good guidance for what your HOA rules should address and enforce. Also check what laws exists for home daycares. Some states have strict rules that prevent HOA’s from regulating them.
  5. Consider Airbnb. With the growing popularity of vacation rentals, it is important to have rules for residents who rent their property out online.
  6. Prohibit signage. Consider what types of signs you prohibit and why. If someone puts up a yard sign for a couple of hours one Saturday a month, then that isn’t going to hurt anyone. If someone has signs in every window, and a banner in the yard, that should be prohibited.

If your HOA doesn’t already have rules for home-based business, then it is time to take a look at what guidelines would work for your community. Don’t bury your head in the sand or deal with issues as they come up. You need guidelines for residents to follow, for the board to reference, and to be consistent with. This way, residents know how doing business from their home is addressed within the HOA.

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