Design criteria are the rules about what your property may look like: paint colors, fences, roofing, landscaping, sheds, and the approval process you go through before changing any of it. Utah law does not tell your board what those criteria may say. It tells the board, in detail, how to adopt them and what you can do afterward.

Who Sets Design Criteria, and What Limits Them

Under Section 57-8a-217, the board may adopt, amend, modify, cancel, limit, create exceptions to, or expand the association's rules, including design criteria. That authority is not unlimited. It is subject to the procedure in this section, to any limit the declaration imposes, to the catalog of things rules may not do in Section 57-8a-218, to the board's duty to exercise business judgment for the association and its owners, and to the owners' right to vote the change down.

State Law Restrictions on Design Criteria

Sections 57-8a-212 and 57-8a-218 place restrictions on the kinds of conduct or activities an association may regulate, including through design criteria. For example, an association is prohibited from certain restrictions on:

• Rentals
• Religious or holiday decorations
• Political signs or flags
• For-sale signs
• Reasonable activity within a lot, including backyard landscaping and amenities
• Requiring disposal of personal property
• Water-wise landscaping
• Internal accessory dwelling units (unless otherwise prohibited by municipal code)
• Modifications for radon mitigation
• Vegetable gardens
• Parking, including parking on a driveway or public street
• Personal security cameras
• Basketball standards
• Mandating preferred vendors, including construction workers

This list is not exhaustive and does not mean that there are no restrictions an association can implement in these areas. But in each case, it is important for a board to cross-reference against the code before adopting a rule that may ultimately be void. For a complete list of what state law requires, please read Section 57-8a-218 in its entirety.

The Procedure the Board Has to Follow

Section 57-8a-217(2) sets three steps for adopting design criteria, and they are the heart of the section:

• At least 15 days before the board meets to consider a change to a rule or design criterion, it must deliver notice to lot owners that the change is under consideration.
• At that meeting, the board must provide an open forum in which owners have an opportunity to be heard before the board acts.
• Within 15 days after the meeting, the board must deliver a copy of the approved change to the owners.

Fifteen days of warning, a chance to speak, and the finished text in hand within fifteen days. A board that adopts a new fence standard at a meeting nobody knew about has not followed the section.

The Emergency Exception

Section 57-8a-217(3) lets a board skip the advance notice and adopt a rule immediately if there is an imminent risk of harm to a common area, a limited common area, a lot owner, an occupant of a lot, a lot, or a dwelling. The exception covers the timing, not the obligation: the board still has to give owners notice of the rule it adopted.

Owners Can Vote It Down

Under Section 57-8a-217(4), a board action is disapproved if, within 60 days after the board meeting where it was taken, at least 51% of all the allocated voting interests vote to disapprove it at a special meeting called for that purpose by the lot owners. A declarant still within the period of administrative control, or holding the right to add real estate to an expandable project, can disapprove the action by delivering a writing to the board.

Section 57-8a-217(5) adds the mechanism most owners never learn about. The board has no obligation to call the disapproval meeting on its own. But if owners submit a petition in the manner the declaration, articles, or bylaws provide for calling a special meeting, then the board's action is stayed until after the meeting is held, and it is subject to the outcome. The petition freezes the new criterion in the meantime.

How Notice Reaches You, and How to Demand Paper

Section 57-8a-214 governs delivery. Any method allowed under the nonprofit corporation act counts as fair and reasonable notice, whether or not your association is incorporated. Other methods work if the declaration, articles, bylaws, or rules authorize them and the notice is fair and reasonable in the circumstances.

Electronic notice, including text messages, emails, or postings on the association's website, is permitted if the governing documents provide for it. One sentence at the end matters: a lot owner may, by written demand, require the association to provide notice by mail. If you do not want the 15-day warning arriving in a spam folder, send that demand.

When You Submit Plans for Approval

Section 57-8a-109 governs the review itself, and it was amended in 2025.

• The fee is capped. An association may not charge a plan fee exceeding the actual cost of reviewing and approving the plans.
• Fire-resistant materials are protected. In an area with heightened wildfire risk, an association may not prohibit, unreasonably restrict, deny, or delay a plan because it includes fire-resistant material. The statute defines the term to include Class A roofing, non-combustible siding, fiber-cement products, metal roofing, and fire-rated gypsum board.
• A denial has to explain itself. If the association denies your plan, it must give you written notice specifying each governing document provision it relied on and the specific aspect of your plan that does not conform to that provision. A bare denial does not satisfy the section.

The 18-Month Clock

Section 57-8a-217(7) sets a hard deadline. An action against the association or a board member for failure to follow procedure must be commenced no later than 18 months after the date the board took the challenged action. A procedural defect does not stay available indefinitely.

Where to Go Next

Whether the board followed the procedure is a statutory question, and the Office of the Homeowners' Association Ombudsman may issue an advisory opinion on the matter. Whether a particular design criterion was applied correctly may not be a question the Ombudsman can answer, in which case you may need to hire a private attorney. Email the Office first if you have any questions. Watch the 18-month deadline while you decide.

Reviewed against the Utah Code, current as of August 10, 2026.