Whether Your Association Can Restrict Rentals at All

An association may create restrictions on the number and term of rentals, or prohibit rentals outright.

But it has to be in the recorded declaration. A rental restriction or prohibition must be created in the recorded declaration of covenants, conditions, and restrictions, or by amending it. A board cannot adopt one by rule, with a single exception: an association may establish a minimum lease term of six months or less by rule.

There is also a unanimous-consent route. An association may restrict or prohibit rentals without the exemptions described below if the restriction receives unanimous approval from all lot owners and, where an amendment is needed, the association meets all other amendment requirements in its governing documents.

Your Internal Accessory Dwelling Unit Cannot Be Restricted

Notwithstanding the association's general power to restrict rentals, an association may not restrict or prohibit the rental of an internal accessory dwelling unit built within your residential lot, as long as the unit complies with all applicable land use ordinances, building codes, health codes, and fire codes. "Internal accessory dwelling unit" is defined in Section 10-21-101 for a municipality or Section 17-80-101 for a county, and is limited to detached single-family homes occupied as the primary residence of the owner of record.

This applies regardless of when your association was created. If your association's documents forbid renting an internal ADU that meets code, that prohibition does not hold.

Five Exemptions the Association Must Honor

If an association prohibits rentals, restricts their number or term, or charges the rental fee described below, it must exempt all five of the following:

1. A lot owner in the military, for the period of deployment
2. A lot occupied by the owner's parent, child, or sibling
3. An owner whose employer has relocated them for two years or less
4. A lot owned by an entity and occupied by someone who has voting rights under the entity's organizing documents and a 25% or greater share of ownership, control, and right to profits and losses
5. A lot owned by a trust or other estate-planning entity created for the estate of a current resident, or of that resident's parent, child, or sibling

The association must also create procedures, by rule or resolution, to track the number of rentals and to administer and enforce the restriction consistently.

If You Were Already Renting Before the Restriction

An owner who was already legally renting before the restriction took effect may continue renting without a fee until one of three things happens. Note the trigger: the clock starts when the restriction becomes effective.

• The owner occupies the lot
• A person holding ownership or control of an entity or trust that owns the lot occupies it
• The lot is transferred

"Transferred" has a defined meaning here, and one part of it surprises entity owners: a transfer occurs on a conveyance, sale, or other transfer by deed; on the granting of a life estate; or, if a business entity owns the lot, on the sale or transfer of more than 75% of the entity's shares, membership interests, or partnership interests in a 12-month period. Restructuring an LLC can end the grandfather without anyone selling the lot.

What Your Association May Not Require of You

Unless one of the narrow exceptions below applies, an association may not require an owner of a rental lot to do any of these:

• Get the association's approval for a prospective renter
• Give the association a rental application, a renter's credit information or credit report, a background check, or documentation verifying the renter's age
• Pay an additional assessment, fine, or fee because the lot is a rental
• Use the lease agreement that the association provides
• Get the association's approval of a lease agreement

These protections apply no matter when your association was created, along with the ADU rule above.

Two exceptions. You must hand over the documents listed above if a court order or discovery under the Utah Rules of Civil Procedure requires it. And if the declaration lawfully restricts occupancy by a certain class of individuals (e.g., 55+ communities), the association may require that information, but only if it helps determine and is actually used to determine whether the renter's occupancy complies with the declaration.

Separately, the association may require the owner and the renter to sign an addendum to a lease agreement provided by the association. Note the difference: it cannot make you use its lease, but it can require an addendum.

The One Rental Fee That Is Allowed, and Its Conditions

An association that permits at least 35% of its lots to be rentals may charge an owner of a rental lot up to $200 once every 12 months to defray administrative expenses directly related to the lot's status as a rental.

Before charging it, the association must do three things:

• Give every lot owner notice of a board meeting 15 days before that meeting
• Hold that meeting to discuss the new administrative expenses and the circumstances requiring the fee, and allow public comment
• Approve the fee by a majority vote of the board at that meeting

Then, within 30 days of imposing the fee, the association must give each affected owner a notice describing the new administrative expenses and the circumstances that require the fee.

How To Get the Fee Waived

This is the part that owners most often do not know they have. You may contest the fee by giving the association a written request that it waive the fee if either the association did not provide that 30-day notice, or the notice it gave did not contain the required information.

If you make that written request and either failure occurs, the association shall waive the fee. It is not discretionary.

Naming Someone Else To Deal With the Association

An owner of a rental lot may designate, in a written notice to the association, a primary contact individual who is not the owner, and the association may then communicate with that person as though they were the owner. The association must send written confirmation that it has updated its records.

Where This Section Does Not Reach

Subsections (1) through (5) do not apply to an association containing a time period unit, to any other form of timeshare interest, or to an association formed before May 12, 2009, unless on or after May 12, 2015, the association adopted or amended a rental restriction or prohibition. An association that adopted or amended one before May 9, 2017, is not required to include the entity-occupant exemption.

A declaration or amendment recorded before the first lot was transferred from the initial declarant may prohibit or restrict rentals without any of the exemptions and procedures described above. 

Nothing in this section limits residency age requirements for an association complying with the federal Housing for Older Persons Act. See the 55+ Communities page for that.

Deadlines from this page also appear in Deadlines and Thresholds. If the association will not waive a fee it is required to waive, read Advisory Opinions and Where To Take a Problem.

Reviewed against the Utah Code, current as of September 8, 2026.