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 declaration. A rental restriction or prohibition must be created in the declaration or by amending the declaration. 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 unit owners and, where an amendment is needed, the association meets all other amendment requirements in its governing documents.

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:

• A unit owner in the military, for the period of deployment
• A unit occupied by the owner's parent, child, or sibling
• An owner whose employer has relocated them for two years or less
• A unit 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
• A unit 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. An association that cannot say how many rentals it has is not administering the restriction the way the statute requires.

If You Were Already Renting Before the Restriction

An owner already legally renting before the restriction was recorded with the county recorder may keep renting without a fee until one of three things happens:

• The owner occupies the unit
• A person holding ownership or control of an entity or trust that owns the unit occupies it
• The unit 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 unit, 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 unit.

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 unit to do any of these.

• Get the association's approval of 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 unit is a rental
• Use a lease agreement the association provides
• Get the association's approval of a lease agreement

These protections apply no matter when your association was created. 

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 the association provides. 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 units to be rentals may charge an owner of a rental unit up to $200 once every 12 months to defray administrative expenses directly related to the unit being a rental.

Before charging it, the association must do three things:

• Give every unit owner notice of a management committee 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 management committee at that meeting

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

How To Get the Fee Waived

This is the part 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 occurred, the association shall waive the fee. It is not discretionary.

Naming Someone Else To Deal With the Association

An owner of a rental unit 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. This is useful if a property manager handles the unit day to day.

Where This Section Does Not Reach

Subsections (1) through (5) do not apply to a condominium project containing a time period unit, to any other form of timeshare interest, or to a project whose initial declaration was recorded 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 unit was transferred from the initial declarant may prohibit or restrict rentals without any of the exemptions and procedures in Subsection (2). If your project was set up that way, the developer-era restriction stands on its own terms.

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

Deadlines and dollar figures 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.