What are CC&Rs in Utah?

A covenant is a promise tied to the land. A condition is something that has to be true, such as an approval you need before you build. A restriction is a plain limit on how you use the lot. Utah law calls the whole thing a declaration of covenants, conditions and restrictions, and the person who records it is usually the developer.

Recording is what gives it teeth. Once a paper is recorded with the county recorder, Utah law treats everyone as on notice of what it says. So the CC&Rs bind you as the next owner even if nobody ever handed you a copy.

CC&Rs are one of several papers that run a community. Utah law groups them together: the articles of incorporation that set up the company behind the board, the bylaws, the plat (the recorded map of the lots), the CC&Rs, and the board's rules. When two of them say different things, state law decides which one counts.

Under Utah law, a declaration may limit how a lot is used and how many people live in the home, within fair housing law. It also has to spell out any limit on selling or renting the home. Past that, each community writes its own, so the papers for one subdivision can read nothing like the next one over.

• Parking and RVs

  Some subdivisions in St. George and Cedar City limit RV parking and outbuildings. See RV parking homes in St. George and RV garage homes in Cedar City.

• Rentals

  A cap or ban on renting has to be written into the recorded CC&Rs. City rules on nightly stays are a separate layer: vacation rental rules in Utah.

• Pets

  Limits on how many pets, or which kinds, show up often. Moving to Utah with pets covers the city side.

• A business at home

  CC&Rs can limit a business you run from the house, on top of what the city allows. Bringing a home business here.

• Horses and other animals

  A covenant can allow fewer animals than the zoning does. Zoning for horses and livestock.

• How the home looks

  On a custom-home lot, a design committee may review size, materials, roof pitch and height, with limits stricter than city code. Choosing a lot.

Rentals are one place where two sets of rules can collide. In St. George, a city zone can allow nightly stays while a subdivision's CC&Rs say something else, and you have to clear both. The short-term rental homes in St. George page walks through the city side.

A covenant can also bind a lot that pays no monthly fee and has no board at all. Some older subdivisions and rural lots carry recorded limits like that. A quiet street with no fees is not proof that no rules apply.

Lawmakers keep adding to this list, most lately in the 2026 session. It reaches from the street to the back fence, so it helps to picture your own lot one part at a time.

• 01
  Your window

  CC&Rs cannot ban a for-sale sign, a political sign or a flag shown in a window. A U.S. flag may also fly on your lot or hang inside the home.

• 02
  Your front door

  A personal security camera right by your door or windows cannot be banned.

• 03
  Your driveway

  CC&Rs cannot stop you parking a working car in your driveway where it may legally park, though they may ask you to use the garage first. Motor homes, RV trailers, other trailers, boats, off-road vehicles and work vehicles are left out, so limits on those stay legal. A basketball hoop you keep up, on a private driveway that meets a public street, is protected too.

• 04
  Your garage or parking space

  No community paper can stop you installing an EV charger in a parking space on your own lot or in your assigned space. The board may ask for an application, a licensed electrical contractor and reasonable design rules.

• 05
  Your roof

  On a detached home, only the CC&Rs can ban solar panels, not the board's rules. Adding a new solar ban takes a vote of about two-thirds of all owners, and dropping an old one takes a majority of all owners.

• 06
  Your yard

  Board rules cannot ban a vegetable garden in the back yard, though they can set fair limits on height, water and weeds. CC&Rs cannot stop you cutting lawn water in a drought. Nor can they stop you turning a grass park strip under eight feet wide into water-wise plants, unless erosion is the worry. A park strip is the grass between the sidewalk and the street. On a detached home, no community paper can ban water-wise landscaping.

• 07
  Inside your home

  CC&Rs cannot set rules for the inside of your home, except what your neighbors need for safety. They also cannot stop radon work done to industry standards and local codes. Board rules cannot ban building an internal ADU, a separate small unit inside the house, if it meets land use, building, health and fire codes.

• 08
  Everyday choices

  A religious or holiday display on your lot is allowed, within fair limits on time, place and manner. So is storing anything you may legally keep, if it cannot be seen from outside. And the papers cannot block a worker you hire just because that worker is not on a preferred list.

• 09
  Your sale

  Neither the CC&Rs nor the board's rules can ban selling your home or make you get the board's consent to sell it.

Two catches matter when you buy. First, some limits stay legal, like the rules on RVs, trailers and boats. Second, a shed or setup the seller kept under an old rule may not carry over to you. When the board adopts a new rule, an owner who already met the old one keeps that pass while they own the home. A later buyer does not inherit it.

Some older CC&Rs still carry lines that discriminate. Utah law makes those lines void, and enforcing one is illegal. An owner can record a free notice with the county recorder, in wording the state sets. A board can also strike the words by a board vote after a written request.

Sources: Utah Code 57-8a-212, with sections 209, 218, 219, 231, 701 and 802 of the same chapter, and Utah Code 57-21-6.1. Read November 2026.

Under Utah's state purchase contract, as of November 2026, the seller gives you any CC&Rs, bylaws, rules, and fee and fine schedules by the Seller Disclosure Deadline. The seller also hands over the community's latest minutes, budget, reserve analysis (the plan for saving toward big repairs) and financial statement, if it has them. That deadline is a date written into your own contract.

That list is from the new state form, in use since November 1, 2026. The December 2024 form stays legal through December 31, 2026, and its list leaves out the bylaws, the fee and fine schedules and the reserve analysis. Check the footer of your own contract to see which one you signed.

CC&Rs are public record, too. They sit with the recorder in the county where the home is, and anyone can search them.

Your title commitment is the third place to look. Recorded CC&Rs show up there as exceptions, the items the title policy will not cover, each listed by its recording date and entry number. The commitment does not print the rules themselves, so use those numbers to pull the full document.

In Southern Utah, the Iron County Recorder links an online document search and the recorded plats, though it does not interpret documents for you. The Washington County Recorder offers a property search, ownership plats and a map online.

The state also runs a registry of these communities through its ombudsman office for community boards, at the Utah Department of Commerce. It lists who to contact for the board, the manager and a payoff. Use it to find who to ask, not to read the papers.

1. 1Ask the day you go under contract

   Request the CC&Rs, the rules, the bylaws, the minutes and the budget right away, before the Seller Disclosure Deadline even arrives.

2. 2Match the entry numbers

   Check that every recorded paper in your title commitment is in the stack the seller gave you.

3. 3Read the parts that touch your plans

   Parking, rentals, pets, fences, sheds and anything you plan to build. Then read the fees.

4. 4Object in writing, on time

   If something will not work for you, cancel or settle it in writing by your Due Diligence Deadline. Let that date pass, and the objection is waived.

Due diligence under the state contract covers the seller's papers and anything else you choose to check, the CC&Rs and the fees included. If you cancel in time, your earnest money comes back to you.

Selling a home with CC&Rs instead? Pull them together now, since your buyer gets them by the Seller Disclosure Deadline. Seller disclosures in Utah covers the rest of that stack.

CC&Rs can require each owner to pay community fees. Fall behind, and the unpaid fees, collection costs and final fines become a lien on the home, a legal claim against it. The recorded CC&Rs are themselves the public notice of that lien. It also sits ahead of most other claims on the home. The exceptions are property taxes, liens recorded before the CC&Rs, and a first or second mortgage recorded before the board files its notice.

Two boxes in the state contract matter here. One decides who pays a special assessment, a one-time charge for a big project, when the community approves it before the Settlement Deadline. The choices are the seller, the buyer, a split, or something else. The other box decides who pays a fee charged because the home changes hands, which the contract calls a change of ownership fee.

Utah law voids covenants recorded on or after March 16, 2010 that charge a fee each time a home sells. One kind still stands: a reinvestment fee, which needs its own notice recorded with the county. Newer ones, recorded on or after May 6, 2026, are capped by state law, except in very large master-planned communities.

Regular community fees are split between you and the seller at closing, by date. The board can charge for payoff information at closing only if its papers allow it, and state law caps that charge. It cannot make that charge due before closing.

Once the developer hands the community over to the owners, the CC&Rs change by owner vote. That usually takes a meeting where more than half of all the votes are present. A majority of the votes cast then decides, unless the CC&Rs ask for a bigger share. Utah law caps that bigger share at about two-thirds. The board alone cannot amend them.

Board rules move faster. After notice and an open forum, the board can add or change one, and the owners can vote it down within 60 days.

On a new subdivision, ask who runs the board. While the developer still controls it, the developer may hold rights the owners do not, such as adding land or lots to the community. Ask what rights the developer kept and when control passes to the owners.

Rental limits follow rules of their own. A community can cap or ban rentals only in the recorded CC&Rs, though a board rule can set a minimum lease of six months or less. The law also requires some exemptions, among them an owner deployed in the military, a home lived in by the owner's parent, child or sibling, and an owner moved by an employer for two years or less.

An owner already renting when a new limit passes may keep renting until they move back in or sell. That pass ends at the sale, so it does not come to you. Communities formed before May 12, 2009 can fall under different rental rules, so read their CC&Rs closely.

One rental limit no Utah community can set: it cannot restrict or ban renting an internal ADU that meets city codes. A detached unit out back is a separate question.

• 01
  A written warning

  Before any fine, the board must send a written warning that names the rule. For a problem that keeps going, it has to give you at least 48 hours to fix it.

• 02
  A fine

  If the problem goes on or comes back, the board can fine you.

• 03
  A hearing

  Within 30 days of a fine, you can ask for an informal hearing. No interest or late fees build up until the board decides.

• 04
  Court

  You can appeal a fine in court within 180 days.

• 05
  A lien

  Fines that become final, and fees left unpaid, can turn into a lien on the home.

The fight you avoid is the cheapest one. Read the CC&Rs before your Due Diligence Deadline with your own plans in mind: the trailer, the fence, the dog, the rental. If a line is unclear, a Utah real estate attorney can tell you what it means. My real estate and lending licenses do not let me give legal advice, and the recorder's office will not interpret the papers for you.

Do CC&Rs ever expire? Some set their own end date or a way to renew, so look for that section. Whether a very old covenant still applies is a question for the title company or a Utah attorney.