Most HOA board members we talk to have read at least one of their governing documents. Very few have read all three, and almost none could tell you which one controls what. That gap causes real problems. Before a board levies a fine, amends a policy, or calls a homeowner vote, somebody needs to know which document applies — and what it takes to change it. If you’re sorting through that right now, our full breakdown of HOA governing documents, including CC&Rs, bylaws, and rules is worth bookmarking alongside this post.
Here, we’re going to walk through each document layer by layer: what it controls, how it gets changed, and what happens when boards get the hierarchy wrong.
In This Guide
The Three-Tier Structure (and Why the Order Matters)
HOA governance runs on a hierarchy. Think of it like a chain of command where the document at the top always wins.
- CC&Rs (Covenants, Conditions & Restrictions): The top tier. Recorded with the county, binding on every owner who buys into the community.
- Bylaws: The middle tier. They govern how the association itself operates — board structure, elections, meeting procedures, quorum rules.
- Rules and Regulations: The bottom tier. Day-to-day operational policies like parking rules, pool hours, and fine schedules.
If a bylaw conflicts with a CC&R, the CC&R wins. If a rule conflicts with a bylaw, the bylaw wins. Boards that don’t understand this end up enforcing policies that have no legal ground to stand on.
We’ve seen this play out the hard way. A board we support in the Knoxville area had been enforcing a pet weight limit of 25 pounds for years based on a “rule” a previous board had written and distributed by email. When a homeowner pushed back, the board discovered the CC&Rs contained no pet restriction at all — and the rule itself had never been formally adopted at a properly noticed board meeting. The dispute ran to an attorney review that cost the association about $3,200 to resolve. Good intentions, wrong process.
“The dispute ran to an attorney review that cost the association about $3,200 to resolve.”
CC&Rs: The Document That Follows the Property
CC&Rs are recorded with the county Register of Deeds — in this area, that means the Knox County Register of Deeds office at 400 W Main Street, Suite 225. Once they’re recorded, they attach to the land itself, not just to the person who signed them.
That’s the part buyers miss.
We’ve talked to owners who closed on a Knoxville townhome and discovered afterward that the CC&Rs prohibited satellite dishes on any exterior surface. The restriction wasn’t flagged in listing disclosures. It didn’t matter. Because it was recorded with the county, it was binding the moment she signed at closing — even though nobody mentioned it. The cost wasn’t a fine; it was losing a service she’d already contracted and paid an installation fee for.
CC&Rs typically cover:
- Use restrictions (short-term rentals, home businesses, livestock)
- Architectural standards and exterior modification rules
- Assessment authority and lien rights
- Easements and boundary descriptions
Amending CC&Rs is intentionally hard. Many communities require a supermajority of homeowners — often around two-thirds or more — to approve a change to the CC&Rs, and in many cases that threshold applies to the full membership rather than just those who show up to vote, though the exact percentage varies by state law and individual governing documents. And once the vote passes, the amendment has to be recorded back at the Register of Deeds to be legally effective. Recording fees at Knox County run about $12 for the first two pages and $5 for each additional page. Not expensive, but skip that step and the amendment is unenforceable against future buyers.
A CC&R amendment that passes the homeowner vote but never gets recorded has no legal effect on anyone who buys into the community after that date. The board will think the policy is in place. The new owner’s title search will show the old language. That’s a dispute waiting to happen.
Bylaws: The Rules About How You Make the Rules
Bylaws don’t govern what homeowners can do with their property. They govern how the association itself functions.
What Bylaws Typically Cover
- Board size, terms, and election procedures
- How and when annual meetings get called
- Quorum thresholds for votes to count
- How vacancies on the board get filled
- Procedures for removing a board member
Where Tennessee Boards Get Into Trouble
Tennessee’s Nonprofit Corporation Act (T.C.A. § 48-51-101 et seq.) supplies many procedural rules — including meetings, voting, board elections, and records — for incorporated community associations, though other statutes such as the Tennessee Horizontal Property Act may also apply depending on the association’s structure. The problem is that many Knoxville-area communities were established in the 1980s and 1990s using boilerplate documents that may predate subsequent updates to Tennessee’s Nonprofit Corporation Act governing HOA voting, proxy, and notice requirements. Their bylaws may still reference procedures — like proxy voting rules or notice by physical posting only — that no longer align with current statute.
When a bylaw conflicts with state law, state law wins. And boards that follow outdated bylaws in good faith can still face legal challenges that cost $5,000 to $15,000 in legal fees to untangle.
Amending bylaws usually requires a lower threshold than CC&Rs. Many communities allow bylaw amendments by a simple majority vote of the board or by a defined quorum of homeowners — but the exact threshold lives in the document itself, and it varies. The board’s job is to know that number before calling any vote.
Rules and Regulations: The Most Useful and the Most Abused
Here’s a take we’ll stand behind: rules and regulations are the most important document in day-to-day HOA life, and the one boards treat most carelessly.
CC&Rs get attention because they’re recorded and legally intimidating. Bylaws get reviewed when someone questions an election result. But rules and regulations govern what actually affects homeowners on a Tuesday afternoon — whether the neighbor can park a boat in the driveway, how loud the pool area can be after 9 p.m., and whether a first violation costs $50 or $200.
What Makes Them Different
Rules and regulations don’t get recorded with the county. A board can amend them by vote at a properly noticed board meeting, without a homeowner supermajority. That flexibility is genuinely useful. A $25 parking fine can become $100 with a board resolution and proper notice — no homeowner vote required.
Why That Flexibility Gets Misused
Because they’re easy to change, boards sometimes change them informally. A verbal agreement at a meeting. A note added to the bottom of an old document. A policy that lives only in meeting minutes and never makes it into a distributed rules document.
That’s exactly what happened with a community center reservation situation we dealt with. The board had made a policy decision six months earlier, but it only ever made it into meeting minutes — it was never added to the distributed rules and regulations. When a homeowner tried to make a reservation, the inconsistency caused a real problem. India, who handles community communications on our team, got the call and worked through it professionally, but the fix required a formal rules update to prevent it from happening again.
Rules and regulations must be formally adopted at a properly noticed meeting and distributed to all homeowners within the timeframe specified in the community’s own CC&Rs and bylaws — Tennessee does not impose a uniform statewide distribution deadline, so the exact window varies by community governing documents. Informally adopted rules aren’t enforceable when a homeowner decides to push back.
Short-Term Rental Restrictions: A CC&R Problem, Not a Rule Problem
This one comes up constantly in East Tennessee’s resort markets. Sevier County communities — Gatlinburg, Pigeon Forge, Sevierville — attract buyers who plan to rent short-term, and many of those buyers never read the CC&Rs before closing.
We supported a board in that area that inherited CC&Rs from the original developer allowing short-term rentals without restriction. Five years later, the majority of owners wanted to ban nightly rentals. The board tried to pass a resolution. It didn’t work. Because the permission was written into the CC&Rs — not the rules — the board had no authority to change it at a board meeting. They needed a supermajority homeowner vote and a recorded amendment. The whole process took 14 months and cost around $4,500 in legal and recording fees.
If a short-term rental restriction lives in rules and regulations, the board can tighten or loosen it relatively quickly. If it lives in the CC&Rs, you’re in for a multi-month campaign just to change the language.
Developer-Drafted Documents: Read Before You Rely
Boards in newer communities — particularly the wave of townhome and condo development in the Tri-Cities market over the last decade — often inherit governing documents drafted by developers. Those documents get the community off the ground, but they’re written to protect the developer’s interests during the build-out phase, not the long-term homeowner’s interests once the developer is gone.
We see boards in Johnson City and Kingsport operating under developer-drafted CC&Rs that include provisions a homeowner-controlled board would never have agreed to. The fix isn’t quick. But knowing the problem exists is the first step toward getting a real estate attorney to review the documents and flag what needs updating.
Tennessee does not require HOAs to register with a state agency — there’s no external check on whether your documents are internally consistent or legally current. That burden sits entirely with the board and whoever manages the community.
Condominiums Have an Additional Layer
If your community is a condominium rather than a single-family HOA, one more document enters the picture: the Tennessee Horizontal Property Act (T.C.A. § 66-27-101 et seq.) applies specifically to condominium communities created before January 1, 2009 (condominiums established on or after that date are governed by the Tennessee Condominium Act of 2008), and imposes statutory requirements that may affect the interpretation of CC&Rs or bylaws.
This is a detail that matters in communities with stacked units, shared building systems, and common element ownership — which describes a lot of what we manage across Knoxville and the surrounding area. Wise Property Solutions works exclusively with community associations, so our managers know where the condo-specific statutory requirements depart from standard HOA procedure. That focus matters when a board is making decisions about special assessments or reserve allocations.
How to Know Which Document Controls What
Before a board takes any significant action, someone needs to ask three questions:
- Does the CC&Rs address this? If yes, that’s your ceiling. A board resolution can’t override it.
- Does the bylaw address this? If yes, follow the procedure it sets out — exactly.
- Is this addressed only in rules and regulations? If yes, the board has flexibility — but still needs a properly noticed meeting and a formal adoption process.
Getting the hierarchy right before acting is far cheaper than cleaning it up afterward.
One client described working with our team this way: “Wise Property Solutions is professional, timely and thoughtful.” That’s what this kind of governance work actually looks like in practice. Not dramatic, just consistent — catching problems before they become $3,200 attorney bills.
When Documents Conflict With Each Other
Older communities around Maryville and Oak Ridge sometimes have CC&Rs and bylaws that haven’t been touched in 30 or 40 years. Boards have passed resolutions in the meantime, added rules, updated fine schedules. And sometimes those newer layers quietly contradict the older recorded documents.
The answer isn’t to throw out the old documents. It’s to map the conflicts and decide whether to amend the CC&Rs, update the bylaws, or revise the rules — in the right order, through the right process.
If your community has governing documents that feel like they were written for a different era (and in Knoxville and surrounding areas, many were), a document review is worth scheduling before the conflicts surface in an enforcement dispute.
If you’re managing a community where the three tiers feel muddled or inconsistent, we’re open to a conversation. The free Community Analysis we offer for new communities is a reasonable place to start — no two communities are alike, and the document layer that’s causing problems isn’t always the one you’d expect.
FAQ
What is the difference between CC&Rs and bylaws?
CC&Rs define what homeowners can and cannot do with their property — use restrictions, architectural standards, and assessment authority. Bylaws govern how the association itself operates, including board elections, meeting procedures, and quorum thresholds. They are different documents with different purposes, and CC&Rs always take priority when the two conflict.
Can an HOA board change the rules without a homeowner vote?
It depends on which document contains the rule. Rules and regulations can typically be amended by a board vote at a properly noticed meeting, with no homeowner vote required. Bylaws and CC&Rs require higher approval thresholds, often including a percentage of the full homeowner membership, not just the board.
Do CC&Rs apply to someone who bought the home before the HOA was formed?
CC&Rs are recorded with the county and attach to the property itself, not to the individual owner. Any buyer who closes on a home in an HOA community is bound by the recorded CC&Rs from the moment of closing, regardless of whether they read them or were told about them.
What happens if an HOA board enforces a rule that was never formally adopted?
An informally adopted rule — one that was discussed at a meeting but never formally voted on and distributed — is generally unenforceable when a homeowner challenges it. The challenge can trigger an attorney review that costs the association thousands of dollars, even if the board was acting in good faith.
Do Tennessee HOAs have to register with the state?
No. Tennessee does not require HOAs to register with a state agency. There is no external oversight body checking whether governing documents are current, internally consistent, or compliant with state law. That responsibility rests entirely with the board and its management team.
How does the three-tier document structure differ for condominiums in Tennessee?
Condominium communities in Tennessee are also governed by the Tennessee Horizontal Property Act (T.C.A. § 66-27-101), which adds a statutory layer that can override conflicting language in CC&Rs or bylaws. Boards of condo associations need to account for this extra layer when making decisions about assessments, common areas, and maintenance obligations.
