Most homeowners who move into an HOA community get handed a welcome packet, skim it for the garbage pickup schedule, and figure they’ll deal with the official documents later. Later usually arrives when a fence they installed gets flagged, a fine shows up in the mail, or a neighbor’s short-term rental guests are parking across their driveway.
The governing documents were always the operating system. They just didn’t get the introduction they deserved.
If you’re a board member, a homeowner, or someone thinking about buying into a managed community in East Tennessee, this post is for you. We’re going to walk through what CC&Rs, bylaws, and rules and regulations actually are, how they interact, where the most common confusion lives, and why the document most boards ignore tends to cause more daily headaches than the one everyone obsesses over.
No law school required. Let’s go.
“$3,000–$7,000 | cost to restate outdated CC&Rs”
In This Guide
What Governing Documents Actually Are
Think of an HOA’s governing documents like a legal stack. They exist in layers, and the order of authority is fixed.
From top to bottom:
- State law overrides everything. In Tennessee, that means the Tennessee Horizontal Property Act (T.C.A. § 66-27-101 et seq.) for condominiums created before January 1, 2009, and the Tennessee Condominium Act of 2008 (T.C.A. § 66-27-201 et seq.) for those created on or after that date. and Tennessee has statutory provisions governing planned communities; property managers should consult an attorney to confirm the applicable statutes and code sections.. These statutes sit above every rule the association has ever passed.
- CC&Rs (Covenants, Conditions, and Restrictions) are recorded with the county Register of Deeds and run with the land. They bind every future owner the moment they close, whether or not they’ve read them.
- Bylaws govern how the association operates internally. Who’s on the board, how elections work, how meetings get called.
- Rules and Regulations cover the day-to-day stuff. Parking, trash cans, pool hours, pet rules.
If a rule contradicts the CC&Rs, the rule loses. If the CC&Rs conflict with state law, the CC&Rs lose. A board can vote unanimously to adopt something and it can still be legally unenforceable if it contradicts a document higher up the stack.
That hierarchy isn’t optional. It’s just how it works.
CC&Rs: The Document That Follows the Property
CC&Rs get recorded with the county Register of Deeds when a community is developed. In Knox County and surrounding areas, that means they become part of the property’s legal title. The next buyer inherits them. So does the buyer after that.
There’s no grace period. No opt-out. A buyer who closes without reading the CC&Rs is still fully bound by them. Every restriction, every use limitation, every architectural standard applies on day one.
What CC&Rs Actually Contain
The contents vary, but most CC&Rs cover:
- Permitted use: What the property can be used for. Many communities restrict units to residential use only, which can catch owners off-guard. We’ve worked with owners who wanted to run a home-based business out of their unit and discovered a use restriction that had been in the CC&Rs since the community was developed. Changing that provision required a supermajority vote of the full membership, not a board decision.
- Architectural standards: What you can build, modify, or add, and under what conditions.
- Maintenance responsibilities: What the association maintains versus what falls to the individual owner.
- Assessment obligations: The mechanism that requires owners to pay dues and special assessments.
- Restriction on alienation: Rules around leasing, subleasing, or short-term renting your unit.
That last one is getting a lot of attention in Sevier County right now. Gatlinburg, Pigeon Forge, and Sevierville communities have a booming vacation rental market, and whether any given HOA’s CC&Rs permit, restrict, or ban short-term rentals entirely is one of the most litigated governing document questions in the region. If you own or are thinking about buying in that submarket, the STR language in the CC&Rs deserves more than a two-minute skim.
Amending CC&Rs Is Hard on Purpose
Many CC&Rs require a supermajority of all members — not just those present at a meeting — to pass an amendment, with thresholds commonly ranging from 60% to 75%, though the exact requirement varies by individual HOA governing documents. Some provisions may require a significantly higher approval threshold — potentially supermajority or even unanimous consent — for amendments to fundamental matters such as how common expenses are allocated, depending on your governing documents and applicable state law.
That threshold exists to protect owners from boards making major changes on a whim. But it also means communities can get stuck with outdated language for decades. Many associations around East Tennessee were formed in the 1970s through 1990s under documents that predate Tennessee’s current community association statutes. Where those documents conflict with current state law, the statute controls. But boards often don’t know that, and they operate under the assumption that whatever the CC&Rs say is the final word.
It’s not always.
If your association’s CC&Rs were drafted before 2000, there’s a real chance some provisions are superseded by current Tennessee statute and your board doesn’t know it. Operating under outdated legal assumptions without a periodic legal review creates enforcement exposure. That review typically costs a few hundred dollars. The legal disputes it prevents can run far more.
Bylaws: The Operating Manual for Your Board
Bylaws don’t govern what owners can do with their property. They govern how the association governs itself.
What Bylaws Typically Cover
- How board members are elected and how long they serve
- How many members constitute a quorum for a meeting
- How special meetings get called
- How the association’s officers are defined and what authority they have
- How financial decisions get authorized
Bylaws tend to be the document boards know best, because they come up constantly in day-to-day operations. Meeting procedures, election disputes, officer authority questions all run through the bylaws.
Where Bylaws Go Wrong
The most common bylaw problem we see is boards operating under bylaws that no longer match how the association actually functions. A community that’s grown from 40 units to 200 units may still be running on bylaws written for a small neighborhood where everyone knew each other. Quorum requirements that made sense at 40 units can become impossible to meet at 200.
And remember the hierarchy. If a bylaw provision conflicts with the CC&Rs, the bylaws lose. Boards that amend their bylaws without checking them against the CC&Rs occasionally create internal governance procedures that simply don’t hold up.
Rules and Regulations: The Document Nobody Talks About Enough
Here’s the thing boards usually get backwards.
Most owners will never trigger a CC&R provision in their lifetime. They’re not running commercial operations out of their units or trying to subdivide their lot. What they will do is park in the wrong spot, put their trash cans out a day early, or let a fence go unpainted two seasons in a row.
Those situations live in the rules and regulations. Not the CC&Rs.
And here’s why that matters: boards can typically amend the rules and regulations by a simple majority board vote, without a full membership vote at all. No supermajority. No waiting for an annual meeting. A well-drafted, regularly updated rules document gives boards the flexibility to address real community problems as they come up.
We genuinely believe a sharp, specific rules document is worth more to daily community harmony than a perfectly worded set of CC&Rs that nobody opens. The CC&Rs get all the attention. The rules doc is where the actual friction lives.
Enforcement Requires Consistency
This is where informal operation creates serious problems. A board in a Sevier County community we learned about had operated for years on rules that were voted on at annual meetings but never formally adopted as bylaw amendments. When an owner challenged a fine in small claims court, the board discovered that informally adopted, unrecorded rules carried no enforceable weight. The association absorbed both the dismissed fine and roughly $1,800 in legal consultation fees.
Boards that operate without a current, formally adopted rules document are making decisions ad hoc. Enforcement inconsistency across even two or three incidents can create estoppel arguments that cost the association thousands in legal fees to unwind.
Fines for CC&R violations in Tennessee HOAs vary widely because state law sets no cap on fine amounts—everything depends on the governing documents. Those same documents typically define a notice-and-cure period before fines begin, and Tennessee law requires written notice and an opportunity for a hearing before an HOA may impose a fine. That fine revenue disappears fast if the enforcement process wasn’t followed correctly.
The rules and regulations document is the one board members can actually control and update without a membership vote. Keeping it current, specific, and formally adopted is one of the highest-return governance habits an association can build.
Architectural Review: Where the CC&Rs Hit Real Life
Architectural review is one of the places where governing document language meets actual owner decisions in a very tangible way.
Most CC&Rs include an architectural review provision that requires owners to get approval before making exterior changes — adding a deck, replacing siding, putting up a fence, installing a retaining wall. The CC&Rs typically specify both what’s required for approval and how long the review committee has to respond, often 30 to 45 days.
Here’s the part boards sometimes miss: failure to respond within that window can legally constitute automatic approval in some jurisdictions. We’ve seen this create real complications. One owner submitted a request to add a deck, and because the response window in the CC&Rs hadn’t been tracked carefully under a prior management arrangement, the deadline passed without a formal decision. The owner proceeded, assuming approval. The association then faced a genuine question about whether they could deny it at all.
Tamara, who handles architectural review requests for many of our managed communities, runs a structured process specifically to prevent that scenario — tracking submission dates, response windows, and decisions so no request ages past its deadline unresolved.
East Tennessee’s Terrain Adds Another Layer
In mountain and lakefront communities across East Tennessee, architectural standards often go beyond aesthetics. Many CC&Rs in these areas include impervious surface restrictions tied to watershed protection and local zoning overlays. An owner who adds a patio or expands a parking pad without architectural approval can end up facing HOA enforcement and a municipal code violation at the same time.
In Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge HOAs, exterior material requirements are often very specific — log construction standards, particular wood siding requirements, mountain character guidelines. An owner who installs vinyl siding where the CC&Rs require wood isn’t just facing a fine. They’re facing potential remediation costs to undo what they’ve already done.
Why New Owners Often Don’t Know What They’ve Agreed To
We hear this regularly. An owner moves into one of our managed communities, calls with a question about what they can do with their backyard, and is genuinely surprised to learn that setback requirements and fence restrictions are buried in a recorded document they never received a plain-language summary of.
The operative document isn’t the welcome packet. It’s the CC&Rs recorded with the county. And in many transactions, the buyer’s closing attorney does a title search, confirms the deed is clean, and moves on. The CC&Rs are referenced in the title commitment, but nobody sits down with the buyer and says “here are the three restrictions most likely to affect how you use this property.”
That’s an information gap, and it creates enforcement problems that have nothing to do with bad-faith owners. Most violation situations we see involve owners who genuinely didn’t know.
One association we’ve worked with solved this with a simple one-page plain-language summary of the five most commonly triggered CC&R and rule provisions, sent through the community portal at move-in. Compliance problems dropped noticeably. That’s not a coincidence. Compliance is an information problem before it’s an enforcement problem.
The Hidden Risk of Outdated CC&Rs
A lot of associations in Knox County and across East Tennessee are operating on boilerplate CC&Rs written when the community was developed and never touched since. That’s especially common in newer communities tied to the area’s tourism and in-migration growth. The documents have never been tested, never been amended, and in some cases contain provisions that no longer align with Tennessee law.
Restating CC&Rs — which means cleaning up decades of amendments and inconsistencies into one coherent, updated document — typically costs an association $3,000 to $7,000 in attorney fees. That sounds like a lot until you price out the alternative.
Associations that skip the restatement often spend more than that resolving ambiguity disputes case by case. A restatement is a one-time investment. Piecemeal legal fees are a recurring one.
How Wise Property Solutions Approaches Governing Documents
Joe Wise came to this work from the homeowner side of the table. He was living in a condominium community and serving on its board, watching firsthand how much boards struggled without good information. The company he built in 2004 reflects what he decided to do differently: communicate openly, report accurately, and make sure the people running communities actually understand the rules they’re operating under.
Twenty-two years later, that orientation shows up in how we handle governing documents with every association we manage. We work exclusively with HOAs and condominium communities — not rental properties, not commercial management. Every process we run is built around how associations actually operate, and that includes making sure boards understand what their governing documents actually say, where the hierarchy sits, and when a legal review is overdue.
One longtime HOA resident described it simply: “Wise Property Solutions is a magnificent choice for any HOA looking for an exceptional property management company. I have had the opportunity to interact with this company for over three years. The company is professional, timely and thoughtful.”
That kind of consistency doesn’t happen by accident. It comes from building systems around documents, deadlines, and communication rather than reacting to problems after they’ve already landed in someone’s inbox.
We serve communities across Knoxville, Maryville, Oak Ridge, Johnson City, Gatlinburg, Pigeon Forge, Sevierville, and the broader Tri-Cities area, with offices in Knoxville and Johnson City and real-time reporting so board members and residents can see account balances, paid invoices, and maintenance tracking without chasing anyone down.
When to Get a Legal Review
Not every governing document question requires an attorney. But some situations do, and boards sometimes wait too long to make that call.
Get a legal review if:
- Your CC&Rs were drafted before 2000 and have never been reviewed against current Tennessee statute
- You’re facing a dispute with an owner who is challenging the enforceability of a fine or restriction
- Your association is in Sevier County and your CC&Rs have not been reviewed for short-term rental compliance since the local STR market took off
- Your community is 55+ restricted and the board is considering any amendment to the rules or CC&Rs
- You’ve identified conflicting provisions between your bylaws and CC&Rs and aren’t sure which controls
A few hours of attorney time spent on prevention is almost always cheaper than attorney time spent on litigation.
Plain Language Goes a Long Way
We’ve said it once and it’s worth saying again. Enforcement problems frequently start as information problems.
The instinct when violations spike is to tighten enforcement. Issue more fines. Shorten notice periods. That sometimes works, but it often creates adversarial community dynamics that make governance harder across the board.
The associations we’ve seen make the most genuine compliance progress are the ones that put real effort into communicating what the rules actually are, in plain language, at move-in. A one-page summary delivered through the community portal is not a substitute for the governing documents — it’s a supplement that makes the governing documents actually usable for the average owner who is not going to read 40 pages of recorded covenants.
India, who works directly with residents across several of our managed communities, fields these questions constantly. The calls she gets most often aren’t about complex legal provisions. They’re about things any clear summary document could have answered. Which is exactly why we build that summary into the onboarding process for every community we manage.
If Your Board Is Navigating This Right Now
Governing documents don’t have to be intimidating. They’re just contracts, written in legal language, that govern a community. Once you understand the hierarchy, know where to look, and have a management partner who can flag problems before they become disputes, the whole thing gets a lot more manageable.
If your association is working through a governing document question, dealing with enforcement inconsistency, or operating on CC&Rs that nobody has reviewed in 20 years, we’re open to a conversation. Every engagement we start includes a free Community Analysis, because no two associations have the same documents or the same problems, and a generic proposal doesn’t help anyone.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do I have to follow HOA rules even if I didn’t receive a copy of the CC&Rs at closing?
Yes. CC&Rs are recorded with the county Register of Deeds and are legally binding on every owner from the moment they close, regardless of whether a copy was provided or reviewed. In Tennessee, the recorded documents are considered constructive notice, meaning the law assumes you had the opportunity to read them.
Can a board just vote to change a rule that’s in the CC&Rs?
No. Rules and regulations can typically be amended by a board vote alone, but CC&Rs require a membership vote, and usually a supermajority — often 60% to 75% of all members, not just those who attend a meeting. A board resolution cannot override a CC&R provision, even if it passes unanimously.
What happens if the association doesn’t respond to an architectural review request in time?
It depends on what the CC&Rs say. Many governing documents specify a response window of 30 to 45 days, and in some cases a failure to respond within that window can constitute automatic approval. This is why tracking submission dates and response deadlines matters so much. A request that ages past its deadline without a formal decision puts the association in a very difficult enforcement position.
Our board has been enforcing a rule that was voted on at a meeting but never formally written into our bylaws or rules document. Is that enforceable?
Generally, no. Informally adopted rules that were never formally documented and recorded in the association’s governing documents are difficult or impossible to enforce in court. We’ve seen associations absorb dismissed fines and legal fees because a rule they genuinely believed was in effect had no formal standing.
How do short-term rental restrictions work in HOA communities?
The CC&Rs control this, and the language varies widely from community to community. Some associations explicitly permit short-term rentals, some restrict minimum lease terms, and some ban them outright. In Sevier County communities in particular, this has become a heavily disputed area as the vacation rental market has grown. If you own or are purchasing in that area, the specific STR language in the CC&Rs should be reviewed carefully before you close or list.
What does a CC&R restatement involve, and does our association need one?
A restatement is the process of consolidating years of amendments and corrections into one clean, updated governing document. Attorneys typically charge $3,000 to $7,000 for a restatement, but associations with decades of layered amendments often face higher costs over time from confusion and dispute resolution. If your CC&Rs predate Tennessee’s current community association statutes and have never been reviewed, a restatement conversation with an HOA attorney is worth having sooner rather than later.
