Legal Question in Real Estate Law in California

Re: Homeowner Associations

Yes. Homeowners associations have broad powers to enact rules and regulations to protect all of the property in the development.

Re: Homeowner Associations

The HOA can't "overrule" City ordinances. However, in the situation you describe, the HOA in not overruling, superseding, limiting or in any other way interfering with the mandate of the City law. The HOA is simply imposing a parallel, but stricter, limitation. People who live within the community covered by the HOA must observe HOA rules as well as city, county, state and federal laws on any particular subject including where they overlap.

There are certain areas of legislation where the larger jurisdiction has exclusive legislative authority and the smaller jurisdiction cannot impose tighter limits. To give you a somewhat silly example, Congress sets postal rates and California can't require a California 10c stamp on your letter in addition to Uncle Sam's 39c stamp.

An HOA can impose a tighter limit on filming, but it cannot override a City ordinance and allow a looser limit. The tighter limit is not an override because the City ordinance is restrictive.

If the ordinance said "filming is permitted anywhere in this City for up to ten days," then the HOA's effort to limit or ban filming would be called into serious question and might be thrown out as in conflict with the City's authority. But that's not the way it's written, I'm sure.