Legal Question in Real Estate Law in Washington

The short answer is yes. The longer answer is, "it depends." HOAs have upsides and downsides. On the downside, you give up a lot of rights that other homeowners enjoy, such as what color your drapes can be, what color the exterior of your home can be, or what flowers you may plant, and whether you have to mow your lawn once a week, etc. The upside is that you can prevent your neighbors from letting the condition of their homes deteriorate and thus bring down the value of your home in the process.

It looks like the owners in your HOA have decided that renters are bringing the overall value of the area down. After all, renters are more transient, they tend not to take as much care of a home as if they owned it, and they don't care what happens to the area long term the way an owner would tend to.

In your case, I'd want to look over the deed to the property and the HOA CC&Rs;to get a look at whether you ought to be able to be grandfathered in on renting your unit, or at least to keep renting to your current tenant, if you have one in place right now. Also, depending on where your unit is, if there are landlord-tenant laws that prevent eviction for certain reasons, that too may preclude the HOA from carrying out this new rule.

Theoretically, you could also argue that the HOA should owe you some damages as a result of your losing the right to rent your property out. After all, if renting it gives you income that you cannot otherwise obtain, that is a benefit you will now be denied by losing this right. Honestly, it's all a little too complicated to deal with in this small space, so considering what is at stake, if I were you, I'd hire local real estate counsel to help you sort this out and they'll want to start with your deed and HOA CC&Rs;.

Best of luck,