Getting HOA Approval to Paint

If you live in Eastlake, Otay Ranch, Rolling Hills Ranch or any of the master-planned communities east of the 805, the hardest part of repainting your house is not the house. It is the paperwork, and the order you do things in.

What is the mistake to avoid?

Somebody paints their house a color they love, and a letter arrives from the association telling them it is not on the approved palette and has to be changed. Now the house gets painted twice: once in the color they wanted and once in the color they are allowed.

It happens more often than it should, and it is avoidable. Get the approval first. Everything else follows from that, including when the painter is booked.

How does the approval process usually run?

Every association writes its own rules, so treat this as the general shape rather than the rule for your community. Your CC&Rs and your management company are the authority, and the architectural guidelines are usually a separate document from the CC&Rs themselves.

1. Find your approved palette. Most communities maintain one, often with specific manufacturer color names or numbers. It is usually on the association’s website or available from the management company.
2. Pick a scheme, not a color. Body, trim and front door are frequently approved as a set, and some communities restrict which combinations may sit next to each other or how close your scheme may be to your immediate neighbors’.
3. Submit an architectural review application. Expect to name the colors, identify which surface each goes on, and sometimes attach samples or a photograph of the house.
4. Wait. The association sets its own response time (California law requires it to have one), not your painter. Some meet monthly, and a submission that arrives the day after a meeting waits for the next one.
5. Get the decision in writing and keep it. California law requires the association to put its decision in writing, and to explain a denial. It is what protects you if anybody questions the work later, including a future buyer’s agent.

Which details trip up a submission?

Most rejections and delays come from small omissions rather than bad color choices.

The surfaces nobody thinks about. Garage doors, fascia boards, rain gutters, downspouts, vents, meter boxes and the stucco pop-outs around windows all have a color. Many palettes specify them. A form that names body and trim and stops there may come back with questions.

Sheen. Some guidelines specify flat or low-sheen for stucco and a satin or semi-gloss for trim and doors. Sheen changes how a color reads in afternoon sun, and a committee may care about it as much as the color itself.

Paint matched by eye. If the palette names a specific manufacturer color, the safest course is to use that manufacturer’s formula rather than a match made elsewhere. Matches drift, and a drifted color next to an untouched neighbor is exactly what a committee notices.

The wrong color on the wrong surface. An approved trim color used on the body is still an unapproved scheme. Write the surface beside every color.

What should you ask your painter before you submit?

• Will you work from my community’s approved palette? The answer should be an unqualified yes.
• Can you schedule around my approval date rather than before it? Booking the work first and hoping the letter arrives is how people end up rushing a submission.
• How will you protect my neighbors’ property? On these lot sizes, houses are close together and overspray does not respect property lines. Careful masking is not optional here.
• What repairs do you expect? If a stucco repair or a replaced fascia board is coming, it is better to know before the start date goes on the form.

Why is the painting itself usually the shorter part here?

There is good news in the newer communities. The housing is comparatively young, the stucco is generally sound, and there is usually far less crack repair than an older home in Chula Vista or Spring Valley would need. Once the approval is in hand, the work follows Ebenezer’s usual exterior order: power wash, check the stucco and wood for repairs, mask windows and everything not being painted, then paint. The full sequence is here.

The one thing to plan around is heat. East of the 805 the marine influence drops off and summer afternoons get genuinely hot, which is poor painting weather. A wall too hot to touch will flash the coating before it levels, and darker approved colors show weathering first on south and west elevations. Spring and autumn are the kinder windows, which is another reason to submit early: a spring start date needs a winter submission.

What if you manage the community rather than live in it?

The same rules apply in reverse. When an association repaints its own buildings, the board is approving its own scheme, and residents will want to know the colors before the scaffolding arrives. Ebenezer manages every project personally, which means the board deals with the person doing the work rather than a rotating crew lead. Scope is agreed clearly at the start, and anything beyond it is discussed before it happens. HOA maintenance is offered as an ongoing arrangement as well as a one-off repaint, and individual homeowners in a community are just as welcome as the board.

Before you start

Read your CC&Rs and the architectural guidelines, get the palette, submit the form, then book the work. If you would like help thinking the scheme through before you submit, that is a perfectly good reason for an estimate visit: Ebenezer can walk the house with the palette in hand, point out every surface the form should name, and tell you honestly which repairs belong in the plan. Ask for a free estimate and he will build the schedule around your approval date rather than the other way round.

More on what painting is like in these communities: Eastlake and Otay Ranch.