Your practical guide to HOA resolutions in 2025

We all may have heard the term resolution, usually in context of New Year’s Eve. It signals a change, clarity or decision made going forward. HOA resolutions facilitated by Boards can be thought of in a similar way.
HOA resolutions are a common practice and applied in the areas of:
- Rules and regulations
- Laws (Federal, state and local)
- Conflicts
- Operations
Let’s take a deeper dive into HOA resolutions and the role they play in your HOA.
What is an HOA resolution?
An HOA resolution is a decision or guideline agreed upon by the Board to help clarify, provide direction and/or make a decision pertaining to contents that appear in your HOA Governing Documents.
The hierarchy of HOA Governing Documents are noted in the diagram below.
HOA Governing Documents Hierarchy

Why would an HOA resolution be necessary?
At times an HOA resolution is needed because HOA governing documents can be:
- Vague
- Open to interpretation
- In need of parameters
When this is the case, the Board comes together to create a resolution to address an issue in the governing document.
HOA resolution example
In this example, your HOA has a policy that the exterior pillars of your home must be painted creme. Seems pretty straightforward. All homes must have cream pillars. Members might think they are abiding by the policy even though you start to notice that the pillars are beige, off white or white.
In this case, in order to bring clarity and provide added guidance to members the Board can put forward a new HOA resolution whereby members must choose a paint color from a Board-approved color palette. If a member does not comply, they may incur a fine.
This example shows that even though members think they are complying, the policy was too ambiguous and needed a resolution to add some useful parameters to the policy.
Let’s see how an HOA resolution is implemented.
How an HOA resolution is accepted
HOA resolutions can’t just be implemented however the Board chooses. There is a process it must go through to be accepted. In general, it goes like this:
- The draft
The Board prepares a draft document indicating why the resolution is needed and how the resolution will make an impact. - The review
Once the draft is complete the entire Board reviews it, makes any suggested edits and agrees this resolution is something they want to put forward as a Board. - The members
The resolutions may or may not require feedback from members. If it does, then the draft resolution can be raised at member meeting included in, surveys and other communications, online or in print. - The vote
Once the content is reviewed and discussed. The Board votes, and if necessary, members vote. If it is a majority vote in favor of the new resolution, the resolution is passed.

5. The implementation
Once the vote is passed, the resolution is formally adopted and put into action.
6. The records
Once adopted and implanted the HOA resolution must be added to official records, so it can be found and referred to.
These steps keep HOA resolutions orderly. There can be many resolutions that take place depending on changes to state laws, by-laws, rules and regulations and so on. So, the question arises then, how can an HOA keep track of all of them.
File and keep track of HOA resolutions on your HOA website
Filing tons of paper resolutions is an antiquated way of processing administrative tasks for the Board and property managers. However, if you have an HOA website, you will be more efficient and ensure HOA resolutions and can be found and referred to by date and topic.

With an HOA website you can:
File and post documents online, ensuring members and the Board always have access to the most current resources and information at their fingertips. There is no need to request information to be mailed or emailed to them.
HOA resolution documents can be divided into categories on a documents page and/or added to any other pages you choose to have on the website. It is completely flexible to make sure everyone gets the documents they are looking for without hassle.
In case documents are not in Adobe PDF format, free PDF tools convert documents to full color PDF on-the-fly.
Multiple files can be selected and uploaded together to the website. A progress bar shows the upload status of each file. Images are automatically resized to be web friendly during the upload process.
Is an HOA resolution the same as an amendment?
No, an HOA resolution and HOA amendment are not the same thing. Some may mistakenly interchange resolutions and amendments in speaking about them, but they are not the same.
Here are two distinct differences between an HOA resolution and an HOA amendment.
- HOA resolutions are created to provide guidelines and parameters to existing HOA Governing Documents.
- HOA amendments directly change the contents of the Governing Documents.
Both HOA resolutions and HOA amendments require votes of approval. However, HOA resolutions require Board votes and members votes can be optional; whereas HOA amendments require majority votes by both the Board and members for them to be passed and adopted.
HOA amendments supersede HOA resolutions because amendments change the contents of Governing Documents directly.
Now that we understand the difference between an HOA resolution and amendment, we can explore types of HOA resolutions.
Types of HOA resolutions Boards facilitate
HOA resolutions typically fall into three categories.
Governing Documents
As noted earlier, HOA resolutions are implemented to bring clarification to documents that are open to interpretation and may be too vague. They may revolve around clarifying rules about amenities, community aesthetics, enforcing rules etc.
Procedures
Administering processes in an HOA community often requires a lot of steps. You can’t just go from step 1 to step 10. So, procedural resolutions are implemented to create a more detailed step-by-step process so it can provide consistency and fairness.
For example, in the case of community voting, it may be that the procedure suggests homeowners can cast their votes. However, a procedural resolution may be created to indicate that homeowners must cast their votes before a certain time, they can only have one vote, and votes sent in online through the HOA community website will be counted as a legitimate vote.
Special
In unique situations a new HOA resolution may be proposed as it relates to an individual case, or outlier situations that are not common. In this case, a special HOA resolution is created but it must still align with the HOA Governing Documents. It cannot be contrary to HOA Governing Documents.
These are usually the types of HOA resolutions a Board will need to create. It’s a good idea now to look at how a Board creates HOA resolutions.
Your steps to creating new HOA resolutions
To be clear, HOA resolutions are in fact legal documents. Therefore, there is a process that must be followed to ensure HOA resolutions can be accepted and adopted.
Let’s take a look at that process now.

To begin, the Board needs to identify that the HOA bylaws and CC&Rs gives the Board permission to create HOA resolutions.
Then, the HOA Board should make sure the newly drafted resolution does not conflict with any government laws (federal, state, local).
Research and buy-in from the community, when necessary, is also important when creating new HOA resolutions. The reason(s) for creating a new HOA resolution must be clearly laid out so the Board and members understand the details and the impact it will make.
Once the HOA resolution gets enough Board votes (and member votes if required) the Board president and secretary are required to sign it and to indicate the full date.
The only thing left to do then, is to implement the new HOA resolution.
Again, for transparency and easy access, you can file your HOA resolution documents online on your members-only portal of your HOA website.
Some of these steps may not always follow the same sequence, but this is a good framework of how you can start your HOA resolution and bring it to completion.
Creating HOA resolutions for better community management in 2025
HOA resolutions are legal documents that support your HOA Governing Documents by providing clarity, detail and parameters.
In the hierarchy of HOA documents resolutions, HOA resolutions are superseded by all other HOA Governing Documents, but they still play an important role when managing your HOA community as they are applied to those documents, procedures and unique situations.
HOA resolutions are also easier and quicker to implement than HOA amendments because amendments make changes to the actual Governing Documents which always require member votes and can take longer.
Remember to follow the process for creating a new HOA resolution for legal reasons and make sure they can be filed and accessed in an orderly and timely manner. The best way to do that is by filing them on your members-only HOA website, where members and the Board can easily refer to them.


