The Private Layer: HOAs, Condo Boards, Leases and Mortgages
The city can say yes four times and a one-page HOA rule can still say no. Here is how the private layer works — and why we print it as a warning, never a verdict.
Short-term rental legality has two sovereigns. The public one — city hall — publishes ordinances we track cell by cell. The private one — your HOA, condo association, landlord, or lender — publishes documents that live in your closing folder. The private layer bans more rentals than all the city bans combined, and it enforces faster.
HOAs and condo associations
Association declarations commonly ban rentals under 30 days outright, cap the share of units that may rent at all, or require board approval per tenancy. Courts in most states enforce these as contracts you accepted at purchase. Two facts hosts miss: associations can often amend rules after you buy (supermajority votes have ended thousands of legal-at-purchase rentals), and in condo towers the board's short-term ban applies even in cities — Miami Beach, Chicago, Jersey City — whose public law is comparatively open. Chicago and New York maintain "prohibited buildings" lists precisely because buildings asked to be on them.
Leases
For renters the lease layer is senior to everything: see our renter's guide for the full picture. Los Angeles, Denver and New York fold landlord consent into the public process itself.
Mortgages and insurance
Owner-occupancy clauses in mortgages and HELOCs can treat intensive STR use as a default event; insurers can deny claims for undisclosed commercial use of a residence. Neither appears in a city ordinance, and neither cares that you hold a city permit.
Why our verdicts print this layer as a warning
A private document binds one property. We cannot read yours, and any site that converts "the city allows it" into "you are clear" without asking about your building is skipping the layer that decides real cases. So the checker asks what it can (renter? condo? multi-unit building?) and prints the private layer as a labeled warning beside the city's verdict — never merged into it. Clear it in writing: an HOA approval letter, landlord consent, or a board rulebook page is the artifact that closes the question.
Run the free checker for the public layer of your address — then close the private layer with the documents only you hold.