Can an HOA enforce # of people per bedroom rule?

I'm starting this thread based off of an earlier thread because I believe the discussion on this question may take that thread way off the original posters question.

In that thread, a poster stated: "We have a 2 person per bedroom rule which is in keeping with all State laws and Federal fair housing standards."

I offer the following scenario for discussion purposes:

2 bedroom unit owned and occupied by husband, wife and two children.
A third child is born. Due to the birth, the family is now in violation of the 2 person per bedroom rule.

My question would be, is this truly an enforceable rule?

Tim, I'll play...

Legally, yes, it could be enforceable. It is basically a contract law.
In practice, I would guess most judges would not process the suit, citing that the contract language was either vague (in effect, not wording) or just unenforceable.

Now, let me posit this:

Had the recent law been passed in Mississippi making a cell into a human being at the moment of conception, could your selfsame homeowner been tossed out as soon as his wife became pregnant? And then been allowed back in, should she miscarry?

Common sense suggests a family of five sharing a two-bedroom home is not unusual. It's quite "Middle Class," actually. It's a vague rule that you'd have trouble enforcing. Also, such a rule obviously targets "roommates" and not families. Yes, it's worth keeping the rule even if it requires, down the road, the seeking of legal clarification.

An HOA board that would seriously discuss kicking out a family for having a third child needs a director purging.

My thing is that the HOA doesn't have requirement of enforcing such a limitation in the first place. Technically speaking a "Homeowner's Association" does NOT own actual homes. It's like they own the "Intellectual property" of those homes. Remember a HOA is a group of homeowners who have grouped together in order to enforce rules to maintained property value levels amongst each other. Limiting the number of tenants in homes seems outside their scope of authority. That would limit the number of owner's who could own homes and be members of the HOA. Kind of counter-intuitive.

Basically, like someone else stated, the law is more of an issue of not allowing "Frat house" type of scenerios of occurring. This means owner's can't rent their rooms out individually to separate tenants. A family doesn't fall into this type of catagory. They are one unit like marriage is.

My question would be what would happen if the Brady Bunch had moved into an HOA with this rule? Carol had 3 girls and Mike had 3 boys all of their own...I only saw 3 bedrooms in that house...How would the HOA go about removing them? Kill their dog Tiger? LOL...

>My thing is that the HOA doesn't have requirement of enforcing such a limitation in the first place. Technically speaking a "Homeowner's Association" does NOT own actual homes. It's like they own the "Intellectual property" of those homes. Remember a HOA is a group of homeowners who have grouped together in order to enforce rules to maintained property value levels amongst each other. Limiting the number of tenants in homes seems outside their scope of authority. That would limit the number of owner's who could own homes and be members of the HOA. Kind of counter-intuitive.

Most of this makes no sense at all.

> My thing is that the HOA doesn't have requirement of enforcing such a limitation in the first place.

My understanding is the most CC&Rs state that the association must enforce the rules.

> Technically speaking a "Homeowner's Association" does NOT own actual homes.

not relevant to this issue.

> It's like they own the "Intellectual property" of those homes.

I have no idea what intellectual property could mean in this context.

> Remember a HOA is a group of homeowners who have grouped together in order to enforce rules to maintained property value levels amongst each other.

Correct. although perhaps maintaining agreeable living conditions is another reason.

> Limiting the number of tenants in homes seems outside their scope of authority.

That would be the case only if federal rules, etc. forbid this. It is not clear to me if that is the case or not.

> That would limit the number of owner's who could own homes and be members of the HOA.

Of course. But ANY rule limits the number of potential owners. Rules about house color excludes those who love pink. Rules against raising chickens excludes those like really fresh meat. Rules make sense when on balance they make the association attractive to those with similar preferences.