Restricting the use of Hurricane shutters

MarkR4 (Florida)
Posts: 1

Posted:

In Florida can a HOA restrict the use of hurricane shutters?
For example our community in our rules and regs section allows shutters to be deployed up to 7 days before an event and must be removed within 7 days after same.

DonnaS (Tennessee)
Posts: 5,671

Posted:

Mark,
Legally they can but many associations with seasonal people have had to deal with the problem of no one being available to install or remove with such tight guidelines. Some associations will require that any shutters left up will be restricted to be the same color as the house or trim which lessens the impact of seeing all of that steel colored sheet metal from the streets. They may NOT ban the use of the shutters tho.

BUT, having dealt with this myself in our association, some residents have a hard time getting them installed, especially on these tall 2 story homes so they want to leave them installed thruout the storm season. We contacted our Fire Dept. and they were very strong in their opinions about this being a dangerous practice. In the event of a fire, upstairs occupants have no way of getting out of the windows unless the shutters are the accordion type and open from the inside. The responders also have to have tools to remove them and it takes up valuable time so there are some big negativities to leaving them installed.