As the holidays quickly approach, the debate over holiday decorations carries on. Holiday decorations come earlier and are more lavish every year. While studies have shown that early holiday decorating makes people happier, what is considered “too soon” or “too much” in a residential neighborhood can vary widely based on the countries, cultures, beliefs, and even the personal tastes of individual homeowners. Maintaining a festive spirit in the community while dealing with complaints from people about their neighbors’ decorations can make an association feel like a losing battle. However, an association may lessen some of the burden of the already frantic holiday season with little planning for next year.
Adopting specific decorating standards and guidelines is the best method for an association to stop Christmas decorations and related resident complaints from getting out of hand. These can specify how many days before holiday decorations can be installed. How many days after holiday decorations must be taken down, what hours lighting displays can be lit up, what hours displays with sound can run, how many shows are allowed, how big they can be, and where they can be placed. Depending on the community, the Board may want to survey the neighborhood’s residents to determine the limits they prefer before drafting and implementing such bylaws.
Before establishing rules or guidelines for Christmas decorating, an association may want to consider permitting religious displays. However, because the Fair Housing Act covers condominium and Homeowners associations, they cannot engage in discriminatory housing practices based on particular categories, such as religion, association rules that forbid all religious holiday displays or even just some of them because it is discriminatory or negatively affects residents based on their religion, can definitely be challenged in court. Therefore, it is preferable to create regulations concentrating on broader issues, such as the size, location, and some types of displays, as opposed to limiting the specific content of the exhibits themselves.
An association must clarify that it has the legal right to implement rules and regulations prohibiting decorations before doing so. It must also decide if owner consent is also necessary. The association will also wish to enact these regulations well before the holidays to give property owners plenty of time to prepare for the new limitations. Suppose an association decides that holiday decoration rules or guidelines are appropriate for its neighborhood. In that case, it is also advised to speak with an attorney about the specific language of the regulations, how they should be adopted, and whether recording the rules under chapter 720 of the Florida Statutes will be necessary.