Harnett County, NC HOA Rules: CC&R Enforcement (2026)

S. Chapter 160D, but it does not attempt to displace, weaken, or replace whatever a subdivision's declaration of covenants, conditions, and restrictions separately requires. A lot inside an HOA in the unincorporated county is therefore governed by two independent sets of rules that can be stricter or looser than each other in different respects: the county's zoning setbacks, use restrictions, and permit requirements enforced by the Planning Department, and the HOA's own architectural review, assessments, and use restrictions enforced by the association's board under its recorded declaration and North Carolina's Planned Community Act.

007 addresses a different situation, conflicts between the county's own regulations and another local, state, or federal regulation, and resolves those by applying whichever provision is more restrictive; it does not fold private HOA covenants into that more-restrictive test, because covenants are agreements between private parties, not government regulations. A homeowner who wants a CC&R violation addressed, an unapproved fence color, an unmowed common area, an unauthorized addition, must go through the HOA's own enforcement process and, if needed, civil court; the county will not issue a Planning Department notice of violation for a covenant breach that doesn't independently violate the zoning code itself.