Sumner County, TN HOA Rules: Board Governance (2026)

Section 806 of the Sumner County Zoning Resolution requires that whenever common open space or common areas are required or proposed within a residential development, the developer establish a homeowners' or property owners' association to permanently maintain them. Section 806(A) requires the applicant to file a declaration of covenants and restrictions along with the association's articles of incorporation and bylaws with the Final Plat or Major Site Plan application, and those governing documents must provide that the association is established before any lots are sold, that membership is mandatory for every property owner and successive owner, and that the open-space restrictions are permanent rather than time-limited.

Section 806(C) requires the covenants to be recorded with the first final subdivision plat, and bars any set of covenants, articles or bylaws from abrogating the duties Section 806 imposes. Section 806(D) requires the association itself to be incorporated and to remain active permanently; if it dissolves for any reason, administrative or otherwise, maintenance responsibility for the common areas passes to the individual lot owners on a pro-rata basis, though the covenants may allow any lot owner to re-form the association and assess every lot equally to fund the needed maintenance.

Section 805(A)(1)(a) gives the County a limited review role: it examines the association's governing documents solely to confirm compliance with Chapter 8's open-space requirements, and accepting those documents does not amount to County endorsement of the association's other rules or restrictions unless the County specifically required them, such as a stormwater maintenance agreement.