Clay County, MO Solar Energy: HOA Restrictions (2026)

3, part of the same 2018 bill that Missouri lawmakers expanded in 2022 and 2024 to cover political signs, sale signs and backyard chickens alongside solar. Subsection 3(1) makes any deed restriction, covenant, or similar binding agreement that limits or prohibits rooftop solar panels or solar collectors void and unenforceable, whether the covenant predates the statute or not. Subsection 3(3) narrows the protection to rooftops the individual property owner owns, controls and maintains, so ground-mounted arrays, shared roofs and common-area installations fall outside the shield and remain subject to whatever the association's declaration says.

An HOA is not stripped of all authority: subsection 3(2) lets the board adopt reasonable rules on where a panel or collector sits, provided those rules do not prevent installation, impair the device's function, restrict its use, or push up the cost or reduce the efficiency of the system. A rule that forces a panel onto a shaded, north-facing slope to preserve a uniform roofline, for example, would fail that test. The statute's own definition in subsection 1(3) covers photovoltaic cells or panels and solar thermal systems alike.

The Missouri Supreme Court confirmed in Eikmeier v. Granite Springs Home Owners Association, Inc. (2026) that the ban on restrictive covenants reaches agreements signed before the law took effect, so a subdivision's original declaration cannot be enforced to block a homeowner's rooftop system today.