Michigan Protects One 3 by 5 Foot US Flag on a Condo Unit

The provision is MCL 559.156a of the Condominium Act, added by 1991 PA 183 and immediately effective on December 27, 1991. It says a developer or association of co-owners shall not prohibit a co-owner from displaying a single United States flag of a size not greater than 3 feet by 5 feet anywhere on the exterior of the co-owner's condominium unit, and adds that a developer or association shall not enforce a prohibition in existence before that effective date. That second sentence matters in older projects: a no-flags clause recorded in a 1985 master deed is not merely superseded going forward, it cannot be enforced.

Read the three limits in the first sentence carefully, because each one is a boundary an association can still police. The flag must be a United States flag; nothing in Michigan law reaches the Michigan state flag, a branch-of-service flag, a POW/MIA flag, a police or fire service flag, a historic American flag such as a Betsy Ross or Gadsden design, or a decorative seasonal banner. The number is one; a co-owner flying two flags is outside the section as to the second. And the size ceiling is 3 feet by 5 feet, which is the common household flag size, so a larger flag has no statutory protection.

The fourth limit is locational and is the one that surprises people. The statute protects display "anywhere on the exterior of the co-owner's condominium unit," and MCL 559.104 defines a condominium unit as that portion of the condominium project designed and intended for separate ownership and use, as described in the master deed. In a typical Michigan attached condominium the exterior walls, the roof, the lawn and often the porch are general or limited common elements rather than part of the unit, so the protected area can be small. In a site condominium, where the master deed usually draws the unit boundaries around the building envelope or the lot, the protected exterior is correspondingly larger. The master deed's unit description, not the association's preference, sets that line.

Michigan also gives no right to install a flagpole. The section speaks only of displaying a flag, and it fixes no pole height, no setback, no bracket standard and no illumination rule. An association's architectural provisions on a freestanding pole, a ground anchor or a lighting fixture are untouched by MCL 559.156a, and a co-owner who wants a pole in a yard that is a common element is asking for a common-element alteration under the condominium documents rather than exercising a statutory right.

Two further gaps are worth naming. The Homeowners' Energy Policy Act, 2024 PA 68, which voids association bans on clotheslines, heat pumps, rain barrels and solar systems, does not list flags among the energy-saving improvements it protects, so it adds nothing here. And because Michigan has never enacted a general homeowners-association act, MCL 559.156a does not reach a platted subdivision association at all. A subdivision covenant banning flags is governed by the recorded declaration and general contract law.

An association also cannot amend its way around the section. MCL 559.190(2) permits amendment of the master deed and bylaws by two-thirds of the votes of co-owners and mortgagees, but an amendment reinstating a flag prohibition would conflict with MCL 559.156a, which by its terms forbids both new prohibitions and enforcement of old ones.

156a. The section operates as a limit on the association's authority, so its practical effect is that a violation notice or fine issued for a conforming single United States flag rests on a provision the statute forbids the association to enforce. A co-owner who is fined can therefore raise the section as a defense to the charge and to any lien or collection action built on it. 154(9) preserves the right of a co-owner or the association to petition a court of competent jurisdiction to resolve a dispute, claim or grievance where the parties have not elected arbitration.

154(10) then bars either party from taking that dispute to court. Because the statutory protection is bounded, the first question in any dispute is factual: is it a single United States flag, is it 3 feet by 5 feet or smaller, and is the mounting point on the unit rather than on a common element.