Missouri Rooftop Solar Covenants Are Void Under RSMo 442.404

Missouri handled solar covenants inside a single omnibus section rather than a standalone solar act. Section 442.404 began in 2018 (H.B. 1887) as a political-sign protection, gained the solar subsection through the 2022 session (H.B. 1662 merged with S.B. 745 merged with S.B. 820) with a delayed effective date of January 1, 2023, and was amended again by H.B. 2062 effective August 28, 2024 to add sale signs and backyard chickens. The version in force today is the August 28, 2024 text, and subsection 3 is the solar provision.

The operative sentence is a covenant-voiding one, not a permission. Subsection 3(1) says no deed restrictions, covenants or similar binding agreements running with the land shall limit or prohibit, or have the effect of limiting or prohibiting, the installation of solar panels or solar collectors on the rooftop of any property or structure. The phrase "or have the effect of" matters: an architectural-control clause that never mentions solar, but that in practice blocks every array a homeowner proposes, is caught by the same sentence as an outright ban.

What the association keeps is narrow. Subsection 3(2) lets it adopt reasonable rules about placement, subject to applicable statutes and ordinances, but draws four separate lines: the rule may not prevent the installation of the device, may not impair the functioning of the device, may not restrict the use of the device, and may not adversely affect the cost or efficiency of the device. A rule confining panels to a north-facing slope runs straight into the efficiency limit. A rule requiring a screen wall that shades the array runs into the functioning limit. A rule about conduit routing or matching flashing generally survives, because it touches appearance without touching output or price.

The definition in subsection 1(3) is technology-neutral within its bounds: a solar panel or solar collector is a device used to collect and convert solar energy into electricity or thermal energy, including but not limited to photovoltaic cells or panels, or solar thermal systems. Solar water heating is therefore covered alongside photovoltaics. What is not covered is anything off the roof. Subsection 3(3) limits the entire subsection to rooftops that are owned, controlled and maintained by the owner of the individual property or structure, so a ground-mounted array in a yard, a pole mount, a carport canopy over common ground, or panels on a building roof that the declaration makes a common element get no help from this statute.

The exclusion written into the definition of "homeowners' association" in subsection 1(1) is the other major gap. That definition covers a nonprofit corporation or unincorporated association of homeowners created under a declaration to own and operate portions of a planned community or other residential subdivision with power to assess members, but it expressly does not include a condominium unit owners' association as defined in subdivision (3) of section 448.1-103, and does not include a residential cooperative. Missouri condominium owners are governed by the Uniform Condominium Act in chapter 448, which contains no solar provision at all.

On whether the statute reaches covenants recorded before it existed, Missouri's answer sits on the face of the revisor's own annotation to the section. The Supreme Court of Missouri held in Eikmeier v. Granite Springs Home Owners Association, Inc., 727 S.W.3d 432 (Mo. banc), that the prohibition on covenants, deed restrictions or similar binding agreements running with the land that limit or prohibit the installation of solar panels encompasses covenants existing prior to the effective date of the statute. An owner in a 1990s St. Louis County subdivision whose indenture bans roof-mounted equipment stands in the same position as an owner in a subdivision platted last year.

A separate and much older Missouri provision, section 442.012, backs this up on the private-agreement side. It declares that the right to utilize solar energy is a property right, bars the use of eminent domain to obtain that right, and sets the rules for solar access easements: they must be created in writing, are subject to the same conveyancing and recording requirements as other easements, must state the vertical and horizontal angles in degrees over which the easement extends, and must state the terms or conditions of grant or termination. Easements for solar light are negative easements that cannot be acquired by prescription and must be negotiated expressly. A Missouri owner therefore cannot pick up a shading right merely by having enjoyed open sky for years: section 442.404 protects the panels, and only a recorded easement under section 442.012 protects the sunlight reaching them.

Section 442.404 creates no permit, registration or complaint desk, and names no state agency. Nothing in it is administered by the Missouri Department of Natural Resources or the Public Service Commission. It works by rendering the offending covenant unenforceable, so it is raised in court: typically as a defense when an association sues to compel removal of an array or to collect on a violation, or affirmatively by the owner as a suit for a declaratory judgment that the restriction is void as applied to a rooftop installation, together with an injunction against enforcement. Eikmeier v. Granite Springs Home Owners Association reached the Supreme Court of Missouri in exactly that posture.

Note the asymmetry inside the section. Subsections 2(3) and 4(3) give homeowners a procedural shield for signs, barring an association from removing a political sign or a sale sign, or imposing any fine or penalty, until it has given the owner three days (three business days in the sale-sign version) after written notice that specifically identifies the rule and the nature of the violation. Subsection 3 contains no equivalent notice step for solar, because it does not treat a rooftop solar installation as a violation in the first place: the restriction such an installation would breach is void. An association that fines anyway is enforcing a restriction the statute has stripped of effect, and the owner's response is to challenge the underlying covenant rather than the notice.

The section also awards no attorney fees and sets no approval deadline. An association that simply sits on an architectural-review application is not breaking a statutory clock, because Missouri wrote none. The homeowner's leverage is substantive rather than procedural: the prohibition is unenforceable, so silence buys the association delay but not a defense.