New Jersey Voids HOA Bans on the U.S. Flag, Yellow Ribbons and Troop-Support Signs

The right comes from P.L.2003, c.209, effective January 8, 2004, and is codified at N.J.S.A. 45:22A-48.1 inside the Planned Real Estate Development Full Disclosure Act chapter. Subsection a. is written as a flat prohibition on the association rather than a permission to the owner: an association "shall not adopt or enforce a rule or bylaw limiting or prohibiting the display," and any rule or bylaw adopted in violation "shall be null and void." That voiding language matters, because it means an owner in a New Jersey community does not have to persuade the board to repeal an existing flag rule. The rule is already unenforceable, and the owner can say so in the association's own dispute resolution process without waiting for an amendment vote.

The statute defines the covered association broadly. It reaches "a homeowners' association formed to manage the elements of property owned in common by all members of a community, whether it be an association managing a condominium, a private community, including retirement communities, or a cooperative housing development." Age-restricted New Jersey communities, which are common in Ocean, Monmouth and Burlington counties, are therefore inside the statute rather than outside it, and a co-op board in Hudson or Essex County is covered even though a co-op shareholder holds shares rather than a deeded unit.

The fee clause is easy to overlook and is the provision most often violated in practice. An association may not "charge a fee for any such display." A flag permit fee, a bracket deposit, or a per-flag architectural review charge aimed at flags is barred by the same sentence that bars the ban itself.

What the statute does not do is just as important for a New Jersey owner planning a display. Three items are protected: the flag of the United States, yellow ribbons, and signs supporting United States troops. The New Jersey flag, the Betsy Ross flag, the POW/MIA flag, individual military service branch flags, and first responder flags are not named, so an association rule restricting those flags is not void under this section. New Jersey also wrote no dimensional safe harbor into the section. There is no statutory pole height, no maximum flag size, no cap on the number of flags, and no distinction between a house-mounted bracket and a freestanding in-ground pole. Reasonable dimensional and placement rules therefore survive, so long as they do not operate as a limit on the display itself.

Subsection b. gives the board four grounds to direct removal: where the display "threatens public safety, restricts necessary maintenance activities, interferes with the property rights of another, or is conducted in a manner inconsistent with the rules and customs deemed the proper manner to display the flag, such as the federal flag Code, 4 U.S.C. 1 et seq., or any other applicable law or guideline." The fourth ground is the one boards invoke most, and it imports the federal etiquette rules on illumination after dark, a torn or soiled flag, and flag position relative to other flags. A New Jersey board may direct removal on those grounds; nothing in the section lets it fine the owner in advance or refuse permission at the outset.

Enforcement runs through the association first. A. A. A. 46:8B-14(k) for condominiums. That subsection requires a neutral, someone other than an officer, a governing board member, or a unit owner involved in the dispute, to hear the matter, and it is an alternative to litigation rather than a bar to it. A unit owner may notify the Commissioner of Community Affairs when an association fails to provide that procedure, and the commissioner has the express power to order the association to provide one. A. 46:8B-15(f) require written notice of the action taken and the alleged basis for it, and a unit owner who is unsatisfied with the outcome of dispute resolution is expressly not prevented from seeking a judicial remedy in a court of competent jurisdiction. is limited to directing removal of the display.