New Jersey Bars HOA Solar Bans on Owner-Maintained Roofs, With a 10 Percent Cost Ceiling on Rules

The statute is P.L.2007, c.153, effective August 21, 2007. It is written as a ban on the association rather than as a permission to the owner, and it applies to any association formed for the management of commonly-owned elements and facilities "regardless of whether organized pursuant to section 1 of P.L.1993, c.30 (C.45:22A-43)," so an older New Jersey homeowners association that predates the 1993 organizational rules is still covered.

The protection is tied to who owns and maintains the roof, not to the type of community. Two roofs qualify. The first is the roof of a single-family dwelling unit solely owned by an individual or individuals and not designated as a common element or common property in the governing documents. The second is the roof of a townhouse dwelling unit, which the section defines for this purpose as a single-family unit built with attached walls to another such unit on at least one side, extending from the foundation to the roof, with at least two sides unattached to any other building, and whose roof repair the governing documents assign to the owner rather than the association. That second definition is the one that decides most New Jersey cases. In a typical Somerset or Middlesex County townhouse development where the association repairs and replaces the roofs, the roof does not qualify, and the association may still refuse solar outright. Where the master deed puts roof repair on the unit owner, it does qualify.

Subsection b. leaves the board five specific levers, and only five: the qualifications, certification and insurance requirements of the personnel or contractors doing the installation; the location where collectors may be placed on the roof; concealment of the collectors' supportive structures, fixtures and piping; color harmonization of the collectors with the structures or landscaping in the development; and the aggregate size, coverage or total number of collectors. A New Jersey board can therefore require a licensed and insured installer and can require that conduit and mounting rails be concealed. It cannot demand a ground-mounted array instead, and it cannot invent a sixth category of restriction.

Subsection c. is the enforcement teeth for the owner. Paragraph (1) voids any rule whose compliance cost is estimated to exceed 10 percent of the total cost of the initial installation, including the costs of labor and equipment. On a $22,000 residential array, that means the association's screening, color-matching and placement conditions cannot together add more than roughly $2,200. Paragraph (2) independently voids any rule if compliance inhibits the collectors from functioning at their intended maximum efficiency. A rear-roof-only placement rule on a north-facing rear slope fails paragraph (2) even if it costs nothing, because it cuts production rather than cost.

Subsection e. carves out associations still under developer control as provided in N.J.S.A. 45:22A-47. During that transition period, before the developer surrenders control to the owners, the solar protection does not apply, which matters in newly built New Jersey developments where the sponsor still appoints the executive board.

A. 45:22A-38. 00 per violation. The commissioner, through the agency, may levy and collect the penalty only after giving the person alleged to be in violation an opportunity to appear and be heard personally or through counsel, and after a finding of guilt. S. , and the agency may compromise a civil penalty where the gravity of the offense does not warrant the full fine. A. A. 46:8B-14(k), which must be staffed by someone other than an officer, a governing board member, or an owner involved in the dispute.