Do HOA CC&Rs expire or need to be renewed?
Reviewed by the OurHOA team · Updated July 2026
Covenants can lapse two different ways: a term written into the declaration, and a state marketable title deadline most boards never hear about.
Two clocks, and boards usually watch neither
Most owners assume a recorded declaration is permanent, and most of the time it behaves that way. But there are two separate ways covenants can quietly stop being enforceable. The first is a term written into the declaration itself, which older subdivisions frequently have. The second is a state marketable title statute that wipes out old recorded interests on a fixed schedule regardless of what your documents say. They run independently, so a community can be perfectly fine on one and out of time on the other.
The term clause in your own declaration
Open your declaration and look for a paragraph near the end, usually titled duration or term. Subdivisions platted in the fifties through the eighties very often say something close to this: the covenants run with the land for a term of twenty years from the date of recording, after which they are automatically extended for successive periods of ten years unless an instrument signed by the owners of two thirds of the lots is recorded agreeing to change or terminate them. That automatic extension language is the good version, and it is why most communities never notice the clause. The dangerous version is a flat expiration date with no renewal at all, which shows up in a small but real share of older documents. Say your neighborhood was recorded in 1978 with a forty year term and no extension language. In 2018 the restrictions simply stopped, and unless somebody was paying attention, nobody found out until an owner parked a boat in the driveway and the board discovered it had nothing to enforce.
Marketable title acts, the risk almost nobody sees coming
Roughly half the states have a marketable record title act, passed to clean up ancient claims clouding property titles. The unintended effect is that recorded covenants can be extinguished on the same schedule. Florida's is the best known: Chapter 712 of the Florida Statutes, on the books since 1963, extinguishes interests more than thirty years removed from the root of title, and Florida courts have applied it to HOA declarations even when the declaration says it lasts forever. North Carolina also runs thirty years. Michigan and Ohio run forty. Indiana is on the long end at fifty. The details differ enough that this is genuinely a question for a local community association attorney rather than something to reason out from a blog post, but the shape is the same everywhere: a deadline nobody sends you a reminder about.
What actually breaks when covenants lapse
Two things, and the second is the one that empties the bank account. Use restrictions become unenforceable, so the architectural rules, the rental limits, the parking provisions, and the pet rules lose their teeth. More seriously, the declaration is also what obligates each lot to pay assessments and what gives the association lien rights when someone does not. If the declaration is extinguished, the collection machinery goes with it. An association in that position is still a corporation with landscaping contracts and an insurance premium due, but its legal basis for billing owners has evaporated. Communities have discovered this in the middle of a collections lawsuit, which is the worst possible time.
Preserving is cheap, which is the whole point
If you catch it before the deadline, the fix is close to trivial. In most states with these statutes, preservation means recording a written notice in the county land records before the period runs, approved by the board, referencing the declaration by its recording information. Florida gives HOAs a simplified route under section 720.3032, and a recorded amendment properly indexed under the association's name can also do the job. The whole exercise is a board vote, an attorney reviewing the notice, and a recording fee. The practical failure is not cost, it is memory: the deadline sits thirty years out, and the board that recorded the declaration is long gone by the time it matters. Put the recording date of your declaration and the resulting deadline in the same annual calendar that holds the insurance renewal and the reserve study update, and this stops being a threat.
If they already lapsed, revitalization exists
Several states provide a statutory path to bring extinguished covenants back, effectively reinstating them as if there had been no gap. Florida's is the most developed, and it is a real project: the board appoints an organizing committee, the proposed revived declaration goes out to owners, written consent from a majority of affected parcel owners has to be gathered, and a state agency reviews and approves the package before it gets recorded. Expect months and legal fees rather than a form and a stamp. Not every state has such a procedure, and where none exists the alternative is persuading owners to sign a brand new declaration one by one, which in a neighborhood of any size rarely gets to the finish line. Either way, the work starts with knowing when your declaration was recorded and what your documents say about duration, so keeping the recorded governing documents and their key dates somewhere the next board can actually find them, which is the kind of institutional memory OurHOA is meant to hold, is most of the defense.
OurHOA is the friendly, affordable way self-managed communities keep dues, records, and reminders in one place. See how it works.
These guides are general education for HOA boards and residents, not legal, tax, or financial advice. Rules vary by state and by your community's governing documents - check with a professional for your situation.