How do we hire a contractor to put up holiday lights at the HOA entrance?

By OurHOA · General information · Revised September 26, 2026

How an HOA board hires a holiday lighting contractor for the entrance: lease or buy, power checks, scope and dates, insurance, the budget line and a timeline.

Part of the HOA board handbook: vendors, projects and upkeep.

The short answer

Decide by the end of September whether the association will lease a display or own one, have an electrician look at the power at the entrance, and get two or three written quotes on the same scope with fixed install and takedown dates. Ask for the contractor's certificate of insurance before anyone climbs a ladder on association property, put the cost in the operating budget as its own line, and approve the contract at an open board meeting. Good installers book their season by mid-October, so a board that starts in November usually ends up with whoever is left or a crew of volunteers on ladders. Your declaration, bylaws and state law decide how the board spends and contracts, so treat this as general education, not legal advice.

Lease or buy before you call anyone

Most holiday lighting companies sell a lease. They supply the lights, clips and timers, install, service outages through the season, take everything down, and store it until next year. You pay one price each year and own nothing. The other model is to buy the lights and pay a contractor only for labor, with the association storing the materials. Leasing costs more over five years but removes three chores: buying replacement strings, finding a dry place to store bins, and testing everything in October. It suits most small associations, which have no clubhouse closet to spare and no volunteer who wants the job. Buying makes sense when the association already owns good commercial-grade LED strings and has storage, or when the display is small enough that a handyman can put it up in an afternoon. Whichever you choose, ask quoting contractors to price it both ways. Then compare the five-year totals, not the first-year number.

Walk the entrance with an electrician

Holiday lights fail at an entrance because of power, not bulbs. Before you ask for quotes, have a licensed electrician walk the monument, the trees and the median with a board member and answer these questions in writing: 1. Where does the power at the entrance come from, and whose meter pays for it? Some monuments share a circuit with irrigation controllers or sign lighting, and a few are fed from a homeowner's meter under an old arrangement. 2. Are the outdoor receptacles GFCI protected and in weatherproof covers? The Consumer Product Safety Commission says to plug outdoor lights only into GFCI-protected receptacles. 3. How much load can each circuit carry? A 15-amp circuit at 120 volts works out to 1,800 watts before any safety margin, and holiday lights stay on for hours at a stretch. LED strings draw a small fraction of what old incandescent strings do, which is the main reason to insist on LED. 4. Is there a working timer or photocell, or does one need to go in? If the answer is a new circuit or receptacle, have the electrician quote and pull any permit the city requires. Do that as its own small job in September, not as a surprise during install week.

What the scope and quote should say

Write one scope and send it to every contractor, so the quotes line up. Attach photos of the entrance with the areas to light marked. The scope should list: - What gets lit: the monument sign, named trees with trunk and canopy wrap, shrubs, the gate or fence line, and any wreaths. - The light type: LED, commercial grade, certified for outdoor use, with the color called out (warm white, multicolor). - The attachment method: clips or zip ties only, no nails, screws or staples into masonry, the sign face or trees. The contractor removes every clip at takedown. - Dates: install finished and lights on by a fixed date, such as the Friday before Thanksgiving, and takedown finished by a fixed date, such as January 15. - The on and off schedule, set by timer or photocell. - Service: outages fixed within 48 hours of a call or email, at no extra charge during the season. - Damage: the contractor repairs landscaping, irrigation heads or paint it damages. - Storage and ownership: who stores the materials and who owns them. - Price: a fixed price for the season, and for a lease, the price for years two and three. Ask each contractor for references from two other associations or commercial properties they served last season, and call one.

Insurance and ladder work

This is ladder and lift work on association property, and falls are the main injury risk in holiday decorating. In its 2018 holiday release, the Consumer Product Safety Commission counted about 14,700 emergency room injuries from holiday decorating in the prior November and December. Falls were the most common incident, at 41 percent, and three deaths involved ladder falls. OSHA's ladder rule for construction work, 29 CFR 1926.1053, requires portable ladders used to reach an upper landing to extend at least 3 feet above it, among other requirements, and it applies to the contractor's crew. Before install day, collect a certificate of insurance showing general liability and workers' compensation, and ask to be named as an additional insured on the liability policy. Our guide on how to check a vendor certificate of insurance walks through what to look for on the form. A crew of one owner and a neighbor with a borrowed ladder has none of this coverage. If the board still wants volunteers to decorate, call the association's insurance agent first and ask what the policy covers for volunteers doing this work.

The budget line, the bids and the vote

Give holiday lighting its own line in the operating budget instead of burying it in landscaping or miscellaneous. Owners notice the display, and a separate line lets them see what it costs. Most entrance lighting contracts fall well under the statutory bid thresholds. Florida section 720.3055 requires competitive bids only when a contract will cost more than 10 percent of the total annual budget, including reserves. Texas Property Code section 209.0052(c) requires a bid process only for service contracts over $50,000. Get two or three quotes anyway. If a director or a director's relative owns a lighting or landscaping company that wants the job, Texas section 209.0052(b) requires at least two other bids, the director sitting out, and a certifying resolution from the other directors. A motion the board can copy: "Motion to approve the proposal from [company] dated [date] to lease, install, maintain and remove holiday lighting at the community entrance for the 2026 season for a fixed price of $[amount], with installation complete by [date] and removal complete by [date], to be paid from the holiday lighting line of the operating budget, and to authorize the president to sign the agreement on receipt of a certificate of insurance naming the association as additional insured."

Ask owners what they want the entrance to look like

The entrance belongs to everyone, and a display can start an argument. Ask before you sign a three-year lease, not after the lights go up. One survey question is enough: "The board is planning holiday lighting at the entrance for November through mid-January. Which do you prefer? (a) White lights on the trees and monument, (b) multicolor lights on the trees and monument, (c) no holiday lighting, to save about $[amount] a year." Many boards keep common-area displays to lights and greenery and leave religious symbols to owners' own homes. That choice avoids a fight over whose holiday the association is celebrating. Owners' decorations on their own lots are a separate question governed by the declaration and state law. Our guide on whether an HOA can restrict exterior holiday inflatables covers that side.

A sample timeline and the mistakes to avoid

- August: add the line to next year's budget draft, and send the owner survey if the board is changing the display. - Early September: electrician walk and any circuit work. - Mid-September: send the scope to three contractors. - Early October: board vote, signed agreement, certificate of insurance on file. - Mid-November: install. A board member walks the entrance after dark on the first night and sends the contractor a punch list. - Late November through early January: outages reported and fixed within 48 hours. - By January 15: takedown. A board member checks that every clip is gone and nothing is damaged before the final payment goes out. The mistakes that come up every year: waiting until November to book; paying the full season up front instead of half at signing and half after takedown; skipping the electrician and tripping the irrigation controller's breaker every night; letting a crew nail or staple into the monument; and signing a multi-year lease without checking that the budget and the owners support it.

Sources

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.

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