Overview

Putting up holiday decorations is a tradition that families across America look forward to every year, whether they’re carving pumpkins for Halloween, stringing lights for Christmas, lighting a menorah for Hanukkah, hanging shamrocks in March, or putting up red, white, and blue bunting in July. It’s for good reason that the Davis-Stirling Act treats the holiday decorations families put up and the religious items they display as two separate categories, as they carry substantially different rights. Religious items displayed on entry doors and entry door frames enjoy explicit statutory protection, while mere holiday decorations like light strands, carved pumpkins, and inflatable displays get no dedicated statutory protection of their own. HOAs are limited to narrow options regarding the former, while the latter are left to HOAs’ operating rules, subject to the reasonableness requirement governing such rules.

It seems that when it comes to holiday decorations (both religious and secular), most disputes between HOAs and homeowners relate to timing. While I’ve never seen an HOA attempt to ban all holiday decorations (something that would be completely unreasonable and thus certainly unenforceable), most HOAs in California set some restrictions, including those dictating when homeowners may put up holiday-specific decorations and when they must take them down. HOAs can enforce those limits against secular seasonal displays like “Happy Halloween” signs, skeletons, garlands, and wreaths, but not against religious items placed on entry doors or door frames, such as mezuzahs, crucifixes, or Stars of David. Religious iconography that also happens to be closely associated with specific holidays, like nativity scenes, doves, or angels, represents a unique challenge precisely because it straddles the line between the two.

This Fact Sheet explains which holiday and religious displays California law protects, how far HOAs can go in dictating when decorations go up and come down, what size and safety limits apply to religious items on doors, what happens when HOAs try to second-guess a homeowner’s religious reason for a display, and what HOAs can and cannot do when it comes to outside trick-or-treaters and celebrants.

Key Points

The Davis-Stirling Act gives religious items on entry doors and entry door frames a level of protection that no other holiday displays receive. Civil Code 4706 and Civil Code 1940.45 work together to strip HOAs of the power to ban those items, and they leave HOAs with a short, closed list of restrictions that they can impose on homeowners. Everything else that homeowners hang, string, inflate, or set out for a holiday is typically addressed in the operating rules or architectural guidelines, both of which have to satisfy the reasonableness requirement contained in Civil Code 4350. The points below explain where each category falls, how timing restrictions operate against each one, what happens with decorations that carry religious meaning for some homeowners and none for others, and what HOAs can do about visitors who come into the community to celebrate.

• Civil Code 4706 prohibits HOA governing documents from limiting or banning religious items on entry doors and entry door frames. That applies to every governing document an HOA has, including the CC&Rs, the bylaws, the operating rules, and the architectural guidelines. In other words, HOAs can’t ban a mezuzah, a crucifix, or a Star of David mounted on a front door or its frame, and they can’t pass a rule that limits one. Civil Code 1940.45 backs that up, because it bars HOAs from adopting or enforcing restrictive covenants and other restrictions that prohibit religious items on entry doors and door frames, and it defines a religious item as one that a person displays because of sincerely held religious beliefs. [Civil Code 4706 contains a blatant drafting mistake by the Legislature that they still haven’t bothered cleaning up even after five years. That short statute cross-references Civil Code 1940.5, which governs waterbeds in rental units. The Legislature meant to cross-reference to Civil Code 1940.45 instead.]
  • Protection depends on the homeowner’s religious purpose, not on the object itself. Two neighbors can hang the same nativity scene on their front doors, and the one who displays it because of sincerely held religious beliefs gets the protection of Civil Code 4706 and Civil Code 1940.45, while the neighbor who puts it up as seasonal Christmas décor doesn’t. HOAs don’t get to write a list of approved symbols and protect only what appears on it. Neither statute lets HOAs impose seasonal timing limitations on a protected religious display, so homeowners have the right to keep those items up all year. Because neither statute gives HOAs any power to administer a religious test, and neither one sets up a procedure for questioning what a homeowner believes, a fight over whether a display qualifies most often comes down to the specific facts of that homeowner’s practice. That question rarely arises with items that carry all or mostly secular meaning like wreaths, “Happy Halloween” signs, garlands, or strings of lights around door frames, which HOAs can regulate in the same way they regulate normal rules.
• Civil Code 1940.45 gives HOAs five specific grounds for restricting a religious item on an entry door or door frame. HOAs can restrict religious displays that: (i) threaten public health or safety; (ii) hinder the opening or closing of an entry door; (iii) violate a federal, state, or local law; (iv) contain graphics, language, or any display that’s obscene or otherwise illegal; or (v) exceed the statute’s explicit size limits. Aesthetics, community uniformity, and architectural harmony don’t appear on that list. Consequently, HOAs have no power to object to mezuzahs or crucifixes attached to someone’s front door because they might genuinely clash with the paint color or break up the look of the building. [Keep in mind that Civil Code 4706 and Civil Code 1940.45 protect religious displays on entry doors and entry door frames, and nothing else. HOAs can, therefore, regulate or prohibit a cross mounted on a garage door, a religious statue in the front yard, or an illuminated star fixed to a rooftop, subject to the same reasonableness requirement that governs every other operating rule.]
  • The size limit applies to everything homeowners display on their entry doors and frames combined, not to each item separately. Civil Code 1940.45 permits HOAs to restrict religious items hung on entry door frames and entry doors whose total size runs greater than 36 inches by 12 inches. Thus, for example, homeowners with mezuzahs on their frames and Stars of David hung on their doors must add the dimensions of both together when measuring against the limit. [You’ll recall that I commented above about the drafting error contained in Civil Code 4706. As it turns out, Civil Code 1940.45 also contains a drafting error. It states the limit as “36 by 12 square inches.” That might sound straightforward, but it actually produces an impossibility. Square inches measure area. But you can’t multiply one area by another to produce dimensions. Read literally, the limit can’t be applied at all, which is why the sensible reading (i.e., my reading) treats the statute as actually meaning 36 inches by 12 inches. On a related note, the last phrase contained in sub-section (b)(5) (“…provided it does not exceed the size of the door”) is meaningless because every entry door a person walks through runs larger than 36 inches by 12 inches.]
• HOAs can require temporary removal of religious door displays, but only while they’re working on the door or door frame. Civil Code 4706 permits HOAs to make homeowners take down religious items during maintenance, repair, or replacement of entry doors and door frames serving their separate interests. The statute pairs that power with two obligations: (i) HOAs must deliver individual notice about the temporary removal; and (ii) they must let homeowners put the item(s) back up once the work ends.
• HOAs can enforce reasonable timing limits on secular holiday decorations. Light strands, inflatable Santas, carved pumpkins, skeletons, garlands, and wreaths enjoy no statutory protection of their own, so the CC&Rs and the operating rules govern them. Most HOAs in California set a date after which homeowners can begin displaying seasonal decorations, along with a deadline for taking them down. Such rules will typically be enforceable if the timelines in place are reasonable, as required by Civil Code 4350. For example, if an HOA were to pass a rule preventing homeowners from displaying holiday decorations until just a day or two prior to a holiday, and then require removal within a day or two after a holiday, it would absolutely fail the reasonableness test. Compare that with a rule that permits homeowners to install Christmas decorations any time after Thanksgiving, and remove them by the third week of January, which is objectively a realistic and reasonable timeline. [To learn more about what makes an HOA rule enforceable in the first place, read my Fact Sheet, “HOA Rules in California: Legal Authority and Rulemaking Limits.”]
• HOAs can regulate where homeowners place secular holiday decorations. How far that regulation goes depends on whether the decorations sit at the homeowner’s own home or out in the common area. Homeowners decorate their separate interests and their exclusive use common areas under the same standard, so front doors, private yards, patios, balconies, and assigned entryway landings all get the same treatment. HOAs can impose reasonable limits in those spaces through the CC&Rs and the operating rules, and nothing more. The common area works differently, because homeowners have no right to install anything there at all. A nativity scene on the lawn beside the clubhouse, lights strung through a common area tree, or an inflatable Santa at the entrance to the community all require HOA permission, and HOAs can refuse. [To learn more about who controls the common area and what happens when someone treats it as their own, read my Fact Sheet, “Can My Neighbor Take Over California HOA Common Area?”]
• HOAs can enforce safety restrictions on holiday decorations, including displays protected by Civil Code 4706 and Civil Code 1940.45. Civil Code 1940.45 lets HOAs restrict religious displays on entry doors and door frames that threaten public health or safety or that hinder the opening or closing of an entry door, which covers items blocking a fire door or obstructing an exit path. Secular decorations face the same treatment for entirely different reasons. HOAs are well within their rights to ensure the health and safety of all of the residents, and thus HOAs can prohibit extension cords running across walkways, decorations mounted on fire equipment, and anything blocking access to a hydrant, a standpipe, or an emergency exit. Such rules must, however, be reasonable. Aesthetic objections dressed up in safety language won’t hold up, and neither will rules banning an entire category of decorations because one configuration of it could theoretically cause a problem.
• HOAs can’t stop homeowners from inviting trick-or-treaters and other holiday guests into the community. The right to receive guests attaches to the possession of the homes themselves under common law principles of quiet enjoyment, so HOAs play no role in granting those rights, and they have no right to deny those rights. HOAs can regulate the conduct that comes with guests, meaning where they park, what hours they use the pool, and how they behave in the common areas. Gated communities can also control who comes through the gate uninvited, so HOAs can turn away carloads of trick-or-treaters arriving from outside the community, but they can’t refuse entry to children a resident family invited. Non-gated communities have even less room because HOAs can’t police who walks down a public street.
• Homeowners who receive violation notices over holiday decorations should respond in writing and force their HOAs to identify the specific provision they’re enforcing. Send an email to the HOA board and management asking which section of the CC&Rs, the bylaws, or the operating rules prohibits the display, and ask for the date the HOA adopted the rule. Ask whether the HOA sent violation notices to the other homes in the community displaying comparable decorations. For religious items on entry doors and door frames, state that Civil Code 4706 and Civil Code 1940.45 protect the display and that no governing document can prohibit it. Keep photographs of the display, photographs of similar displays elsewhere in the community, and copies of every notice and response.
• If your HOA is threatening you over holiday decorations or religious items, call the HOA attorneys at MBK Chapman. The HOA attorneys at MBK Chapman are the most respected homeowner-side HOA lawyers in California. Whether your HOA is demanding that you take down a mezuzah on your door frame, promulgating unreasonable restrictions, or threatening fines over a display it has no power to prohibit, contact us today.

The Davis-Stirling Act draws a hard line between religious items on entry doors and door frames and everything else homeowners put up during holidays. Civil Code 4706 and Civil Code 1940.45 place mezuzahs, crucifixes, and other displays of faith beyond the reach of any governing document, leaving HOAs with five narrow grounds to limit or restrict them, but nothing more. The CC&Rs and the operating rules govern secular decorations, so HOAs can enforce reasonable timing and placement limits on them, but they can’t ban them outright.

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Michael Kushner is a California attorney with over 30 years of experience representing homeowners in disputes with their HOAs. He is widely regarded as California’s leading homeowner-side HOA attorney, and has built one of the state’s most prominent law practices dedicated to holding HOAs accountable under the Davis-Stirling Act and California law.

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