Melbourne, Florida, has many lovely homes, but even the best of them could use a new coat of paint from time to time. That might sound easy: Choose a pretty color of paint, buy a pretty color of paint and apply a pretty color of paint. However, if your community has a busybody committee, formally known as a community homeowner’s association or HOA, you will need to follow some rules to avoid real estate litigation.

Your HOA board will need to grant you approval before you paint the exterior of your own home. Some HOA boards are very easygoing about doing that, and will grant approval for you expediently. Others, however, will make the approval process so unnecessarily bureaucratic and time-consuming that you may be tempted to just live with the exterior paint that you have.

However, you probably don’t have to. Like with most things in life, you can smooth the path by doing some advance research. You can get a copy of your HOA’s rules regarding exterior paint before talking with the board, and that way ensure that you are following all of the rules applicable thereto. This is important, because your HOA probably has the ability to fine you if you break their rules.

When you contact them, you will probably need to fill out a form and supply them with a color swatch that matches the hue of the exterior paint that you chose. Of course, if you want to paint your house black when everyone else’s house is blue, or paint it a garish green when everyone else’s house is earth tones, your application will be toast. Thus, it is optimal to look around the neighborhood in order to determine what color will fit in. A measure of conformity now is better than paying a hefty fine later.

Source: Collegiate Painters, “How to Paint Your Home in Compliance with HOA,” accessed Feb. 21, 2018