We've had more than one customer order a shed, get excited about delivery day, and then find out their HOA has something to say about it. It's an awkward conversation, and it's completely avoidable if you check the right things first. This guide walks through what HOAs typically restrict and how to get ahead of it.

HOA Rules Are Separate From City or County Permits

This trips people up more than anything else. Getting a permit from your city or county means the building meets local building code, setback requirements, and zoning rules. It has nothing to do with your HOA. Your HOA can still reject a building that's perfectly legal under city code, because HOA covenants are a private agreement between you and your neighborhood, not government regulation.

We've written separately about permit requirements in Columbus, LaGrange, and Phenix City, along with property line setbacks. If you're in an HOA neighborhood, you need to clear both hurdles: the government one and the HOA one. They're not the same conversation.

What HOAs Typically Care About

Every community's covenants are written a little differently, but the same handful of things show up again and again:

  • Size caps. A lot of HOAs limit sheds to a maximum square footage or dimension, sometimes surprisingly small, like 100 to 150 square feet.
  • Height limits. Many communities restrict how tall a shed can be, often somewhere around 10 to 12 feet at the peak.
  • Setbacks from property lines and fences, which can be stricter than what the city requires.
  • Materials and color. This is a big one. Some HOAs require the shed to match the house, same siding style, same shingle color, sometimes even the same paint. This is exactly why we get asked so often about matching shed color to a house in HOA neighborhoods specifically.
  • Visibility from the street. Some communities require sheds to be placed where they're not visible from the road, which limits where on your lot you can actually put one.
  • Whether sheds are allowed at all. In some tightly packed neighborhoods or townhome communities, sheds aren't permitted, period, no matter the size or color.

What to Do Before You Order

Start with your HOA's governing documents, usually called the CC&Rs (covenants, conditions, and restrictions), or reach out to your HOA management company or board directly. Ask specifically about accessory structures or storage buildings, since "shed" isn't always the term used in the paperwork.

Most HOAs that allow sheds still require a formal approval process before you build. That typically means submitting a site plan showing where the shed will sit on your lot, the dimensions, and sometimes a photo or rendering of the building itself. This is where having real numbers matters. We can give you exact dimensions and material specs for any building we sell so you're submitting accurate information instead of guessing.

Give yourself time for this. Some HOA architectural committees only meet monthly, so approval isn't always instant. We've seen customers wait several weeks for a decision. Ordering your shed and requesting HOA approval at the same time, rather than approval first and ordering second, is a good way to end up with a building sitting in your driveway with nowhere approved to put it.

If Your HOA Has Strict Color or Material Rules

This is common enough that we deal with it regularly. If your HOA requires the shed to match your house, we can talk through paint and siding options on a custom wood building, or discuss which aluminum finishes come closest to typical house colors. It's worth bringing your HOA's specific requirement to us before you order rather than after, since matching a very particular shade is much easier to plan for up front.

What Happens If You Skip This Step

We've heard the horror stories from customers who didn't check first: shed showed up, HOA sent a violation notice, and now they're either appealing after the fact or, worse, being told to move or remove the building. That's a stressful and expensive position to be in after you've already paid for delivery and setup. A phone call to your HOA before you order takes a lot less time than dealing with a violation notice after.

Our Advice

Check your HOA before you check anything else. Size, height, color, placement, and whether sheds are allowed at all can all vary wildly from one community to the next, even within the same city. Once you know what your HOA will approve, we can help you find or build a shed that fits those requirements exactly, whether that's an aluminum shed in a specific size or a custom wood building finished to match your house.

Have your HOA's requirements in hand? Give us a call at 706-568-0500 or request a free quote, and we'll help you find a building that clears both your HOA and local code without any surprises.