HOA architectural review, checked against the guidelines and drafted for your committee to decide.

An owner wants a cedar fence, a new body color, panels on the south roof or a sunroom. The request comes through your homeowner portal, by email or on a paper form, with a plot plan, drawings, a color chip or a photo. Someone at your company checks that it is complete, pulls the right pages of that community's guidelines, sends it to the committee, watches the deadline and writes the letter once the committee decides.

For the test, AI does that preparation on copies of applications your committee already decided. It drafts the review file: what is missing, each item set against the guideline that covers it, any law that limits the answer, the due date, and a letter with the outcome line empty. We call this step the sandbox. Nothing goes to an owner or a neighbor.

The clock starts the day the application lands. In California, a solar application not denied in writing within 45 days is deemed approved under Civil Code 714, unless the delay came from a reasonable request for more information, and section 4745 allows 60 days for an electric vehicle charger. Section 4766, new for 2026, gives the reviewing body 30 calendar days to tell an owner rebuilding after a disaster whether the file is complete, then 45 days to review it. The draft records the date received and each request for more information, and shows the due date every rule produces.

Guidelines reach only as far as the documents. Florida's section 720.3035 limits review to what the declaration, or guidelines it authorizes, state or reasonably imply. Where the documents offer a choice of materials or designs, the committee can't narrow it. A lot has one front for setbacks unless the documents say otherwise, and a central air system out of sight that matches an approved one needs no review at all. So each finding in the draft cites its section, and a finding with no written rule behind it goes to your manager as a question, not into the letter.

Some requests can be shaped but not refused. Texas's section 202.010, which since 2025 covers solar roof tiles too, lets an association bar a roof-mounted device only for set reasons, such as rising above the roofline or a frame in a color other than silver, bronze or black; refusing one that meets those terms takes a written finding. Florida lets an association choose where on the roof solar collectors go only within 45 degrees of due south, and only if the spot doesn't impair how they work, and it must adopt hurricane protection specifications and approve requests that meet them. Federal law bars rules that unreasonably delay a satellite dish one meter or less across, and protects the U.S. flag. The draft names the rule behind each protected item and lists only the conditions still open to the committee.

A denial has to explain itself. California's section 4765 calls for a written decision; a disapproval says why and how to ask the board to reconsider, at an open board meeting. Florida wants the exact rule relied on and the part of the plan that fails it. In Texas, for associations of more than 40 lots, a denial goes by certified mail, hand delivery or electronic delivery with the reasons and any changes that would win approval, and the owner has 30 days to ask for a hearing, which the board holds within 30 days, with 10 days' notice, at a noticed open meeting. Once your committee picks an outcome, the draft adds what that state wants said.

Who decides changes by state. Texas keeps board members, their spouses and anyone in their household off the review authority, and since 2025 has the association invite volunteers at least 10 days before filling seats. Arizona does the opposite: a board member chairs the design committee. In Vantaca's architectural review voting, a vote is approve or decline only, so a conditional approval needs a later step, which Vantaca suggests giving to the committee chair or a management company employee. Your reviewer, usually the coordinator or manager who prepares these files, will look hardest at completeness, the sections cited and the protected items.

With your reviewer's yes, new architectural applications for the communities you pick run through the job for about 30 days.

Each file reaches your committee or manager with the outcome still open. They choose it, edit the letter, sign it and send it the way they do now. The AI never answers an owner or a neighbor. No second job starts that month.