Whether a new garage door needs your association’s approval is set by the community’s recorded declaration and any architectural rules adopted under it. Neither of Washington’s two association laws has a section headed for garage doors or architectural review, so the documents for your own community are the ones to read.
We work on doors in association communities through our HOA and multifamily service, swap single sections through panel replacement and hang whole doors through new garage door installation. This guide covers the homeowner’s side of the approval, and it is a map of the rules, not legal advice.
Which Washington law covers your association
The date your community was created decides which of Washington’s two association laws covers it today. One is the Homeowners’ Associations Act, chapter 64.38 RCW; the other is the Washington Uniform Common Interest Ownership Act, chapter 64.90 RCW.
Under RCW 64.90.360, before January 1, 2028, chapter 64.90 applies only to communities created on or after July 1, 2018, and to older communities that amend their declaration to elect into it. The older act does not apply to a community under the newer one, and it reaches a pre-2018 community only until that community becomes subject to chapter 64.90.
The legislature has also set an end date. The reviser’s note to RCW 64.90.360 says chapter 64.38, along with chapters 58.19, 64.32 and 64.34, was repealed by 2024 c 321, effective January 1, 2028. Even now, RCW 64.38.095 lists a set of chapter 64.90 sections that already apply to the older communities.
| Your community | Law that applies before January 1, 2028 | How to tell |
|---|---|---|
| Created on or after July 1, 2018 | Chapter 64.90 RCW | The declaration’s recording date |
| Created before July 1, 2018, with an amendment electing into chapter 64.90 | Chapter 64.90 RCW | A recorded amendment to the declaration |
| Created before July 1, 2018, with no such amendment | Chapter 64.38 RCW, plus the chapter 64.90 sections listed in RCW 64.38.095 | An older recording date and no electing amendment |
That July 1, 2018 line falls across Clark County’s building eras. The 1990s, the county’s largest building decade, and the 2000s produced tracts created long before it. Plats recorded in the 2020s, such as Mount Vista’s Ramble Creek and Minnehaha’s Kunze Farms, are recent enough that any association formed with them sits on the newer side.
The declaration, often called the CC&Rs, is a recorded document. The Clark County Auditor’s Landmark Web search finds recorded documents by name, document number, parcel ID, legal description or date, and the county notes that its online images are not certified copies. The manager or board can hand you the current version with its amendments and the architectural rules.
What the statutes let a board decide about your door
Both acts let an association adopt rules, regulate changes to shared property, and fine owners after notice and a hearing, each one subject to what the community’s governing documents say.
Under the older act, RCW 64.38.020 gives an association three tools unless its governing documents provide otherwise. It may adopt and amend bylaws, rules and regulations; regulate the use, maintenance, repair, replacement and modification of common areas; and levy reasonable fines from a previously established schedule, after notice and an opportunity to be heard by the board.
The newer act, in RCW 64.90.405, gives a board the same three tools subject to the declaration, applied to common elements. RCW 64.90.255 adds the point that matters most for doors: an owner may alter the owner’s own unit within limits, but may not change the appearance of the common elements without the board’s approval.
Whether your garage door is part of your unit, a limited common element or a common element is set by your own declaration, and that one definition decides much of what follows. Under the newer act, RCW 64.90.505 also requires a board to notify owners, with the text and the date it will act, before it adopts, amends or repeals a rule.
The statutes that stop associations from banning things cover flags, political signs, solar panels, drought resistant landscaping, EV charging, heat pumps, adult family homes and child care, and garage doors are not on that list. A 2026 section on fire-hardened building materials, RCW 64.90.582, still allows reasonable rules on exterior appearance and does not name garage doors.
The usual steps to HOA approval for a new garage door
Approval goes smoothest in a set order, starting with the documents and ending with a written decision before anything is ordered.
- Read the declaration and the architectural rules. Look for garage doors, exterior colors, windows and any list of approved doors, and ask the manager for the current rules with every amendment.
- Work out what the door is. Your declaration says whether the door belongs to your unit or counts as a common element, which tells you who decides and who pays.
- Photograph what is there now. Shoot the front of the house, the current door straight on, the maker’s label inside the door, and the neighbors’ doors if the rules call for a match.
- Pin down the proposed door. Note the maker, model, panel design, color name, window layout and hardware, with a brochure image or a photo of the same door on another house.
- Fill out the association’s application and attach the photos and the door details.
- Ask how long review takes. No Washington statute we found sets a review deadline for this, so the board or manager is the source for a timeline.
- Get the decision in writing, with its date and any conditions, before the door is ordered.
- File the approval with the house papers, since a later buyer or a later board may ask to see it.
What the board will want to see
Whatever the form looks like, a reviewer is comparing your proposed door with the look the community already accepted, so give them the details that make that comparison quick.
The makers’ own section-matching requests show what identifies a door. Clopay asks for the door model, the section size, the color and which section is damaged; Amarr asks for the section’s length, width and height and the door brand. Those same details, with a photo, let a board see exactly what will go up.
Some design documents also look at the house next door. The City of Ridgefield’s Cedar Creek design guidelines are a CC&R checklist submitted with each building permit application there. They count a garage with decorative doors among the features each house needs at least three of. They also name differing garage orientations and different paint colors among the ways neighboring fronts must differ.
In a community with rules like those, ask whether a new door’s color has to stay distinct from the house beside it before you assume a match is wanted.
Matching one panel across a tract
Replacing a damaged section with an identical one changes nothing a neighbor would notice when the match is exact, but the board decides whether a swap counts as a change.
Exact is the hard part. The label gives the model and color, and the maker or its distributor confirms whether the section is still built. A new section can still look a shade off beside panels that have weathered for years, which is the moment a board may want a photo before the swap.
When the approved color or model is no longer made
A discontinued door or color turns a simple swap into a design question, and the board, not the installer, decides what the community accepts next.
The usual routes are a close current match, a repaint of a section or the whole door where the rules allow paint, or a new door in a current model. Each goes to the board with a photo of the sample held against your door, and our discontinued panel matching guide covers how to find the closest option.
What we provide for your application
We can give you the door details an application needs: the current door’s maker, model, color and section sizes from its label and our measurements, and the same details for the door or section we would install.
Photos of the label, the damage and the door straight on come with them, ready to attach. Filing the application stays with you or your manager, and we place the order once you forward the written approval. For what the door itself is likely to cost, see our new garage door cost guide.
Timing matters at the end too. A door that goes up before approval can draw a notice, and both acts allow fines only after notice and an opportunity to be heard, from a schedule adopted beforehand. Approval first, then the order, keeps that question off your desk.