Community associations must be prepared to react promptly to a request to permit installation of a dish or risk establishing a dangerous precedent for the future. Certain rules requiring users to paint satellite dishes may be acceptable, depending on whether they affect the manufacturer's warranty. Screening devices also may be appropriate, but only if the cost is fairly nominal. Generally, duplex and apartment managers will not be required to allow tenants to install satellite dishes on the balconies of their units. The Act protects only those users who have a direct or indirect ownership interest in the property in question.
Tenants lack the requisite ownership interest.
The key to minimizing the impact of the FCC's new regulations will be in carefully amending existing restrictive covenants to allow for a degree of flexibility on the part of the association or community to regulate location, color and screening of new antenna devices. Communities will need to determine in advance the more unobtrusive locations which will still afford the user an acceptable quality signal and which will not unreasonably increase the cost of installation or maintenance. Procedures for immediate review of applications must be addressed and any approvals should be consistent with a preconceived plan of action. Developers should be careful in drafting covenants and conditions to allow the association the authority to gain access to the owner's property in order to identify locations for acceptable signal reception, and the association should be authorized to expend appropriate funds for the screening of satellite dishes where it would be unlawful to require the user to pay that cost. If you have questions about any of the material discussed in this Alert, please contact your Karr Tuttle Campbell attorney or James S. Irby of the firm's Real Estate and Banking Practice Groups.