Getting a new roof past your Clermont HOA

Three situations, three answers, in nearly every Clermont community we have dealt with.

• A repair in matching material, a pipe boot, a flashing, a slope of shingles in the same color, a handful of slipped tiles, almost never needs architectural review. It is maintenance. Check your documents; a few associations ask for notice of any exterior work, but approval is rare.
• A full replacement in the same material and color usually does need a submission, even when nothing visible changes. The committee wants the product, the color and the contractor on record, and in communities where the association handles exterior painting, it wants the roof to work with the paint palette for the next several cycles.
• Any change, a different shingle color, a switch from shingle to metal, a change of tile profile, a new ridge vent silhouette on a villa roof shared with a neighbor, needs approval, and this is where applications get denied.

The governing rule is in your declaration of covenants and the architectural guidelines adopted under it. Florida Statute 720.3035 requires that the standards an association enforces be in those documents; a committee cannot deny a roof on a preference that is written nowhere. Ask the management office for the current architectural guidelines and the ARC application form before you get bids; a free roof inspection in Clermont and the guidelines together are the two documents a roofer needs to quote correctly.

The forms differ by community; the contents do not. A complete roof application typically needs:

1. The association's application form, signed by the owner (not the roofer), with the lot and address.
2. Manufacturer product data for the shingle, tile or metal panel: the brochure page with the product name and the manufacturer's color name.
3. A physical color sample or chip, or a color board photograph when the committee accepts one. Monitor colors are not samples.
4. The Florida Product Approval number for the roof covering, which the committee may not ask for but the permit office will, so it should be on the same page.
5. The contractor's license number and certificate of insurance; many associations require both and some require the roofer to be registered with the management company before the first truck comes through the gate.
6. A scope description: full tear-off or not, ventilation changes, any change to ridge or hip profile, and for metal a drawing or photo rendering of the panel profile and trim.
7. For attached homes (Kings Ridge villas, duplex and triplex units), a note on the shared roof plane and, where the documents require it, the neighbor's acknowledgment.

We prepare items 2 through 7 for every Clermont replacement estimate as a matter of course, and we fill in the application for you to sign. What we do not do is guess at the approved list from memory; we ask the management office for the current guidelines in writing, every time, because the list changes and the roof outlasts the list.

Without quoting any community's rules, here is the pattern across the subdivisions we work in.

Two more notes from the field. First, communities where the association repaints exteriors on a schedule, which includes Kings Ridge and Heritage Hills, care most about color harmony, because the roof will outlast several paint cycles; bring the current paint palette to the color decision. Second, if your guidelines rule out metal, we quote the shingle they allow and say why rather than sell a roof the committee can order removed. The metal roofing in Clermont page has the longer version of how a metal application goes, and the shingle roofing in Clermont page covers color and product choices on the common material.

ARC review is the slow step of a Clermont roof, and the schedule has to be built around it rather than fought.

• Committees meet on a cycle, monthly in many communities, and a submission that misses the agenda waits for the next one. Ask the management office for the meeting date and the submission deadline before it.
• Review windows are in the documents. Most declarations give the committee a set number of days to respond; read yours so you know when silence becomes a question.
• Nothing is ordered until approval is in writing. Shingle color is a special order on a 25-square roof; material bought before approval is material you may own twice.
• Storm damage is the exception that is not an exception. An emergency tarp or dry-in needs no approval; the permanent roof does. After a county-wide event like Milton, committees are flooded and slower, which is one more reason to document the damage, tarp, and get the application in the same week.
• Insurance renewal dates do not move for the committee. If a renewal letter has given you a deadline, start the ARC process the day the inspection report comes back, not the day the estimate is signed.

Our rule on sequencing: inspection, written estimate with product data, ARC application the same week, approval in hand, then the permit, then material. The Clermont roof permits guide covers the permit step, which is faster than the committee in both of Clermont's permit offices.

Homeowners usually know the committee has power over them. Fewer know the limits Chapter 720 of the Florida Statutes puts on the committee.

• The standards have to be written down. Florida Statute 720.3035 provides that the architectural standards an association enforces must be the ones in its declaration or in written guidelines adopted under it. A denial based on an unwritten preference is open to challenge.
• Denials have to be specific. Since July 2024, the same statute requires an association that denies an architectural request to tell the owner in writing which rule or covenant the denial rests on. "The committee did not like it" is not a lawful denial; "Section 7.3 limits roofing to the approved palette, and the submitted color is not on it" is.
• Solar is protected. Florida Statute 163.04 bars any deed restriction or association from prohibiting solar collectors; an association may direct where on the roof they go only if the alternative does not impair performance or raise the cost. If panels are coming off and going back on for your re-roof, or going on for the first time, the committee can ask about placement but not say no.
• Maintenance is not a change. Covenants regulate alterations; replacing a failed roof with the same product is maintenance in most declarations, which is why like-for-like applications are almost never denied.

None of this is legal advice and the declaration for your community controls; it is the set of questions worth asking when a submission comes back with a no.

1. At the free inspection we ask for the community name and the management office contact, and we ask whether the roof plane is shared with a neighbor.
2. Before quoting a color or a profile we request the current architectural guidelines and the application form from the management office in writing.
3. The estimate names each product by manufacturer, product and color, with its Florida Product Approval number, so the same document serves the committee and the permit office.
4. We assemble the submission: product data, color chip, license and insurance, scope and, for metal, a rendering. You sign the application; we deliver it or upload it to the management portal.
5. We wait for the written approval and do not order material until it is in hand. If the committee asks for a different color or product, we revise the estimate at no charge.
6. Gate access: the day before work we send the guardhouse our crew names and the truck description so repair day is not spent at the gate.
7. Permit after approval, from the right office for your parcel, then material, then the roof.

One thing we will not do is install a roof the committee can order removed. If the guidelines say no, we say so and quote what they allow. The about Pro Specialty Services page has the rest of what we will and will not do.