HOA Problems in Assisted Living: What You Need to Know Before You Launch

assisted living compliance assisted living facility hoa issues assisted living startup guide fair housing act assisted living hoa and assisted living hoa cc&rs assisted living residential assisted living hoa starting assisted living in hoa zoning for assisted living Aug 14, 2025

Starting an assisted living facility is a smart move—but if your property is in an HOA (Homeowners Association), you might run into a few challenges.

This guide walks you through exactly how to deal with HOAs, talk to your neighbors, and protect your right to operate your business.

Let’s jump in! 🏡

Check out this video, too:

Why HOAs Matter in Assisted Living

An HOA helps keep a neighborhood looking good—but they also enforce rules. These rules are written in a document called CC&Rs (Covenants, Conditions & Restrictions).

Here’s what you might run into when reviewing the CC&Rs:
✅ Limits on running a business from home
✅ Parking rules that could affect staff and visitors
✅ Pushback from neighbors who don’t understand assisted living

Even with these issues, you may still be able to move forward with setting up your assisted living business with the right plan.

Step 1: Read the CC&Rs Like a Lawyer

The CC&Rs are the HOA’s rulebook—and you need to know what’s in there.

🧠 Pro Tip: Print it off. Highlight the areas where something could become an issue.

📌 Look for phrases like:

“No business operations in residential homes”
“Limitations on number of vehicles parked”
“Restrictions on signage or modifications”

💡 Not sure what something means? Paste the document into ChatGPT (or another AI tool) and ask, “Are there any rules in here that would stop me from running an assisted living home?”

Step 2: Understand Zoning Laws First

Before you even talk to the HOA, check your city zoning rules.

🏙️ Zoning is really the things that can shutdown you ability to launch your assisted living business. You may be able to rezone, but zoning can say "you cannot do that here," and there's not much you'll be able to do about it at that point.

✅ Make sure your property is in a zone that allows residential assisted living
✅ If not, see if rezoning or a special use permit is possible

💡 Our ProfitPath Tool can help you figure out if your property is the right fit—before you waste time or money.

Step 3: Talk to the HOA Early (and Confidently)

Don’t surprise the HOA board with the idea of assisted living. Instead, approach them early—with confidence.

Use assumptive language. Tell them, "This is what we’re doing. We’ve reviewed zoning, and here’s how it works."

🎯 Your goal is to:

Show you’ve done your homework
Reassure them about the impact on the neighborhood
Build trust and reduce friction

💡 Reminder: HOAs can’t legally block you due to the Fair Housing Act—but they can still make the process harder if you’re not proactive.

Step 4: Win Over the Neighbors with Education

Here’s the truth: most HOA complaints come from neighbors—not the board.

Neighbors who don’t want assisted living may go to complain to the HOA. It’s often because of education. They just don’t understand what you’re trying to do.

📣 Educate them:
✅ Host a meet-and-greet or info session
✅ Explain how quiet and well-maintained the home will be
✅ Reassure them there won’t be traffic or ambulances at the house every day (a common complaint people think they might have when they hear about assisted living)

Step 5: Know Your Rights Under Federal Law

Even if your HOA pushes back, federal law is on your side.

The Fair Housing Act protects housing for seniors and those with disabilities. That means your residential assisted living facility is considered a protected use.

HOAs can’t stop you. They can be a headache, but you can push through if you're committed.

⚖️ If needed, hire a real estate attorney who understands assisted living to help you push forward legally and respectfully.

Next Steps: Turn HOA Problems Into Progress 🚀

Want to start your assisted living business in the next 12 months—even in an HOA?

✅ Step 1: Download our free Business Plan Checklist
✅ Step 2: Need help figuring out where to start? Join the next Roadmap Challenge and build your launch plan with me.

Got questions about HOA issues? Drop them in the comments below! ⬇️

We’ve helped hundreds of students get approved—and we can help you too.

▶️ Watch on YouTube

🎙️ Listen to the podcast

Show full transcript 👇

Transcript

00:00:00 - 00:00:51
Hey friend, I'm Brandon Gustafson and I help beginners like you launch their assisted living business in the next 12 months. In today's video, we're going to be getting into how to navigate those HOA challenges that may come up as you're in this world of assisted living. So, if you're interested in that or need some help with it, make sure you stick around for today's [Music] video. Hey friend, welcome back to Assisted Living Investing. Before we get started, I want to remind you to go over

00:00:28 - 00:01:20
and grab your free underwriting calculator. Go to assistedlivinginvesting.net and go grab the free calculator. Go in the top right corner. Big blue button says get your free underwriting calculator. Go grab that tool. It will help you along your path to launching your assisted living business. Now, let's get into the topic for today's video. We're talking today about HOAs and, you know, how to navigate that and how to handle those types of situations when an HOA issue potentially comes up because it can

00:00:54 - 00:01:46
could be a bit of a barrier as you're trying to get your assisted living business launched and and ready to go. So, first off, I want to talk a little bit about what an HOA actually is. HOAs are homeowners associations. The purpose of an HOA is really to maintain the neighborhood's look and feel. That that's what they were for. Some people think, you know, hey, HOAs were just created because somebody found a great business model so they can make some money if we're being honest with the

00:01:20 - 00:02:16
situation. And, you know, maybe that's the case. I think there are certain instances where HOAs can be good. Um, I have never lived in an HOA that met some of those requirements, but I think it can be good in certain situations. So, with that out of the way, that's what an HOA is. they're becoming much more prominent in in the world today compared to where we were 40, 50 years ago. And and so it's something that you will probably end up having to deal with, especially if you are in a newer

00:01:48 - 00:02:41
neighborhood where you are trying to put in your assisted living facility. Now, some of the common HOA roadblocks and things that you want to be aware of, some of those challenges that you should be aware of as you're working with HOAs is the rules and the CCRs. they can prohibit businesses from running out of the home. So, the rules and the CCRs of an HOA are they're basically, hey, here's the regulations that you need to follow when you live inside of the home and and the things that you can and

00:02:14 - 00:03:07
cannot do. Um, they'll often say things like, you know, you got to have your garbage can behind a fence or no parking on the street or some of those types of things. But they also have different stipulations in there around things like running a business or renting out the house and and those types of things. So, you really want to get familiar with what is in those CC and RS so that you can understand what you are getting into when you're working with the HOA. After you have reviewed those CCNRs and you

00:02:41 - 00:03:35
feel like you've got a really good overview of exactly what you're dealing with and and what to expect and and how to kind of navigate some of this stuff, it's going to allow you to then kind of just understand what exists there and and what types of conversations you may need to have as you're moving forward and and trying to put your assisted living business inside of the HOA. A few other things that you may see is parking. There there's going to potentially be restrictions on parking.

00:03:08 - 00:04:02
you know, parking in the street or a certain amount of cars inside of the driveway. Those types of things is something that you may want to get familiar with because that could potentially be an issue. Although, I will say in assisted living, I've been doing this for over 4 years. Um, we've not had a lot of issues with from a parking perspective. Has one of our homes is in an HOA. We've never had complaints about parking and it's just not that big of a deal. The other one is going to be push back from neighbors and

00:03:35 - 00:04:25
neighbors that don't want to do this and they go and they complain to the HOA. That could end up being your biggest barrier as you're trying to get through all of this is the neighbors that hear about it and they don't want it. And often times it's going to be because of education. They just don't understand exactly what you're trying to do. They think, "Hey, home value is going down. I'm going to have all these uh different cars, people coming and going, ambulances, garbage cans all over the

00:04:00 - 00:04:50
place." um not the case at all. You have to remember these are elderly people most often and you know it's it's not a big deal. That doesn't mean that somebody's not going to complain about it. Somebody's going to bring up well yeah but they're going to do XYZ inside of the neighborhood and we're going to have you know just a ton of cars and ambulances coming in and out every week and it's just going to be annoying and a hindrance to everybody in the neighborhood. You may get that. That may

00:04:25 - 00:05:16
be a a conversation that a complaint that somebody files against you. In reality, it's it's not going to happen. And so, you as the person wanting to start this business, there's a level of education that you have to provide to people and you have to talk to people and and educate them on what assisted living is and how you're going to serve these people and how it's not going to impact things in inside of the community and all that. Um, you're going to have to do that and so you got to get

00:04:51 - 00:05:46
comfortable with it. It's part of your responsibility when you're working in an HOA. Now, for you to successfully navigate the HOA, there's a few things you got to do. Number one is really study those CCNRs. Get familiar with them. I would even suggest printing it off, highlighting the areas where you think something could become an issue so that you know how to address those. If you're familiar with AI tools, you could even take that CCNR and put it into a chat GPT type of a program. uh Gemini,

00:05:18 - 00:06:13
you know, anything Claude, whichever program you use the most, put it in there. Give it some context saying, "Hey, you're a real estate attorney that works specifically with assisted living. I want you to review these CCNRs. I want you to pull out the things that could potentially be barriers for me as an an investor that wants to get into assisted living. And I want you to point those out to me. and I want you to give me talking points on how I can respond to my neighbors, to the people in the HOA,

00:05:45 - 00:06:37
and help them see how I can still do this business here and how it's in compliance with the CCNRs and how we can move things forward. That's one strategy that you could implement and and a great strategy that I highly recommend doing. Get gets you a really good leg up. If you're not familiar with the AI stuff, assuming you're an older generation person at this point, ask your grandkids to do it for you. Ask your kids. they can they can help you out with it. It won't take them very long. It's this is

00:06:12 - 00:07:00
not a big ask. I promise you. It's just it's it can feel confusing upfront. Okay? So, that's something that I want you to think about. Number two is to talk to your HOA board often, early and often. I want you to be having conversations with the HOA. I want you to be telling them, "Hey, this is my plan. This is what we want to do. We want to do assisted living. This is population we're going to serve. We've talked to zoning. We know that it's fine there. Everything is moving forward. And

00:06:36 - 00:07:20
I've looked at the CCRs. everything looks good there. What do we need to do to push this across? You want to use that assumptive language and you want to have those conversations frequently so that this is not a surprise. You're you've got the license and you're ready to put the home in place and you still haven't had the conversation with the HOA. Don't avoid that. You want to have this conversation early and don't let things get shut down. The other thing is going to be consider hiring a legal

00:06:58 - 00:08:02
professional, specifically somebody that has experience with real estate law. And if they have experience with elderly care or or assisted living type of care, that's even better. And so, you want somebody that can do that. You're they're going to be looking at the CCNRs. Just know that assisted living is protected. It's a protected class under the federal fair housing act, which is a federal law. So, when you're working with an HOA, you have the law on your side. Now, that does not mean that they

00:07:29 - 00:08:17
will not make this difficult for you. They will complain. They'll go out there. They'll make comments. They'll fight tooth and nail cuz they don't want to do it. So, that's going to happen. The law is on your side. Now, what you have to determine, is it worth it for me? Is is this make enough sense? if you've done that foundational work that I always talk about and go grab the launchpad if you need some help doing that foundational work assisted livinginvesting.net/aunchpad

00:07:54 - 00:08:42
um to build that. But if you've built the business plan, you've done the underwriting, you feel super confident that this is going to be a profitable venture for you, then it's probably worth going to the HOA and working with them to really move things along to help you get what you want to start that business. Okay, go for it. If you haven't done the foundational work, you might not want to do the whole conversation with the HOA and and start fighting that battle until you have some

00:08:18 - 00:09:14
of this more foundational work done. So, I really strongly encourage you to do that cuz it's really going to help you have those conversations down the line. And if you need to, you start involving attorneys and things like that, having conversations and seeing where you can get. Okay? So unless there is something that is explicitly stated in the CCNRs that you cannot have assisted living in inside the HOA and even then you still have the law on your side. Um HOAs can't stop you. They can be a headache. They

00:08:46 - 00:09:28
can be a thorn in your side. That is still possible. But you can push these things through in HOAs. The other big piece of this, and I've talked about it a couple times already in this video, is you have to educate people. You have to talk with them. You have to go educate your neighbors. I have to talk to them about what you're trying to do, who you're serving, how it's going to impact them, just, you know, how many staff are going to be there, what the staffing model is like, the background checks

00:09:07 - 00:09:55
you're doing on the staff, and making sure that everything is in place there, that you're going to have be providing care to these individuals. But this is not a nursing home. This is an assisted living, and you're really there providing a service and meeting their care levels. And it's, if anything, going to add more value to the neighborhood, and people will love it. you know, you can host some barbecues and things like that and and your residents will love it, but the neighborhood's going to love it as well.

00:09:31 - 00:10:19
So, it's something that I really want you to think about is how are you going to educate your neighbors so that they don't push back with the HOA on trying to stop you from doing this. Really important thing for you to do. And then the last thing that that I'm going to encourage you to do is know your rights. So, get really familiar with the laws with that Fair Housing Act. Make sure you review it. Make sure you understand it so you can have those conversations. you can speak intelligently with your

00:09:55 - 00:10:54
attorney about it so you know what you're getting into. Okay, that's number one. Number two is get familiar with the CCNRs. Make sure you understand exactly what that looks like. And then number three is becoming familiar with the local city, state, local municipality zoning laws. The zoning laws can stop you. So that is something that can make it so you cannot move forward with this. Zoning is completely different from HOA. Zoning can tell you no. You may be able to reszone, but zoning can say, "Nope,

00:10:24 - 00:11:07
you cannot do that here." HOAs will push back and and be a thorn in your side, but ultimately you you can win that fight. Zoning is is a completely different game. So, you want to be comfortable with this. You don't want to move forward and fight with the HOA when zoning isn't going to allow you to do it anyway. So, make sure you are doing these things in the right sequence and and moving things forward. So, if you need some help and some guidance and in doing this and you know what I've just

00:10:46 - 00:11:31
talked about, if you're just like, "Oh man, this I don't know. I'm nervous about that. I don't know how to have that conversation. Would love to see if I can help you out. Go check out the mastermind program, aliastermind.com. Apply there in that program. That phase 2 is all about finding the perfect property and everything we've talked about today with HOAs and zoning and everything like that. That's a phase 2 process and we go through that inside the mastermind program or you can get it in the

00:11:08 - 00:11:56
accelerator as well if you want to try to do that on your own. Um, we'll have links down below for all of those things. So, make sure you go and look at those different programs to see what's going to be best for you and helping you launch your assisted living business. Today's video, we've been talking about HOAs, how to navigate it, what you should be aware of, and how you can really push things forward as you're trying to launch your assisted living business. Does residential assisted

00:11:32 - 00:12:13
living sound interesting to you? You just don't know how to get started. At Assisted Living Investing, I'm here to help beginners like you launch their assisted living business in the next 12 months. Love helping and coaching people. I would love to do the same for you. Make sure you go grab that free underwriting calculator, assisted livinginvesting.net. And remember, it doesn't take a lot. Just just a little bit. Keep going step by step by step. And I promise you, if you do and you're

00:11:52 - 00:12:07
consistent and persistent, you're going to be successful. Thanks for watching and have a great day. [Music]

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