A North Carolina Court Just Sided With an HOA Over a Homeowner. Here's What Charlotte Buyers Should Take From It.

A North Carolina appeals court just made it harder for homeowners to win a fight with their HOA, and the ruling is already on the books. If you own a home in an HOA community, or you're about to, the rules governing what your board can enforce just got stronger, and it's worth understanding.

In May 2026, the NC Court of Appeals reversed a trial court in Myers v. Smoky Mountain Country Club Property Owners' Association, a Swain County case where a homeowner association had spent over a decade billing a family roughly $100 a month for a privately owned clubhouse sitting outside their own gated community. The trial court had thrown out the charges. The Court of Appeals put them back, ordering the amount owed, more than $48,000, to be calculated so collection can move forward. The family's attorney has since asked the state Supreme Court to take the case, so this isn't finished. But right now, the appeals court's decision is the law standing, and unless the Supreme Court steps in, those homeowners have to pay.

What the Court Actually Decided

This ruling didn't give HOAs any new power. It confirmed a power they already had, written into the community's founding documents long before these homeowners bought their home. The court pointed to a similar case from almost ten years ago involving the same community, and said the same thing applies here: if an obligation is recorded on the property, you're bound by it once you buy, whether you knew about it or not.

Attorney Shira Hedgepeth, who represents the homeowners, told a local news outlet that what's really at stake isn't just this one clubhouse. "Now, any for-profit contractor or corporation can partner with an HOA and make a contract and put that in the restrictive covenants and a homeowner is going to have to pay for that forever, because it runs with the land," she said. "If the homeowner doesn't pay for it, then they have the power to lien and they have the power to foreclose."

That last part is the one to sit with. This isn't only about a monthly bill. An HOA's power to enforce a due it's authorized to charge includes the power to put a lien on your home and, eventually, foreclose if it goes unpaid, the same collection tools as an unpaid mortgage, attached to an amenity dispute.

This Is Something for All NC Homeowners to Be Aware Of

The Smoky Mountain community is four hours from Charlotte, but the same setup already showed up close to home. WCNC Charlotte reported last October that a management company in Union County was requiring homeowners to pay dues for a pool, clubhouse, and tennis courts their HOA doesn't own and that don't even sit in their neighborhood. That's the same arrangement now upheld in the Smoky Mountain ruling: a private, for-profit entity holding a contract with the HOA, and homeowners bound to pay it because it's written into the covenants that run with their land.

After that reporting, the builder who owns those amenities voluntarily let more than 200 affected homeowners opt out of the dues. About half took the offer. That's a builder choosing to make it right, not a legal requirement. This most recent ruling suggests a homeowner in that position couldn't have forced the issue in court and won.

Every HOA in Mecklenburg County, Union County, and everywhere else in our market operates under the same basic legal structure:

• Covenants recorded against the property
• A board with authority to interpret and enforce them
• Homeowners bound by whatever they agreed to at closing, whether or not they remember agreeing to it

A ruling that reinforces this kind of contract in one North Carolina community reinforces it everywhere in NC.

Why This Lands Now, on Top of Everything Else

This ruling also lands at a moment when North Carolina still doesn't have a state office dedicated to overseeing HOAs or handling homeowner complaints. That means if a dispute can't be worked out directly with the board, going to court is really the only option, which takes time and money. This ruling makes that path a little harder for homeowners to win.

One more thing worth knowing: earlier this year, the NC Supreme Court ruled the other way in a solar panel case, saying HOAs can't ban solar panels outright, only control where they go. So HOA rules aren't moving in just one direction right now. Some rulings favor homeowners, some favor boards. Don't assume you know how a dispute will turn out based on something you read months ago.

What This Means If You're Buying Into an HOA Community

Treat the HOA due diligence period the same way you treat a home inspection: not as a formality to get through, but as the point in the transaction where you actually find out what you're agreeing to. Pull the governing documents, the financials, the reserve fund, and recent board meeting minutes before your due diligence deadline, not after. Read what the association is allowed to charge for, not just what the current dues happen to be. A clubhouse, a private amenity, a shared road, anything owned by an entity other than the HOA itself is worth a specific question: can this board bill me for that, and under what document?

This is where The Zahn Group comes in on every HOA property we help a client buy. We don't just tell buyers an HOA exists and move on. We walk through what the documents actually say, flag anything that reads unusual for the price point or the community type, especially any contract with a third party the association doesn't own, and make sure our clients aren't finding out what they agreed to after they've already closed.

What This Means If You Already Own in an HOA Community

If you're in an active dispute with your board right now, whether it's over a fine, an architectural denial, or an assessment you think is wrong, don't assume the strategy that would have worked a year ago still works today. The Myers ruling is a reminder that appellate courts are actively reshaping how much room homeowners have to challenge board decisions, and the direction of that reshaping isn't fixed yet. Before you spend money contesting anything, talk to an attorney who handles HOA and community association law specifically, not a general practice attorney. This is a narrow, fast-moving area of law right now, and the difference between the two matters.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Rulings like this one won't stop coming, and the direction they move isn't something any of us control. What you can control is knowing exactly what you're agreeing to before you close, and having someone in your corner who reads those documents closely instead of skimming past them. That's the standard we hold ourselves to with every client considering a home in one of Charlotte's HOA communities. If you're weighing a property like that right now, we're happy to walk through what the paperwork actually says before you're locked in.