Does a wet-look sealer need HOA approval?

An approval question about a sealer is really a question about appearance, so the useful starting point is how much each kind of product changes the look of a paver, in the paver industry's own words.

ICPI also says, more generally, that sealers are used “for visual and functional reasons.” The visual part is what an appearance standard reaches. The glossy finish people call the wet look sits at the acrylic end of that table; the flat finish sold as the natural look sits at the silane and siloxane end, and even that one enhances color at first by ICPI's account. No row in the table leaves a driveway looking exactly as it did.

Florida's statute on architectural control in homeowners' associations is 720.3035. Paragraph (1)(a) says an association's authority, or that of its “architectural, construction improvement, or other such similar committee,” to enforce standards for external appearance is permitted only to the extent it is “specifically stated or reasonably inferred” in “the declaration of covenants or other published guidelines and standards authorized by the declaration of covenants.” The committee most owners know as the architectural review committee works inside that limit.

The declaration is a recorded instrument. Chapter 720 defines it, at 720.301(4), as a recorded written instrument in the nature of covenants running with the land that subjects the community to an association's jurisdiction and control. Whatever it says about driveway appearance, or whatever guidelines it authorizes, is where a sheen question gets answered. The same paragraph of 720.3035 requires the association to “reasonably and equitably apply and enforce on all parcel owners” the standards those documents authorize.

The broader point, that an association's appearance authority over a driveway runs through its declaration, is made on the water use, association and rules section of the paver cleaning page. This page takes the narrower case of gloss.

Section 720.3035(2) speaks to guidelines that give owners options rather than one required look: where the declaration or its published guidelines provide options for the use of material, the size, the design or the location of a structure or improvement, neither the association nor its committee may restrict a parcel owner's right to select from the options provided. Whether a community's list of approved finishes counts as options of that kind is read from the community's own documents.

Section 720.3035(5) adds a limit in the other direction: an association or its committee may not enforce a policy or restriction inconsistent with the rights and privileges the declaration or its published guidelines give a parcel owner, “whether uniformly applied or not.”

Choosing between the two looks, once the documents allow a choice, is a separate conversation about material, traffic and pool, covered in what a sealer does and the two families it comes in. Whether a truly flat product exists is answered on whether a matte paver sealer is available.

Section 720.3035(4)(a) sets a written-denial duty, and its exact scope is worth reading. It applies when the association or committee “denies a parcel owner's request or application for the construction of a structure or other improvement on a parcel.” In that case the association or committee must give the owner written notice stating “with specificity the rule or covenant” it relied on, and the specific aspect or part of the proposal that does not conform.

The statute's words are construction of a structure or other improvement. Whether an application to change a driveway's finish falls within that language is not something the statute says, and this page does not say it either. That reading belongs to the association's documents and, where it matters, an attorney.

Chapter 720 is the homeowners' association statute. Condominiums run under Chapter 718, and the provision that comes up for a change to shared paving is 718.113(2)(a), which limits material alterations and substantial additions to the common elements to the manner the declaration provides, subject to the rest of that section; the vote that applies when a declaration is silent is set out in that entry.

Section 718.113 does not define “material alteration.” Whether a change of finish on common-element walkways or a pool deck is one is a question for the board and the association's counsel, not for a sealer maker or a cleaner. What a given product will look like on the surface stays a question for that sealer maker's label.