If you live in an HOA community in Orange, Osceola or Seminole county and you want a different colour than the one on the house now, you almost certainly need written approval before a brush touches it. Painting first and asking later is how people end up repainting at their own cost, and occasionally with a fine on top.
Most homeowners find this out halfway through choosing colours. It is the single most common reason a repaint stalls for a month.
What the application actually needs
It varies by association, but nearly all of them want the same things, and most of them want it on their own form:
- The exact colours, by manufacturer name and code — not “beige”
- Which colour goes where: body, trim, front door, garage door, shutters
- Photographs of the house as it stands
- Sometimes a colour sample or a printed chip
- Sometimes proof of the contractor’s insurance
We assemble all of it, submit it to the right address — which is often a management company rather than the association itself — and follow it up if nothing comes back. There is a fee for this on your estimate, shown as its own line rather than buried in the price, and it is waived when no submission turns out to be needed.
The part worth knowing before you choose colours
Many associations keep an approved palette: a fixed set of colours that need no application at all, because the community has already decided they are acceptable. If yours has one and you like something on it, you skip the review entirely and we can start within days rather than weeks.
If your community is one we have already confirmed with the management company, our estimate will tell you so and show you the palette while you are choosing. If it isn’t, the estimate says that too. We only tell you a community is on file once we have actually spoken to whoever administers it — a promise about your HOA that turns out to be wrong is worse than no promise, because you will have made plans around it.
How long it takes
Review periods are set by the association’s own governing documents, and they genuinely vary — some committees meet monthly, some review as submissions arrive. Two to four weeks is common. We will tell you what your association’s documents say rather than guessing, and we schedule your job around the answer instead of hoping.
Florida law gives associations obligations around how architectural applications are handled, including time limits in some circumstances. If yours goes quiet well past its own stated window, that is worth raising — we can tell you what we are seeing, though for anything contested you want your own advice rather than your painter’s.
Not changing colour?
Then in most communities there is nothing to submit — repainting the same colours is maintenance, not an alteration. We will confirm it rather than assume it, and if nothing is needed you pay nothing for it.