Other Mississippi laws that reach your association.

The William Lee Montjoy Pool Safety Act applies to a pool “owned, controlled or maintained by the owner of a multiunit rental complex, property owners association, or private club” (§ 45-43-5). Where it applies, the association shall completely enclose the pool yard — but read § 45-43-11 first, because it takes most existing pools out of the chapter altogether.

The numbers are in the statute, not in a regulation: the enclosure must be at least forty-eight inches high measured from the ground on the side away from the pool; gaps under it must not pass a four-inch sphere; openings through it must not pass a four-inch sphere where the tops of the horizontal members are at least forty-five inches apart, and no more than 1¾ inches where they are closer — 1¾ inches also being the limit for any decorative cutout; and chain-link is prohibited entirely for any new enclosure built after 1 July 2012 (§ 45-43-7).

The chapter does not apply to a private club or a multiunit complex that does not allow anyone under twelve.

This is the exception that decides whether any of the above applies to your community. § 45-43-11(1): if a pool yard enclosure was constructed or modified before 1 July 2012, “the provisions of this chapter shall not apply” — with one carve-out, that any gate had to conform to § 45-43-9 by 1 January 2013 — see the gate card above, which is the one part of this chapter that reaches an older enclosure.

So the forty-eight inches, the sphere limits and the chain-link ban bind a new enclosure, or one modified on or after 1 July 2012 — § 45-43-11(3) requires an enclosure modified on or after that date to be brought into conformity with §§ 45-43-7 and 45-43-9 as part of the modification. An association with an older fence is not obliged by this chapter to rebuild it.

§ 45-43-11(2) is the sting in the tail: “This chapter provides no exemption from any local ordinance that may apply to the pool yard enclosure.” Being grandfathered out of the state chapter does not exempt the association from the city or county's own rules.

Of a chapter running to § 45-43-31, the sections reproduced across this site are §§ 45-43-3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 19, 21, 25 and 27. §§ 45-43-1, 13, 15, 17, 23, 29 and 31 are not held, so nothing on this page describes them.

§ 45-43-11 takes a pre-2012 enclosure out of the chapter except for its gate — any gate had to conform to § 45-43-9 by 1 January 2013. So this is the one part of the Pool Safety Act that reaches an older fence.

Every gate in a pool yard enclosure required by § 45-43-7 must (a) have a self-closing and self-latching device; (b) have hardware letting it be locked, at the option of whoever controls it, by padlock or a built-in key, card or combination lock; and (c) open outward, away from the pool yard.

The latch height is the part most often got wrong. A gate latch must sit at least sixty inches above the ground — unless both conditions in § 45-43-9(2) are met: the latch is on the pool-yard side only and at least three inches below the top of the gate, and the gate or enclosure has no opening greater than half an inch in any direction within eighteen inches of the latch — including the gap between the gate and its gatepost.

§ 45-43-9(3) gives one further option: a latch may sit at forty-two inches or higher if the gate cannot be opened except by key, card or combination on both sides.

An association may exceed the pool-safety standards at its option. More usefully for an owner: “a member of a property owners association may, by express written agreement, require ... the association to exceed those standards.”

That is a rare thing in Mississippi HOA law — a statutory route for an individual member to contract the association upward. It has to be an express written agreement.

§ 45-43-27: except where a state or local rule is stricter, these duties supersede common law, state agency regulation and local ordinance on inspecting, installing, repairing and maintaining pool yard enclosures, gates and latches, and the locks and latches on doors and windows opening into a pool yard.

§ 45-43-25 draws the boundary: there is no duty to enclose a body of water, or to build a barrier between the property and one — ocean, bay, lake, pond, bayou, river, creek, stream, spring, reservoir, stock tank, culvert, drainage ditch, detention pond, or other flood or drainage facility. Several of those are man-made, so the exclusion is not limited to natural water.

An eligible homeowners association may elect to provide water service to its own residents. If it does, the eligible municipality shall sell and convey the water assets the association deems necessary — mains, service lines, meters — at fair market value determined by an independent appraiser of the association's own choosing. On closing, the association obtains an easement in municipal roads by operation of law to repair and replace them at its own cost. The municipality continues to provide sewer service on the same terms as other residents.

The Public Service Commission's chapter then does not apply to that distribution, whether the association supplies water full time or keeps an emergency connection for when municipal water is “unavailable, unreliable or unsafe.”

Both terms are defined narrowly, and the definitions are where the limits hide.

Eligible municipality: population greater than 100,000 on the latest decennial census, and one “which has been the subject of litigation by the United States Environmental Protection Agency for violations of the Safe Drinking Water Act.”

Eligible homeowners association: one created and governed by restrictive covenants where the subdivision (i) was constructed before 1970 outside municipal boundaries, (ii) was subsequently annexed by an eligible municipality — whether or not the city was already “eligible” when it annexed — and (iii) is adjacent to a ground water well system originally designed to supply it which still serves a private user.

This is drafted for a particular set of neighbourhoods, not for Mississippi generally.

A covenant requiring a buyer to pay a declarant, the person who imposed the covenant, or a third party the seller designates a fee on a future transfer is prohibited, and any such covenant or lien is void and unenforceable.

But subsection (3) exempts a fee payable to the property owners' association itself or its managing agent, where the subdivision has more than one platted lot and the right to collect it is recorded in the public land records — and also fees payable to a 501(c)(3) entity on the same condition, or to a governmental entity.

Full treatment on the covenants and recording page.

§ 17-1-1 carries the definitions for local zoning, planning and subdivision regulation, and § 19-5-9 governs the adoption of building and related codes in certain counties. These are the public-law layer that sits underneath your covenants: a restriction in your declaration does not displace a local ordinance, and an approval from your architectural committee is not a building permit.

A manufactured or mobile home is taxed under its own ad valorem regime and must be registered with the county tax collector (§ 27-53-5(1)); it is titled as a vehicle under Title 63, ch. 21 unless the title is retired. § 63-21-30 covers the procedure where an owner who owns the land elects to classify the home as real property, including the affidavit of severance.

Whether your home is titled as personal property or has been converted to realty changes what a lien can attach to, so it is worth knowing which one applies.

Mississippi authorises submetering of water and wastewater service in multiunit dwellings, expressly defining “apartment house” to include a residential condominium, whether rented or owner occupied, and “dwelling unit” to include a manufactured home in a manufactured home community.

It has four narrow ones, and none is a general HOA act: managing agents and association funds (§§ 79-11-751 to 761), special local improvement assessment districts (§§ 21-33-551 to 561), pool safety (Title 45, ch. 43) and water service (Title 77, ch. 3). Between them they say nothing about architectural review, fines or covenant enforcement. The one governance rule in the set is § 21-33-557(2), which makes an association inside an operating assessment district post online notice of its annual meeting and hold elections for officers and board members there.

It does not. The chapter's reach is fixed by its own definition of a condominium — units owned by different owners with an undivided share in common areas. A subdivision of separately owned lots is outside it entirely.

Subsection (1) requires a fidelity bond or comparable insurance coverage — at least the combined reserves plus the previous year's highest total assessments. Subsection (2) lets a majority of the board vote the requirement away at a regular or special meeting — no owner vote, no minimum coverage left behind. Whether your association carries the bond is a question for the board's minutes, not the statute.

A recorded assessment lien expires one year from the date the notice of assessment was recorded, unless it has been satisfied or enforcement has begun. The management body may extend it by one further year, but only by recording a written extension.

Under the Nonprofit Corporation Act, an article, bylaw provision or board resolution authorising dues, assessments or fees “does not, of itself, create liability.” The obligation to pay generally comes from the recorded declaration that runs with your land, not from the corporate paperwork.