Your HOA cannot make you use their contractor

The same sentence, in four places

The protection reads the same wherever it appears. A rule may not restrict an individual from hiring a contractor or worker solely because the contractor or worker "(A) is not on the association's preferred vendor list; or (B) does not have a professional or occupational license, unless the license is required by law."

Which provision you cite depends on two things: whether you are in a condominium or a planned community, and whether the restriction came from the declaration or from a rule. That distinction is not academic. A page that cites only the declaration provision misses every rule-based restriction, and a page that cites only the planned community act misses condominium owners entirely.

Which act governs you is now a bright-line test. Under § 57-8-2 and § 57-8a-103 as rewritten in 2026, the declaration controls if it states which chapter applies. If the declaration is silent, plats designated as condominium plats put you under Chapter 8, and plats that are not put you under Chapter 8a. Both sections apply regardless of when the association was created.

Why subparagraph (B) does not help a board here

Read subparagraph (B) again: not licensed, "unless the license is required by law." Plumbing work in Utah does require a state license. So a board cannot use (B) to keep a licensed plumber off your job, because the license the statute cares about is one that exists and that the plumber holds. What (B) actually does is stop an association from inventing a credential requirement for trades that do not carry one.

That leaves subparagraph (A), and (A) is the whole point. Being absent from the association's vendor list is not, by itself, a lawful ground to keep a contractor out of your unit or off your lot. An association is free to keep a list. It is not free to make the list the only door.

None of this touches the requirements that come from somewhere other than the list. An association can still require proof of insurance and license verification as a condition of working on its property, and Washington County communities do. The Ledges contractually requires $1,000,000 per occurrence and $2,000,000 aggregate general liability, with the association named as an additional insured. Construction hours, damage deposits, dumpster placement and parking rules all survive too. Kayenta's Form A limits noise-producing equipment to 6:30 a.m. through 5:00 p.m. from May through September and 7:30 a.m. through 5:00 p.m. from October through April, on weekdays and Saturdays except holidays. Those are conditions on how the work happens, not on who does it.

Inside the walls, the association's reach is narrower still

There is a second protection that matters more than the first one for a bathroom. A declaration may not impose a restriction on the interior of a dwelling, except as reasonably necessary for the safety of adjacent lots and the occupants of the lots. That is § 57-8a-212(4)(n) for a planned community. The rule-level twin is § 57-8a-218(22)(b)(i), and the parallel condominium provision is § 57-8-10(9)(n), which uses the phrase "a restriction on a unit interior, except as reasonably necessary for the safety of adjacent units and the occupants of the units."

Local documents already reflect this. Coral Canyon's design review page explicitly exempts interior alterations from pre-approval, along with dead plant removal, like-for-like replanting, and seasonal decorations.

The safety carve-out is real and it is where a careful board will stand. Moving a drain line in a stacked condominium touches the unit below. Cutting a slab is a different conversation again, and in this market a post-tensioned slab is not something anyone should open without locating the tendons first. Expect questions about anything that leaves your own four walls. Expect fewer about tile, valves, a bench, and a door.

If the work is a modification for a disability

There is a federal layer on top of the Utah one, and it is stronger. Under the Fair Housing Act, an association cannot deny a reasonable modification where there is a nexus between the modification and a disability. Grab bars, a ramp, a walk-in shower and a widened doorway are the standard examples. The resident pays for the work. That is the trade the statute makes.

The HUD and DOJ joint statement is specific about what the association may not demand as a condition. It may not require a specific contractor. It may not require additional insurance beyond what it requires generally, increased deposits, alternative designs, or your medical records.

What it may require is ordinary and reasonable: a description of the work, the building permits the work needs, and that the work be done in a workmanlike manner. Give them that, in writing, and most of the argument disappears before it starts. The point of the request is a house you can keep living in. Keep the paperwork about the work, and it usually stays about the work.

• Put the request in writing and describe the work in specifics: fixture, location, dimensions, and who is pulling the permit.
• Attach the permit number when you have it. A permitted job is harder to argue with than a promised one.
• Send the contractor's license number and certificate of insurance unprompted. It removes the two easiest objections.
• Keep the medical detail out of it. The association is not entitled to it, and volunteering it invites questions nobody needs to answer.

The open question in Washington County

Sand Hollow Resort's 2023 Design Code requires homeowners to select an Official or Preferred Builder to supervise construction, with a strike system and revocation for builders who fall out of compliance. That document was written before the 2025 and 2026 statutory changes, and it is not a vendor list in the ordinary sense. It is a tiered builder program attached to supervision of construction.

Whether a program like that survives the preferred-vendor prohibition is a genuinely open question. We are not going to answer it for you and neither should any other contractor. The honest position is to read them next to each other: § 57-8a-218(22)(c)(iii) on one side, the Design Code section on the other, both with their dates, and then take it to an attorney if the job is large enough to justify the hour.

One distinction worth holding onto while you do. These statutes bar prohibition, not review. An association requiring you to submit an application, a plan, and a contractor's insurance certificate is doing something different from an association telling you which company may hold the wrench. Coral Canyon requires a design review form even for changes its own staff can approve off a pre-approved list, and requiring the form is not the same as refusing the change.

If your community's documents predate 2026, assume some of them have been overtaken. Kayenta's handbook carries an August 17, 2021 revision date and several of its provisions sit uneasily against the current statute. That is not a scandal. It is what happens when four legislative sessions in a row amend the same chapters. Ask the association for the current version and the revision date every time.

If the answer is still no

Get the denial in writing first. For a planned community, § 57-8a-109(4) requires a written denial of lot plans to state each governing document provision the association relied on, and the specific aspect of the plan that does not conform to it. A denial that cannot name a provision is a denial that has not met the statute's own test.

Then look at where the restriction came from. If it is a rule or a design criterion adopted in the last 18 months, § 57-8a-217 required 15 days' notice to owners and an open forum before the board adopted it, and owners holding 51 percent of allocated voting interests can still disapprove it within 60 days at a special meeting called for that purpose.

The Office of the Homeowners' Association Ombudsman, Utah Code Title 13, Chapter 79, takes requests for advisory opinions at (801) 530-6670, weekdays 8 to 5. Understand its boundary before you spend the $150 filing fee: § 13-79-103(5) bars the office from any service that requires interpreting your governing documents, including deciding whether a provision is reasonable, and § 13-79-104(7)(b) requires it to decline a request that deals solely with a contractual dispute. "The statute says they cannot restrict me to their vendor list" is a statute question. "Their builder program is unfair" is not.

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