Every answer carries its citation.
Covenant reads an association's recorded declaration, bylaws and rules, then answers questions about them in the words of the documents themselves — with the article and section attached.
Licensed to community management companies. One agreement covers every association in the portfolio.
Can I put a six-foot privacy fence along my rear property line?
Rear-yard fences need prior written approval and must conform to the Exhibit H specifications. The lot also carries a five-foot drainage easement along the rear line, which the proposed placement would sit inside.
No fence shall be erected in a rear yard without the prior written approval of the Executive Board.
A five (5) foot easement is reserved along the rear lot line for drainage and maintenance access.
The documents already hold the answer. Finding it is the job.
A community manager fields the same questions every week — fence heights, satellite dishes, lease terms, paint colors, parking. The answers sit in a recorded declaration nobody wants to open, a set of bylaws amended twice, and rules the board adopted three Novembers ago.
So the manager answers from memory, or spends twenty minutes reading, or asks counsel. Do that across a portfolio and it is not twenty minutes. It is the week.
From a resident's request to recorded precedent
One path, in order. Each stage leaves a record the next one can use.
The request arrives
An owner submits a change through the portal and the response clock starts. Missing dimensions and materials are the commonest reason a review stalls, so the form asks for them up front.
Covenant screens it against the documents
The request is read against the association's own governing documents and its past decisions. The result is a findings ledger: rule by rule, each with the covenant text quoted and where it came from. It reports; it does not decide.
The board sees the reasoning, not a verdict
Volunteers open a packet showing which provisions apply, which conflict, and what could not be verified. They vote. A written reason is required on every decision.
The decision becomes precedent
The vote is recorded with the rules that were in force when it was made. When a similar request arrives in two years — under a board with none of the same members — that reasoning is still there and still citable.
Built for the firm, not for one board
A self-managed board feels this pain monthly. A management company feels it every day, across every community it holds — and it is the firm, not the board, that carries the exposure when an architectural review goes sideways.
So Covenant is built around the firm. Staff work a portfolio, not a single account. Documents, decisions and residents stay strictly separated by association — that boundary is enforced in the database, not in the interface — while the people who need to move between them can.
Reference for boards and managers
Plain-language explainers on the documents themselves — free, no sign-up.
Governing documents, in order of authority
Which document controls when two of them disagree, and why the order matters.
Covenants vs bylaws vs rules
Three instruments, three amendment paths. Commonly confused, expensively.
Architectural review checklist
What to confirm before an ARC packet reaches the board.
Already a client?
Board members, community managers and owners sign in to the Covenant portal to ask questions, submit and track architectural requests, and read their association's documents.
Bring your documents. We'll show you your own covenants.
Send one association's declaration and rules. We'll index them and walk your team through the questions your managers actually get asked.