Most guides to New Albany's design guidelines read like a style manual: Georgian only, no contemporary mixing, garage doors set back and single-bay. All true. None of it is what actually catches a seller off guard.
The thing that stalls a closing in New Albany isn't a paint color the board doesn't like. It's a piece of paper that was never filed, for work that was done years before the house went on the market.
Two Signatures, Not One
New Albany runs design approval in two separate layers, and they don't cover for each other. The City of New Albany has its own Architectural Review Board, which issues Certificates of Appropriateness for exterior and signage changes under the city's zoning code. Depending on which subdivision your address sits in, you're also answering to a neighborhood-level board with its own paperwork and its own rules, whether that's the New Albany Links Homeowners Association or the New Albany Country Club Homeowners Association. Their governing documents are explicit that city approval does not substitute for HOA approval, and HOA approval does not substitute for the city's. You need both, filed separately, for the same project.
The list of projects that trigger this dual review is longer than most sellers assume:
- Additions, patios, and outdoor kitchens
- Roof, siding, or window replacement
- Decks, walls, and fencing
- Driveway and landscaping changes
- Permanent basketball hoops (portable ones aren't permitted at all without a pre-2023 grandfather record)
Any of these done without written sign-off from both boards leaves a gap in the file. That gap doesn't surface when you're living in the house. It surfaces when someone else is trying to buy it.
The File That's Supposed to Follow the House
Here's the mechanism nobody puts in the brochure. New Albany Links' own guidelines require that all ARB approval documentation be kept by the homeowner and transferred to the next owner at sale. Not summarized. Not verbally passed along. The actual paperwork is supposed to move with the deed.
That means if a roof went on after a storm in the last few years and nobody filed for ARB sign-off, there is no record anywhere confirming the work was authorized. The gap sits quietly until a new owner tries to make an insurance claim, get a resale certificate, or answer a title company's questions about permitted work.
New Albany Links' guidance tells owners filing an insurance claim to get ARB approval before accepting the insurance company's proceeds or signing a release. The paperwork isn't a formality tacked onto storm repairs. It's built into how the claim itself is supposed to be processed.
The fees attached to skipping this step are specific and not small in aggregate. A $500 compliance violation fee applies to unapproved structural work that adds to a home's footprint, meaning additions, patios, and outdoor kitchens. A separate $500 fee applies to roof, siding, or window replacement done without prior approval. Routine submissions for larger projects run $50; smaller ones like play equipment or a modest tree removal run $25. Review typically wraps within 30 days.
The part that trips up sellers trying to move fast: no new project can be submitted for review while an existing violation sits open on the property. If a seller wants to add a patio before listing and there's an unrelated, unresolved compliance issue from years earlier, that older issue has to clear first. The 30-day clock doesn't start until it does.
Where It Actually Shows Up
This isn't an abstract compliance issue. It surfaces at four specific points in a real transaction:
- The home inspection, when an inspector notes a deck, addition, or roof replacement that doesn't match any permit or ARB record on file.
- The HOA resale certificate, where the management company has to certify no outstanding violations exist. A missing ARB file for prior work can flag the property even if nothing is currently wrong with it.
- Ohio's Residential Property Disclosure Form, which only requires sellers to disclose material defects and HOA-related issues they actually know about. If a previous owner did the unpermitted work, the current seller may genuinely have no idea it lacks approval, which means disclosure law doesn't catch it. The buyer's side does, usually during the HOA and title review.
- The buyer's closing review, when missing signatures prompt a last-minute request for retroactive approval, which restarts the 30-day review window at the point in the deal when nobody has 30 days to spare.
None of this requires bad faith from anyone. It requires an old project, an owner who didn't know the rule, and a closing timeline that assumed the paperwork was clean.
What the "Median Price" Actually Hides Right Now
New Albany's reported median price has been unusually volatile through 2026, and the reason isn't a shifting market so much as a thin one. In February 2026, Redfin reported a median sale price of $825,000, up 29.4% year over year, but that figure came from just nine closed sales that month, down from 15 the year before. A separate index put New Albany's typical home value closer to $600,000 as of late January 2026. By June 2026, another market summary reported a median sale price near $675,000, up about 17% year over year, with a sale-to-list ratio at 100% and only about 144 active listings citywide, alongside a single residential sale that month reaching $3.2 million. A July 2026 update from CityScene Columbus, drawing on Redfin data, put New Albany's estimated median closer to $1 million and noted several transactions that month exceeding $2.5 million.
| Month (2026) | Reported median | Sample context |
|---|---|---|
| January | ~$600,000 (index estimate) | Smooths month-to-month swings |
| February | $825,000 | Only 9 homes sold |
| June | ~$675,000 | 144 active listings; one $3.2M sale |
| July | ~$1,000,000 (estimate) | Several sales above $2.5M reported |
That spread isn't a data error. It's what happens when a city sells single-digit to low-teens homes in a given month and a handful of country-club-adjacent estates close inside that window. Each closing carries outsized weight, and a couple of high-end sales can swing the reported median by six figures without the broader market actually moving. If you're pricing a listing or sizing up a purchase, the citywide median is close to useless on its own. The number worth asking your agent for is the closing price and days-on-market for your specific pocket and price band over the trailing 30 to 60 days, not the headline figure a national portal is reporting for the whole city that month.
Common Questions
Do I need ARB approval before I sell if I'm not changing anything? The requirement is about what was already done to the house, not what you're planning next. If a past exterior project such as a fence, deck, or roof replacement never got written approval, that gap doesn't disappear just because you didn't do the work yourself.
What if I bought the house without getting the previous owner's ARB paperwork? The guidelines put the responsibility on the current owner to maintain the file, regardless of who did the original project. That's exactly why a buyer's first call after closing should go to the HOA management office to confirm what's actually on record for the address.
Does the city-level board apply if my subdivision doesn't have its own HOA? Yes. The City of New Albany's Architectural Review Board issues Certificates of Appropriateness under the city's own zoning code for exterior and signage changes across the city, separate from whatever HOA, if any, sits underneath it. A resale outside a named HOA community can still need city sign-off.
If you're weighing a sale in New Albany, or you're a buyer trying to figure out what a listing's paperwork actually says about the work that's been done, that's the kind of local detail worth getting right before you're mid-transaction. Home With Hood works these files every week across New Albany's HOA and city review layers. Start Your Home Journey with a team that already knows where the paperwork tends to hide.