Every year, the Montgomery Village Foundation (MVF) Architectural Standards Department performs scheduled community inspections. The Architectural Standards Department will be continuing inspections in the Northgate community this year. Once Northgate inspections are completed, staff will continue conducting inspections in the North Village community.

In addition to conducting scheduled inspections in the above communities, Architectural Standards Department Compliance Specialists also conduct inspections throughout the Village that are requested as part of resale disclosure packets, or that are reported to the department by a community member.

MVF is obligated, through each homes corporation’s governing documents, to enforce architectural standards Village-wide in order to maintain the aesthetic harmony of our residential properties. These inspections are an important service that allows MVF to fulfill that obligation.

If you receive a violation letter, please read the letter carefully and contact the compliance specialist who sent it, should you have any questions. Homeowners should notify the Architectural Standards Department once a violation is corrected, so that the case can be closed. Compliance specialists will be conducting follow-up inspections on homes with open violations to determine if the violations have been corrected or if further enforcement actions are needed.

Properties are inspected to determine if they comply with the architectural criteria for each community and the newly created Village-wide Architectural Criteria. Specific community criteria and Village-wide criteria can be found online at www.montgomeryvillage.com. The Village-wide criteria is available on the Architectural Standards Department page of the website, while homeowners will need to be logged into their account to see their specific community criteria. Homeowners can also contact the Architectural Standards Department to receive a copy of their community’s criteria or any of the Village-wide criteria items if they don’t have access to a computer.

Inspections include the exterior of homes, house colors, landscaping, windows, patio doors, decks, fences, patios, walkways, sheds and any other permanent structures, exterior modifications or additions. All inspections will be performed from common areas; compliance specialists will not enter your property to conduct inspections.

One way to ensure that your home remains violation-free is to apply for any exterior modifications you plan to make to your home. It is free to apply, and routine requests that have clear criteria, guidelines or precedents supporting them are reviewed in-house on a weekly basis. House additions and other more complex requests are reviewed at the monthly Architectural Review Board meeting.

You can also submit an application for a change that you have already made; just state clearly in the application that the modification is existing. If it is noted during an inspection that a modification was made to a property without approval, a review fee of $25 will be automatically added to your assessment account. Applications will not be accepted for homes with open architectural violations – the application will not be reviewed and it will be returned to you – so ensure that you have corrected any architectural violations prior to submitting your application. Applications can be completed online at www.montgomeryvillage.com/pir or by visiting the MVF Office, 10120 Apple Ridge Road, to pick up a hard copy.

Architectural inspections do not include general maintenance of private residences such as rotted wood, peeling paint, broken and/or fallen exterior features, which is addressed by the individual homes corporations and their Private Property Maintenance Inspections.

For more information, contact the Architectural Standards Department at 301-948-0110.