A Nashville doctor cannot rent his home in a lake resort community on sites like Airbnb or Vrbo, the Tennessee Supreme Court has ruled, even as it delivered a potential win for short-term vacation rentals in communities where homeowners associations limit properties to "residential" uses.

Citing dozens of cases in other states and picking apart the grammar of a single phrase in the governing documents of Four Seasons, a development on Center Hill Lake in DeKalb County, the court ruled unanimously that the homeowners association rules were too ambiguous to prohibit short-term vacation rentals such as Airbnb or Vrbo.