HOA just told me my 60-day furnished lease violates their rental policy and I don't fully understand what policy they're even citing

The situation you're in is genuinely frustrating, and you're handling it the right way: you asked in writing, you're waiting on an attorney who specializes in HOA law, and you're not signing new leases until you have clarity. That is exactly the right sequence.

A few things worth knowing while you wait.

"Transient occupancy" does have legal meaning in some Ohio contexts, mainly tax and zoning law, where it often refers to stays under 30 days. Whether an HOA can import that definition into their CC&Rs without defining it themselves is a real legal question, and your HOA attorney should be able to tell you whether the board actually has authority to apply that standard to 60-day leases or whether they are, as you suspect, filling in a gap the document doesn't give them power to fill.

The board requiring lease submission for review is worth scrutinizing separately. Some HOA documents grant that right explicitly. Many do not. If section 7.4 doesn't authorize a review process, the requirement to submit may have no foundation either.

One thing worth asking your attorney: whether Ohio's Planned Community Act or Condominium Act places any limits on how broadly a board can interpret ambiguous language in governing documents. Those statutes sometimes constrain boards in ways the CC&Rs alone don't reflect.

The mid-term rental strategy guide does flag HOA restrictions as a real constraint on this model, and this is a good example of why a CC&R review before purchase matters, even when an attorney is involved.

If the attorney confirms the board has real authority here, the 12-month conversion math you've outlined is worth running carefully against your actual carrying costs before you decide anything.

What did your attorney say the timeline looks like for getting you an answer?

The assumption doing the most work in your situation is that "transient occupancy" means what the board says it means. It may not. Ohio does not have a universal statutory definition of that phrase for HOA purposes, so whether the board has actual enforcement authority here turns on the CC&Rs as a whole document, any recorded amendments, and potentially Ohio Revised Code chapter 5312 if this is a condominium unit association. Your HOA attorney is the right call, and that is a question for them specifically, not general real estate counsel.

A few technical points worth raising with that attorney:

The board asking you to submit leases for prior approval before executing is a meaningful assertion of power. If that approval right is not explicitly written into the CC&Rs, the board may be operating outside its authority. That is a separate question from whether your lease structure triggers the transient clause at all.

The fact that there is no defined threshold in section 7.4 cuts both ways. It gives the board room to make judgment calls, but it also means any enforcement action is vulnerable to challenge on vagueness grounds. Courts in HOA disputes have found against associations that tried to enforce undefined terms selectively.

The risk you have not named is selective enforcement. If other owners are running 12-month furnished leases or even short-term rentals and the board has not acted on those, your attorney should request records of prior enforcement actions. Selective enforcement is a recognized defense in HOA disputes.

On the financial side, the $450 monthly delta between your furnished rate and an unfurnished long-term lease is roughly $5,400 a year. That gap, combined with your furnishing sunk cost and carrying losses since November, is real. Converting to long-term is a legitimate fallback, but I would not execute that decision until you have a legal read on whether the board's position is actually enforceable.

What language does the rest of section 7.4 use, and is there any amendment history on that clause?

What did the board actually do when your first two tenants were there?