Remember all that paperwork you signed at the title office? Go through it carefully and look for documentation about the deed restrictions. It might be listed in the deed itself. You should have had to sign something saying you knew about it. If there’s no such paperwork, you need to get a lawyer to see what your options are.
I don’t think deed restrictions are the same thing as an HOA. The HOA typically enforces the deed restrictions, but you might still have the restrictions even if there is no HOA. For example, if you park a boat in your driveway but the restrictions say you can’t , your neighbor could bring a case against you even if there is no HOA.
HOAs aren’t all bad. They ensure that everyone follows the deed restrictions. Sometimes they can be nit-picky, but they can only enforce what’s documented. I don’t mind my HOA. True, there is a sort of bland, uniformity to the neighborhood, but I don’t mind that. I don’t have any great need to express my creativity through house paint or lawn decorations. I’m glad that people have to mow their lawns regularly, remove eye-sores, etc.
I live in a rural subdivision with 15 lots. We have a HOA because we’re on a private road and someone needs to collect fees to pay for grading and gravel.
When you say you didn’t know about the restrictions, are they actually in the deed? That’s called constructive notice and it generally means you’re screwed.
However, you need to contact a real estate attorney licensed in your jurisdiction.
Not Florida. New York has some land that is registered in a Torrens system but AFAIK it is closed to new registries.
Deed restrictions are necessary to have an HOA, but that sort are only one type.
However, a bunch of people generally can’t just get together, declare an HOA, and start slapping covenants and restrictions on everyone else in town. Presumably, there is a latent clause or something on all the properties of a subdivision that authorizes the formation of an HOA if X% of owners in the subdivision agree. However, such an HOA would derive its authority from that already-existing clause, not some HOA riding into town and slapping you with a covenant.
One reason you need to consult an attorney is what rights if you do not want to be a part of the HOA. In Colorado where HOAs are like municipalities, they can annex you even if you do not want to be in the HOA.
Or the HOA already exists, but isn’t currently organized. If nobody is interested in being on the board, it will never have a sufficient quorum to do anything. (Not all associations have responsibilities. Some are responsible for maintaining common spaces, organizing trash pickup, paving the streets, etc. Others just…exist.)
It is barely possible that someone is trying to pull a fast one on you, in which case the advice to go throw a thousand dollars at a real-estate lawyer to see what your options are might actually be worth it.
Much more likely, I think, is that you did not understand that it is generally speaking your problem to ascertain all the covenants, liens and easements on a piece of property before you buy it (particularly in some kind of fire-sale situation), and that the only certain way of doing that is an exhaustive search of all the instruments referring to the property that are recorded in your county recorder’s office. There are, to be sure, usually various state laws stating some things that are supposed to be disclosed on the sales contract, and usually some standard forms for doing it. If the seller didn’t disclose something important in some glaringly obvious way, in principle you have a tort against the seller, provided you can prove some concrete damages (“I’m pissed off someone might tell me what color I can paint my door!” doesn’t qualify), provided you can prove they are the direct result of a deliberate fraud or outrageous carelessness, provided you have the money to bring suit in superior court, provided you’re willing to wait a few years for the case to come to trial, provided you win, and provided you can recover the damages from the other party – provided you found him in the first place.
If you bought a $12 million property, and these things popping out of the woodwork are going to cause you $250,000 in actual damages – you were planning to put up a gas station, and now it turns out an easement says you can’t – then by all means go find a lawyer.
Otherwise, you might be well advised to research the property as best you can, with Property Shark, the help of an experienced real estate agent, a few trips to the Recorder’s office, so you know what’s coming. And if it seems icky, perhaps sell the place and move on.
Of course this depends on the laws in your locality. Where I live, deed restrictions (we call them covenants) are enforceable to the extent that they are consistently enforced. So if a few members get away with something that violates the restrictions, it means that the restrictions (at a minimum those particular restrictions) can’t be enforced on anyone. If your HOA is just be re-activated, I suspect you wouldn’t have to look too hard to find some unchallenged violations. That would invalidate the restrictions in my area. Again, it depends on the law in your locality.
In general, HOAs benefit everyone as long as they aren’t hijacked by crazies. But they are a fair bit of work for the volunteers. As in everything, you will be better served by being part of the organization than sitting outside it. You may not like everything they do, but you will probably learn a few things about local policies and politics. And of course you can more easily detect and challenge scams and out-of-control “leaders”.
It all depends. When the prospective buyer first visited the house, did she say-this looks like a nice neighborhood. Or did he say-this looks like a nice house.
If there is a recognized community-a subdivision, and residents bought homes in that community in part because of how the community as a whole looked, then it is their business how the neighbors paint their house. And the business of the neighbors how they paint their house and tend their yard. If in the community everyone gets to do whatever they want with their property and everyone is fine with that-that works as well. But not every community functions like that. Again, it depends on what people expect. Of course what they can or should do about the neighbors depends on the local laws, customs and restrictions, but the idea is that in some communities people live there not just because of how their home looks, but also how their neighbors look. If everyone agrees with that attitude, then people can expect others to follow the agreed upon rules.
As for whether the restrictions exist or can be enforced, again it depends on the laws of the locality. In general, a deed restriction is part of the contract people freely sign. If you don’t like the terms of the contract-don’t sign. But don’t complain years later because you didn’t read the contract before you signed.
More likely the title company. As an agent, it’s not my job to do a title search; I rely on the title company’s skills and resources.
It occurs to me that just because there is a Home Owner’s Association in the neighborhood, that doesn’t mean they have government enforcement powers. In my neighborhood, we have an Association and restrictive covenants, inherited from the 1930’s. There are many violations, but if anyone wanted to enforce those restrictions, they (or the Association) would have to initiate a costly civil suit, and the government would not stand behind them.
Since most people believe that the restrictions are outdated (like no circular driveways, no firewood stacked within view of the road) or have been negated by more modern laws (racial prohibitions), I am not aware of any attempt to bring a civil action, ever.
In contrast, the current Planning & Zoning regulations are enforced by the P&Z Dept. of the County government. Some of their regulations are similar to the old covenants (like building setbacks), so we usually let the government hash out anything that comes up.
So before you get your knickers in a bunch, it might be good to find out the status of the HOA. I know in my case, our Association won’t show up in a title company’s search, although the covenants will, recorded on the deeds. That could explain what happened in your case.
Or it could be an entirely different sort of homeowner’s association. I live in a city and most houses here don’t have restricted covenants and aren’t part of a condo-like mandatory homeowners association. There are , however all sorts of voluntary organizations with names like Neighborhood A Civic Association, Neighborhood B Residents Association, Neighborhood C Property Owners Association or even Neighborhood D Homeowners Association. They don’t decide what color you can paint your house, whether you must have a lawn in front of your house or where you may park your car. They do advocate with various city agancies and officials on issues important to their membership - for a traffic light on a particular intersection , to change the parking restrictions on a certain street , where a new school should be sited, whether a zoning variance should be granted. It’s *possible *that this is the sort of homeowner’s association that is being reactivated in the OPs neighborhood - in which case, it needn’t affect the OP at all.
It’s also possible the Association exists for merely social reasons, which is why it’s important to find out what powers it has or is likely to exercise.