What is the name of your state (Texas)?
Hello all. I did a quick search and found a few threads relating to this topic, but not exactly my question. Here is a rundown:
Our neighborhood has 12 homes. The neighborhood is about 25-30% built up, with the developer owning the remaining lots. We bought our lot from an individual owner (not developer) and built our home in 2010. At the time, we were not aware there were covenants and restrictions attached to our deed as we were not required to sign for the receipt and the title company didn't show them to us. In short, the C&R's are poorly written and very vague. I don't have a problem with specific rules, as they are fairly reasonable, but they are just vague and miss some important things. There is no HOA, and nothing in the C&R's mention anything about forming one.
All in the neighborhood have pride of ownership and operate in common sense, except for one. He has broken down lawnmowers, stacks of old wheels/tires, a deer stand, about 6 empty and rusting propane tanks, along with numerous miscellaneous trash and metal scraps in his backyard with no fence. His garage looks like it could be on an episode of hoarders. All of this in a really nice 3 year old $250,000 brick home
Last year, when it became the worst it has been, some in the neighborhood felt it was the developer's responsibility to enforce the C&R's since he is the one who wrote them and put them in place when he first developed the neighborhood. He, of course, threw his hands up and said it isn't his responsiblity but that of the individual lot owners. So with that, we formed a C&R Committee so we could write letters to the offender to address the problems. He "sort of" complied, mainly just moving all his trash to the back corner of his lot (still highly visible).
Fed up, the committee members are wanting to dissolve the committee and go back to the developer with a threat of "enforce the rules, or we will file suit against you to make you to enforce the rules."
However, the C&R's state, "Each and every lot owner has the right to protest, and if necessary, is legally empowered to enforce any violation of all restrictions...". I believe that an attorney will just wind up telling us, "Sorry, the developer is right. He has just as much authority to enforce these as you do. You can't make him enforce them." At that point, we will have already dissolved the committee (which allowed us to address problems as a committee rather than individually).
Am I thinking of this correctly? If there is no HOA, the enforcement of the C&R's are on the shoulders of each individual lot owner and not the developer (even if he still owns more than 50% of the empty lots)?
Thank you very much for any advice.
Hello all. I did a quick search and found a few threads relating to this topic, but not exactly my question. Here is a rundown:
Our neighborhood has 12 homes. The neighborhood is about 25-30% built up, with the developer owning the remaining lots. We bought our lot from an individual owner (not developer) and built our home in 2010. At the time, we were not aware there were covenants and restrictions attached to our deed as we were not required to sign for the receipt and the title company didn't show them to us. In short, the C&R's are poorly written and very vague. I don't have a problem with specific rules, as they are fairly reasonable, but they are just vague and miss some important things. There is no HOA, and nothing in the C&R's mention anything about forming one.
All in the neighborhood have pride of ownership and operate in common sense, except for one. He has broken down lawnmowers, stacks of old wheels/tires, a deer stand, about 6 empty and rusting propane tanks, along with numerous miscellaneous trash and metal scraps in his backyard with no fence. His garage looks like it could be on an episode of hoarders. All of this in a really nice 3 year old $250,000 brick home
Last year, when it became the worst it has been, some in the neighborhood felt it was the developer's responsibility to enforce the C&R's since he is the one who wrote them and put them in place when he first developed the neighborhood. He, of course, threw his hands up and said it isn't his responsiblity but that of the individual lot owners. So with that, we formed a C&R Committee so we could write letters to the offender to address the problems. He "sort of" complied, mainly just moving all his trash to the back corner of his lot (still highly visible).
Fed up, the committee members are wanting to dissolve the committee and go back to the developer with a threat of "enforce the rules, or we will file suit against you to make you to enforce the rules."
However, the C&R's state, "Each and every lot owner has the right to protest, and if necessary, is legally empowered to enforce any violation of all restrictions...". I believe that an attorney will just wind up telling us, "Sorry, the developer is right. He has just as much authority to enforce these as you do. You can't make him enforce them." At that point, we will have already dissolved the committee (which allowed us to address problems as a committee rather than individually).
Am I thinking of this correctly? If there is no HOA, the enforcement of the C&R's are on the shoulders of each individual lot owner and not the developer (even if he still owns more than 50% of the empty lots)?
Thank you very much for any advice.