Fence restrictions in covenant

What is the name of your state? Hi,

I live in Illinois. Our subdivision has a covenant with restrictions on fences. To get a fence you must get both neighbors approval, the fence can't be more than 4' high, not chainlink, it must have space between pickets and be placed at least 6" inside the property line. Finally, you must get the association boards permission.

For our fence proposal we satisfied all of the requirements and the board still turned us down. One member's comment was something like "There will never be another fence as long as I'm on the board." Our subdivision has about 600 homes and I know there are many houses that already have fences approved by previous boards. One house on our street even had a fence approved last winter apparently because of some sort of "mixup".

Do we have any legal ground to challenge the board's decision? We have two small children and we will probably move if we can't put up our fence.

Thanks,
Bill

[HomeGuru]

Originally posted by wawalter
What is the name of your state? Hi,

I live in Illinois. Our subdivision has a covenant with restrictions on fences. To get a fence you must get both neighbors approval, the fence can't be more than 4' high, not chainlink, it must have space between pickets and be placed at least 6" inside the property line. Finally, you must get the association boards permission.

For our fence proposal we satisfied all of the requirements and the board still turned us down. One member's comment was something like "There will never be another fence as long as I'm on the board." Our subdivision has about 600 homes and I know there are many houses that already have fences approved by previous boards. One house on our street even had a fence approved last winter apparently because of some sort of "mixup".

Do we have any legal ground to challenge the board's decision? We have two small children and we will probably move if we can't put up our fence.

Thanks,
Bill

**A: yes, I would challenge the decision of the Board. Child safety, pets and other factors come into play. If you built a swimming pool on your property, the building code requires a fence.