Anyone have a local attorney they can recommend for hoa/restrictive covenants topics?

Long story short. We bought a house in an old (started in 1970s) Wake County neighborhood a year ago. There are covenants established back in the 70s with some very basic, sensible stuff and we were told we didn't really have to worry about getting approvals for improvements we want to make because there is no HOA and people have basically been doing whatever they like for decades.

Well fast forward to December of 2008....after 30+ years with no changes, the covenants are updated to include a clause about submitting changes to an architectural review committee. The committee doesn't seem to have any guidelines spelled out beyond what the covenants specify. There is still no hoa defined in the covenants. We did discover there is some organization calling themselves an HOA for the subdivision.

So we want to find someone who can advise on how we should approach this as we already have seen some issues with the "hoa" and were planning to drop $Texas into the house for improvements and additions .

4/11/2019 11:32:47 AM

Did you mean 2008 or 2018?

Quote :

"There is still no hoa defined in the covenants. We did discover there is some organization calling themselves an HOA for the subdivision"

This seems contradictory. How can their be covenants if there isn't an HOA? What's on your deed?

4/11/2019 2:39:57 PM

What did the closing attorney and title survey say about covenants when you bought the house, are there covenants or not?

4/11/2019 4:45:26 PM

^^ Yeah, 2018; was typing on my phone earlier .

My understanding is that they are restrictive covenants attached to the deed? I gather from the closing lawyer and the internet that this is a little different from what modern HOAs may refer to as restrictive covenants. We own another property built around 2005 with an actual HOA and the covenants/addendums/whatever for that are a hell of a lot different than these (enforcement provisions, steps for setting up a board, a set of by-laws, lots of specific guidelines outlining what you can and can't do to the property, etc).

^ I asked the lawyer this question on at least two separate occasions (once during due diligence and again at closing). Each time he said there are restrictive covenants, but there isn't an HOA and suggested just talking to our immediate neighbors before we did anything crazy to make sure they weren't going to have a fit. Not sure about the title survey, I'd have to go dig it up but I'm assuming his information included whatever he gleaned from that.

I'm leaving out a lot of details here because this is local and I don't want to plaster a lot of stuff up here. Basically, we were initially advised to jump through gentle hoops even though a lot of stuff isn't enforceable -- but now there have been a couple of things about the people & process that make me question whether we want to continue investing in the neighborhood or just try flipping this house and building/updating our dream house in another neighborhood with a less muddy covenant situation. So, we're looking to spend a little bit of money to get some expert legal advice before we spend a ton of money on our renovations.

And before anyone asks. I already talked to the closing lawyer again (wanted to come in and have a consolation with him). But he suggested we talk to an HOA expert and referred us to another law office....and that law office was the one that did the neighborhood's covenant amendments last year (so a conflict of interest for them).

4/11/2019 11:18:53 PM

have you read the covenants and hoa bylaws? i would start there, pull up the covenants and start reading.
http://services.wakegov.com/booksweb/genextsearch.aspx

the covenants should describe how an hoa is formed, read those and see if the people calling themselves an hoa are actually the hoa

4/12/2019 8:21:36 AM

^ yep

Quote :

"This seems contradictory. How can their be covenants if there isn't an HOA? What's on your deed? "

Nah you don’t need an HOA to have covenants. HOA is just for people to band together to sue people for noncompliance rather than doing it individually, to outsource confrontation and thereby afford a measure of chickenshittedness, and to put their heads together to generate more dumbass ideas than most people could on their own.

[Edited on April 12, 2019 at 8:33 PM. Reason : ]

4/12/2019 8:32:38 PM

From my understanding an HOA can go defunct or inactive for many years. It can be re-activated anytime and you'll have to deal with it. To truely get rid of HOA all the home owners need to vote and dismantle it - this never happens.

4/13/2019 11:10:23 AM

It depends on the covenants, and there's not much use guessing before reading them (which ideally should have been done before buying)

4/13/2019 1:13:08 PM

Quote :

"you don’t need an HOA to have covenants"

4/15/2019 12:28:03 PM

Just want you all to know that I have a secret HOA intended to grow forever and ever and eventually target theDuke866. We will seize all of his Jet-Skis and ATVs.

Then, we'll handle this dtownral person. I think we just have to go to him and tell him he has an excellent sense of interior design, and then we'll be good.

[Edited on April 17, 2019 at 9:48 PM. Reason : ]

4/17/2019 9:39:56 PM

Tina Pace with Hatch, Little & Bunn

4/19/2019 6:04:09 PM

Im interested to hear what you find out.

My neighborhood supposedly has restrictive covenants. I can find them registered with Wake Co at the link in this thread. It specifically mentions my Lot, but looking on my deed specifically there is no mention of anything related to covenants.

Further complicating matters, the covenants supposedly expired in 2012, but a few neighbors got together then (before I lived here) and filed a new covenant document, which has some language in it that seems to indicate the covenants will never expire, but this document only seems to apply to certain lots (and not others?).

4/19/2019 10:28:06 PM