What is considered a house trailer?

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DownTheAvenue wrote:

SC camper wrote:
We have been living in our sticks and bricks neighborhood for eleven years. Neighborhood has HOA with covenants. We moved into this neighborhood because the covenants didnt prohibit rv campers. Covenant reads "No house trailer or mobile home shall be placed on any lot either temporarily or permanently". Further in the covenant stats "All boats, trailers and all vehicles other than automobiles shall be kept under suitable cover". We filed a request, with site plan, for a travel trailer cover(Adco designer) and location on our lot where the tt will be stored. Request was approved and its been no problem since.
Now there are other homeowners saying that campers are prohibited. Campers and rv's are "house trailers". Anyone dealt with this terminology in a HOA Covenant before? Thanks for any input.

Your best bet is to get the US Department of Housing's definitions of a mobile home and a RV, and the Recreational Vehicle Industry Association's definition of a recreational vehicle. Lacking any definition in your Covenants, those would be the go to definitions. Your state may have some as well, even your county, but they probably mirror the federal definition.

Suitable cover is so vague as to be meaningless. However, your HOA Board approved your cover, so the whole issue seems a moot point.

Your HOA Board as an example can make rule that no one can have a blue truck, but that does not mean every one has to get rid of their blue truck. But no one can buy a new blue truck. The Board can agree that from this point forward no RVs but they cant rescind the current rule for you.

FHA definitions can help but unless the covenant specifically calls out "as defined by FHA" (or similar). It is only supporting evidence and not definitive. As there is no standard universally applied definition, they are in a very weak contractual position to force you to remove it.

Also with your "blue truck" example. If you have an existing blue truck grandfathered in, you typically would be able to get another blue truck and be grandfathered still. The grandfathering establishes that you entered the HOA with the understanding you can have a blue truck, so it would be a change in the Contract terms to take that option away. This is important if you get a new RV, you have already established that you entered the HOA with the understanding that an RV is not a house trailer. Now if you went 10yrs without a blue truck, it becomes a gray area as it undermines the argument that having a blue truck was critical to your decision to accept a house with a HOA.

Again, if the OP has a letter stating that his RV is not a house trailer, he has a clear upper hand assuming there isn't a clause in the current HOA Contract that says they can change that rule. They would have to demonstrate that the letter was a mistake AND that it had no bearing on the OP buying the house.

I can honestluy say that I lived in a "house trailer" many years ago. It was a 22 foot "M System" house trailer. It did not have any 12 VDC wiring or lights. It had an oil burner heater. It had a gas kitchen range and an electric water heater. It had no fresh water tank, nor any waste water holding tanks. It was definitely NOT any kind of "RV"!
Years later, we lived in a 14X70 3 bedroom Mobile Home. It had 2X6 exterior wall studs, asphalt shingles on the roof, 200 AMP AC service, electric 40 gallon water heater, all the comforts of a site-built house. In fact, it was better built than some site built homes! It, too, was definitely NOT an RV!
The situation described by the OP is exactly why, when we were looking for a home after three years of full-timing, I did not want any HOA. CCRs are irrelevant, because without an HOAS there is nobody to enforce them. We have a few (VERY few) CCRs, but no HOA. I like it that way.
I hope the OP got things settled in his favor.

mgirardo wrote:

SC camper wrote:
A few busy bodies, that feel the need to try and point out anything that they dont like, are the ones trying to be heard. A homeowner asked about the "violations" people were complaining about. One of the busy bodies spouted off about boats and campers were not allowed.

We have an owner like that in our neighborhood, we call him the mayor. He tells people they can't park their U-Haul in their driveway, even while they were still moving in! He told a new homeowner that it is illegal to block a path some neighborhood kids made on the new owner's property so they could cut through the new owner's yard to get to the school next to our neighborhood. Everyone knows the mayor :)

I am glad it worked out for you.

-Michael

The "Mayor" needs to meet "Big Mitch".
Mitch is a heck of a nice guy - would give you the shirt off his back.

Irvine, CA (where Mitch was living at the time) is notorious for HOA / CCRs that limit what homeowners and businesses can and can't do. VERY restrictive.

One of those prohibits homeowners from working on cars. Big Mitch was out in front of his home, opened the hood of his new pickup (parked in his driveway) to check the oil level.

A guy who regularly walked his small dog past Mitch's house every day just happened to be passing by......commented what Mitch was doing was prohibited!

Without a word, Mitch walked over to the spot on his lawn where the walker's dog had just left a deposit (a daily occurrence, with NO cleanup), picked it up walked back to the "complainant" (dog walker) - and smeared it down the front of the dog walker's shirt.

Mitch never saw the dog walker again!

~

The name specification is based on the construction. Look for building specifications on the various types to find the differences.

A house trailer is 8ft wife with a flat park model type front and/or doesn’t have holding tanks. A travel trailer has the angled front and holding tanks. You already got the OK. So it shouldn’t be an issue!

SC camper wrote:
Covenant reads "No house trailer or mobile home shall be placed on any lot either temporarily or permanently". Further in the covenant stats "All boats, trailers and all vehicles other than automobiles shall be kept under suitable cover".

This grouping with mobile home would seem to imply the association does not allow a secondary living space such as to preserve the neighborhood as a 'single family' residential area.

Secondly with the required cover it further shows that these recreational items stored is OK as long as they are covered to prevent daily use while parked at the residence. Any major repairs, restoration projects must be done off-site.

Assuming you do cover the trailer I believe you are in compliance as stated and and in compliance with implied use.

bikendan wrote:

Dutch_12078 wrote:

bikendan wrote:

Ozlander wrote:

MrWizard wrote:
I always thought house trailer was mobile home
House trailer was the old term, mobile home the new term

While they can be moved, they are not self contained (that's a biggie)
And are designed to be moved and then set up,
Not for going camping

I think if you ask, you will find the HOA covenant is to keep members from placing a mobile home on the property and living in it

Not a restriction of RV storage, as long as stored by the rules

The people complaining, don't know or don't care
But they are wrong

Mr. Wizard got it right. The key, not self contained.

I agree, mobile homes, park models and destination trailers don't have holding tanks. Therefore aren't self-contained.
Question is, willing the HOA agree.

Not to quibble, but doesn't that rule out a lot of popups, teardrops, etc.?

all popups have FW holding tanks and many have gray and black tanks.
don't know much about teardrops but the big ones like Rpod and T@B have holding tanks.

Some do have holding tanks, but not all by any means. And a fresh tank alone does not qualify as "self-contained".

travelnutz wrote:
In our state, meeting occupancy living codes and under 400 Sq Ft living space with having wheels under it as a single unit is classified as an RV and is/must be licensable as an RV only.

Over 400 Sq Ft living space on wheels or with axles and wheels is classified as a manufactured mobile home and is not licensable. Must have permits to transport it as 102" vehicle/trailer width is the max without having permits for any roadway use.

Always scratching my head as to why people desire to live in an HOA controlled area. If you own your own property and pay taxes on it and meet the legal voted on and passed into law state division area occupancy codes and keep the property site in acceptable maintenance and repair, that should be the ONE and only governing requirement. Not an HOA telling you what you can or cannot do on your own privately owned taxes paid property. Your home is your OWN castle and doesn't belong to anyone else or should be you told what to do on it as long as it's within the written laws of the state you live in. Not HOA controlling desires.

We have a very nice wonderful large home (2800 sq ft with a large attached multi-stall garage an over a 1000 sq ft finished off to match the home 6" thick floored toy barn 22' high to the roof peak about 80' behind with it's own separate driveway and all is always kept up to snuff) and will or would NEVER live in or under any HOA stifling controls! Period!!!

I personally like an HOA (as long as it's not too strict, like the one I run), because it does keep values up, and prevents someone from parking 10 cars in their yard, or placing a mobile home on a lot next door to someone who spent a lot of money to build a custom home, or leaving their entire yard unlandscaped or full of weeds, etc. But if the HOA gets over zealous and creates too many strict rules, it lowers the property values IMO, because it starts to deter people from wanting to live there. I know in my area, my neighborhood has the least strict rules out of all of them and that's why we picked it. Most require RVs to be inside an outbuilding or garage, so our "rules" about RVs are pretty lenient compared to that. But even with limited rules, which people agree to when they purchase their home here, there's always people who think the rules don't apply to them, the worst of which being middle aged men :)

It's also next to impossible in our area to find a neighborhood that's newer than about 1990 that doesn't have an HOA of some kind.

SC camper wrote:

westernrvparkowner wrote:
I think you might have an even bigger fight with the "kept under suitable cover" clause. To me, that would mean inside covered storage, not under a tarp, which is what they are going to claim your Adco Designer cover basically is. Is this a targeted move against you specifically, or are there other, perhaps less attractive, RVs being stored in the neighborhood?
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I talked with the HOA seven years ago about approved covering. At first it was, has to match the house siding, shingled roof, concrete floor and garage door. So I asked for approval for a 20x40, story and a half tall building, in the back of our 1/2 acre yard. They were not happy about the size so I suggested the Adco as a low profile alternative. They were on board for that. Personally I would be happier with some type of structure to store it under.

Glad it worked out for you. Curious if they attached a clause that specified the condition of the cover. Soft covers sure look good new, but I have seen many that look like a bunch of tattered rags after years of weathering. It sounds like you are responsible and reasonable, which aren't universal traits. Unfortunately rules generally have to be created to protect against the bottom five percent who are neither reasonable or responsible. Unfortunately, those rules often leave open pathways for the "my way or the highway" crowd to butt in.