ignorance, judgment, neighbors

[Usmcsousa]

SO my wife and I bought our first MH finally!
But first lets rewind.
About a year and a half ago, we bought our first home, 2000 square ft absolutely beautiful in a quite dead end neighborhood.
I knew then i wanted two things, a flag pole to fly my usmc and american flag and a large enough driveway for a class a.
Our "wonderful " neighbors have been great up until recently.
A few months ago, i pulled our new used 34 foot gem up to our home and like with any new toy, began making it ours, wash wax rip out the old, put in the new ect.
Not even 4 hours into my endeavor, this 200+ year old lady from waaay down the road( not visible from our property ) walked up to my driveway to kindly explain to me that there are restrictive covenants in our neighborhood. Which my realtor neglected to inform us of.
She came back the next day with a print out, sure enough, no flag poles, no motorhomes, amongst 140 other ridiculous restrictions.
About a week later i moved my mh off of MY property and into storage. Even though. We have NO hoa and 3/4s of the neighborhood are not in compliance with the covenants.
I recently found a facebook page of our neighborhood where i read a lot of nasty comments from about 4 select neighbors of which I've never met, calling us trailer trash and scum, putting their childrens safety at risk ect.
I was shocked to say the least, not One of these folks actually spoke to us about their concerns, just blasted my character over the internet.
Am i crazy for wanting to sell my $200,000+ home to go live in my MH with the friendliest "trailer trash" people I've ever had the pleasure of meeting throughout our short RV'ing travels?

[2oldman]

Francesca Knowles wrote:
For those restrictions to be valid they must be recorded somewhere in an accessible place. Hard to understand how you could have missed them until that "200-year-old-lady" showed up with a copy!

Yeah.. when you buy you sign a lot of papers.. and sometimes we don't always carefully READ those papers. That could be the case here.

[Francesca_Knowl]

Was this your first-ever home purchase?

I ask because checking codes/restrictions on a property before buying is sort of standard procedure for experienced homebuyers. For those restrictions to be valid they must be recorded somewhere in an accessible place. Hard to understand how you could have missed them until that "200-year-old-lady" showed up with a copy!

In any case:
I think I read elsewhere here that your new-to-you Moho is a 1985 that you paid $3500.00 for, and that you were working on ripping things out etc in order to "make it yours". It's my understanding that this is exactly the kind of situation that deed restrictions are meant to forbid...could that form any basis for neighborly complaints?

Don't get me wrong- I'm a die-hard do-it-yourselfer and have lots of unfinished projects all over my property- Don't think I could pass the blood test to buy into an HOA community! 😉

[wallynm]

I belong to three HOAs and shame on you for not knowing. However, I can tell you that if the CC&Rs have not been enforced you and you neighbors can litigate the issue. Depending on the state you are in there may be laws and other rules that require to hold a certain number of meetings, provide each homeowner with certain notices and other material and if they do not then the CC&Rs may be declared null and void. Given the fact you are in CA I can not believe that HOAs are unregulated by the sate.

investigate and participate

Usmcsousa wrote:
SO my wife and I bought our first MH finally!
But first lets rewind.
About a year and a half ago, we bought our first home, 2000 square ft absolutely beautiful in a quite dead end neighborhood.
I knew then i wanted two things, a flag pole to fly my usmc and american flag and a large enough driveway for a class a.
Our "wonderful " neighbors have been great up until recently.
A few months ago, i pulled our new used 34 foot gem up to our home and like with any new toy, began making it ours, wash wax rip out the old, put in the new ect.
Not even 4 hours into my endeavor, this 200+ year old lady from waaay down the road( not visible from our property ) walked up to my driveway to kindly explain to me that there are restrictive covenants in our neighborhood. Which my realtor neglected to inform us of.
She came back the next day with a print out, sure enough, no flag poles, no motorhomes, amongst 140 other ridiculous restrictions.
About a week later i moved my mh off of MY property and into storage. Even though. We have NO hoa and 3/4s of the neighborhood are not in compliance with the covenants.
I recently found a facebook page of our neighborhood where i read a lot of nasty comments from about 4 select neighbors of which I've never met, calling us trailer trash and scum, putting their childrens safety at risk ect.
I was shocked to say the least, not One of these folks actually spoke to us about their concerns, just blasted my character over the internet.
Am i crazy for wanting to sell my $200,000+ home to go live in my MH with the friendliest "trailer trash" people I've ever had the pleasure of meeting throughout our short RV'ing travels?

[afrescopXx]

We have a somewhat strong HOA where we live. Generally the HOA has helped to maintain the property values by their enforcement of the deed restrictions. As a matter of fact, when driving into this 3,400 home development there is a welcome sign at the bottom of which it says "A Deed Restricted Community". I cannot bring our motorhome to the house and park it for more than 48 hours. That was a fact I knew before we bought an RV. We store it in a facility nearby.

On the subject of the flag: Our deed restrictions permit flag poles as long as they are no higher than a specified height. As a retired military service member nothing gets me more angry than seeing someone being harassed by their HOA for fly Old Glory! Our development is 40%-50% active and retired military so there are many flags.

I do not know if you have a case or not but I remember one of the first things taught me at a police academy was "Ignorance of the law is no excuse".

Remember, the Internet has created many anonymous bullies. These same people would slither away from you in a face to face confrontation.

[discovery4us]

My neighborhood had CC & R's that the builder put in place but as soon as he was done so were the CC & R's. Since you don't pay HOA fees I would imagine this is the same as your situation. Our local police don't have the time or more importantly the authority to enforce any of these but will on occasion enfore city ordinances.

I am a big fan of working with neighbors and keeping up the neighborhood but any neighbor that was against me flying the nations colors on a flag pole in my front yard would get zero cooperation from me.

[Star_Gazer]

We built in a subdivision with restrictions because we wanted some kind of protection to our property values against junked up houses. The restrictions are not too hard to follow since our lots are 5+ acres. RV's or boats behind the front line of the house, paved driveways, fences must be painted black, min size square footage, no nusiance type activities, keep front mowed. etc. General things most would agree to.

So we had a guy run his carpet cleaning business out of his house, vans, employees, mess, traffic, etc. Everyone complained so I arranged a meeting for everyone at our local library. Not a single person wanted to make our convenants legal by forming an HOA even though they want people to follow the rules. It does not work that way unless you want to try and enforce them yourself with a lawyer, and not even sure it that would work.

So what this means is our convenants are not worth the paper they are written on even though they are filed in the county clerks office. The only think that is in effect is the county zoning and ordinances. Which is what eventually got rid of the carpet guy, although it took them about a year to shut him down.

And we do have a couple RV's parked in front of peoples homes, even though they have acres of room behind their house, just don't understand why you would want it out front if you have room out of sight.

Not sure what the point of my reply is, other than some basic restrictions can be good for everyone.

[jake2250]

CA Traveler wrote:
Good advice above about taking photos. Plus add documentation.

Good call on documentation!! One simple way is to use the local paper,, include the front page of the local paper in your photo,, make sure date is visible!!

Remember: "When in Rome,,,Do as the Romans do"!!!

[MrWizard]

my 'Personal' opinion try to avoid legal disputs
if there is this covenant with the city , you will end up fighting the city, not miss busy body
as for those other people not in compliance
i would not report them or hassle them
i would make friends with them
you got singled out because busy body did not like the Big RV ?
don't make it hard for the others , they have a vested interest in staying put
you might need them to stand by you

consider selling and moving to a place with no restrictions
others on this forum have done that

[Daveinet]

Usmcsousa wrote:

I recently found a facebook page of our neighborhood where i read a lot of nasty comments from about 4 select neighbors of which I've never met, calling us trailer trash and scum, putting their childrens safety at risk ect.
I was shocked to say the least, not One of these folks actually spoke to us about their concerns, just blasted my character over the internet.

Hmm, with the threat of lawsuit defamation of character, you may get them to back off completely. Without an HOA, they may not have any legal standing anyway. But since they have publicly made statements about your character, this would be very easy to file a suit. It is pretty easy to identify who posted. Beat them to the punch and they may back off completely, especially when they find out their covenants may not be worth the paper they are written on.

[I_am_still_wayn]

To the original poster:
State laws differ state to state and while you have received some interesting comments, many may not be applicable to your situation. You really need to understand your situation as it is today, not what some neighbor thinks it is. An attorney whose practice includes real estate law, not a real estate closing attorney, could offer some good advice. But first, get your deed or a copy of it from the Court Clerk's office. Then find the complete covenants for your property; your deed should reference them. Read them both thoroughly. Some issues come to mind:
1. Your property may be exempt.
2. The covenants may expire after a certain time frame.
3. Lack of continual enforcement may void certain restrictions.
4. Lack of an active HOA may make enforcement by any one individual impossible.

[DutchmenSport]

Reading this entire thread just makes me sick. It's a bad reminder of why we moved! Much better location now, extremely happy, and can park and use my camper anywhere on my property! But it wasn't nice back then!

[CA_Traveler]

Good advice above about taking photos. Plus add documentation.

[Tiggs]

I fought my HOA in Indiana over the height of my fence and won so I have some experience 😉 Now I live way out in the country where I can do just about anything I want.

I would verify that there are indeed covenants filed on your own parcel. It is possible that the developer was a bit sloppy and neglected to include them (It does happen.) If you do, you'll need to know how enforcement is handled. If it is the responsibility of the other homeowners, it would need to be someone with deep pockets to start a suit so the violation would have to be really important to them. If a HOA exists and they are in charge of enforcement, you'll need to get a copy of their documents, bylaws, articles, etc. Inactive or poorly run HOA's fail to have proper elections and they are may be the only party who can file suit and if they aren't duly elected they have no legal authority to do so. If they aren't collecting dues, they won't have the money to pay an attorney to sue you anyway.

Every house in the development can be in non-compliance over one issue or another but if you are the only one with a motorhome then they can reach out then it's not selective enforcement.

Sorry that this sort of thing happened to you. It happens more than folks realize.

[CA_Traveler]

RichieC wrote:
The covenants are meaningless if the HOA isn't properly maintained. ...

Fully agree with this and the prior post. But check on this as it may take a number of years or circumstances before they become meaningless. And it might vary by state or area.

[mikim]

Buy 2 hours of time with a local real estate attorney. My initial response is wondering who the enforcement body is? I do not think it can be "a neighbor". It sounds like the developer established the rules but did not have any way to enforce them.

In California, several laws have been enacted to prevent aggressive HOA rules. Thus, State Law, says how to interpret HOA rules.

But then from reading your OP, there is no HOA.