On Mar 12, 12:54?am, Phil Kane wrote:
On Sun, 11 Mar 2007 20:57:50 CST, wrote:
The simple solution of "don't buy a restricted property"
works well in some places and not in others. It all depends
on what houses are for sale in an area when *you* need to
move. In some areas, there's no shortage of affordable
unrestricted homes for sale, but in others, they are
essentially nonexistent.

As you know, Jim, we passed up three homes which were better and nicer
than the one we got because of restrictive covenants or in one case a
"thick" local zoning authority which was known to not understand what
"reasonable accommodation" is all about.

Hello Phil,

Yes, I remember that.

Here's another example:

I moved to this house in October of 1999. It has no
anti-antenna restrictions at all. However, it *does* have
a page and a half of fine print deed restrictions about
what can and cannot be done with the property. The
house was built in 1950, too.

Those deed restrictions were unknown to the seller and
the real estate agents. My real estate attorney and I
found them by reading the deed/title (can't remember
which) and finding a reference in there to "all other
restrictions filed...." That led us to the County Courthouse,
where the restrictions had been filed for the whole
development a half-century earlier. If I hadn't pushed the
issue, I never would have known about the restrictions.

Some might say that it's just due diligence to look up
everything about a property before buying. That's true,
but often it's not practical. When the RE market was hot
here, houses were often under contract the day they
went on the market. Even now, with higher interest rates,
good homes don't stay on the market more than a few days.

As you know, disclosure laws vary from state to state.
Who is going to walk away from a sale at the last
minute because they were informed of restrictions at the
closing?

To me, the most ominous facet of deed restrictions and
covenants is that they are designed to be unchangeable
forever. When it comes to laws, zoning codes and
ordinances can be changed, variances can be allowed, etc., but deed
restrictions and covenants do not fall under
their jurisdiction. As properties have boilerplate restrictions
added, the number of ham-friendly homes drops.

I'm assisting in a case this coming week on just that issue.
--
Excellent! Good Luck!

73 de Jim, N2EY