No covenants/restrictions recorded

I am purchasing a lot within a subdivision in South Dakota. I recently went to the courthouse to aquire the covenants and restrictions filed on the lot. The courthouse has none on file and says there are no restrictions. I developer had the practice of platting and offering for sale only two lots per year for a while and this is one of the older undeveloped lots. I know there is an HOA for the development. Do the HOA covenants apply even though there is none filed for this lot and block?

I won't close on the lot for a couple weeks and we will also see what the title company comes back with.

Mike,

I would be cautious about accepting the word of the county employees who say there are no coventants recorded. Not being able to find a recorded covenant is not the same thing as no recorded covenants.

Go back to the courthouse and pull up copies of the deeds for the lots around the one you are going to purchase. See if there is reference to recorded restrictions on those deeds or if there is language on the deeds themselves that create restrictions.

Have you asked the seller directly about this HOA and how it derives its authority?