HOA Declarations

I am in the process of buying a new home that has an HOA. I received the Declarations of Restrictions for the HOA. After reading through them I noticed that there was some information about how the HOA would be handled after a 20 year period. The document was created in June 1995, so the 20 year period would be June 2015. Would someone be willing to read through the attached screenshot of the section that I am curious about. I am just wondering if the HOA is still active or what happens now?

Here is the verbiage:

23. Each of the restrictions above set forth shall continue to be binding upon South Hampton, Inc. and upon its successors and assigns, for a period of twenty (20) years from June 1, 1995, and shall automatically be continued thereafter for successive periods of five (5) years each; provided, however, that the owners of the fee simple title to the majority of the front foot of the of the lots herein described may release all of the land, hereby restricted, from any one or more of said restrictions during the first twenty (20) year period, or during any successive five (5) year period thereafter, by executing and acknowledging an appropriate agreement or agreements in writing for such purposes; and filing the same for record prior to the expiration of this first twenty (20) year period, or of any (5) year period thereafter.

Thank you!

I'm seeing two things:

1. It appears that your HOA is in it's first automatic renewal period which began on June 1, 2015. The next automatic renewal is on June 1, 2020.

2. At any time, a majority of the "front foot" title holders can cancel any or all of the deed restrictions by recording that change.

So if there haven't been any recordings saying that some or all of the deed restrictions were removed, then your Declaration of Restrictions stands.

Two definitions of front foot from the internet:

1. the length of the property that runs along the street. [reasonable]

2. The batsman's foot farthest from his wicket. [gotta love it!]

Seriously though, the language in Megan's Declarations says "majority of front foot of the lots". What does that mean? Add up the front foot (street length) of the lots to get a majority of all the front foot in the HOA? This would be similar to voting in some condominiums where each unit has a percentage to add up.

Difficult language. Quite the sticky wicket, that. The unmistakable conclusion is that the lots bordering the cricket field get to decide the fate of the HOA, as it should be.

Jeff,

I suspect you are correct. It's just that I do not think I have ever heard of the amount of frontage one has on his property to be the basis for voting in a residential HOA, even though my own association bases voting and assessments on acreage owned.

Since many rural associations have to maintain their own roads, assessing by how much frontage one owns would seem to be a fair way of doing it.

I have seen improvement districts where owners are assessed by the amount of frontage they own, the theory being that when the narrow 2-lane road between the cotton fields is widened into a 6-lane boulevard that the land will become more valuable. That theory assumes that convenience stores and strip malls are more desirable than cotton fields.

ditto ditto ditto