Updating covenants

My association has 10 homes. Our covenants clearly state that there will be no outside animals, farm animals or breeding of. Twenty years ago all the home owners voted to let one of them have 2 horses on the property, but covenants were never updated. Now 20 years later the residents of this property are selling their home. They want the Board to approve the new owners also have horses on the property. Association is divided not all agree that new owners should be allowed to have horses. Now another resident new to our Association wants to also have horses. In the mean time the State Of Missouri enacted law that unless all members that are affected by the change agree, nothing can be changed. I do have a leg to stand on correct?

To whom would you make such an argument?

The argument would be along the lines of, "Twenty years ago we all voted to do something that none of us remember precisely but it might have been an amendment to our CC&R's but no one bothered to record whatever it was we all agreed on but now some of us no longer agree with whatever it was we did."

The failure to record the amendment - if there was one - is fatal. The owners who are selling their property with the horses have no lawful basis for claiming to keep the horses and/or transferring that right to a new owner if the recorded covenants forbid keeping horses.

If there was some sort of approval given to the horse owners years ago - whether it was a formal amendment or not - they should have recorded whatever documents memorialized the approval. Anyone who is granted a waiver or approval by their association should record the documents because sooner or later someone is going to insist that it never happened.

The courts


Hence the reason to look at the official record, the minutes.