Criteria for Amending Declaration

We are a small community, less than 20 homeowners. Our Declaration states that "upon the sale of all of the Residential Estates by the Developer, then, and only to the extent that such amendments do not conflict with the true intent, tenor, and effect hereof the Property Owners Association may cause such amendments hereto to be made which, in its reasonable judgment are in the best of the Subdivision."

Does anyone else have criteria like this to meet for amendments?

Question: we have a provision that states that no residential estate may be further subdivided. Based on the criteria above, if an amendment to ALLOW further subdividing was brought forward, wouldn't that be in conflict with the critera (as it is totally opposite of what the Declaration states) and therefore the Declaration could not be changed accordingly?

Obviously, there might be County or State requirements that would enter into this; but I am interested strictly based on our documents and the criteria given in order to amend our Declaration.

Paul

Has the Declarant/developer sold all the units?

Paul

I believe you are reading it to say that an Amendment to allow sub-dividing cannot be brought forward and voted on as it violates the above bold highlighted. I say the above is very subjective and open to interpretation thus I say an Amendment could be brought forward to sub-divide a lot.

I know this in not what you want to hear and I can understand you not wanting it to happen. I expect were I in your shoes, I would feel the same way. I expect many of your fellow owners would also agree thus I believe your end play should be working to be sure you and your owners defeat such an Amendment if it is brought forward.

Along these lines, you might also take a look at how your docs allows any Amendment to be brought forward. You might could defeat it before it begins. I doubt someone off the street (like a non-owner) can even bring an Amendment forward. You might be able to nip this in the bud.

I would contend if your CCR's state that no residential estate may be further subdivided ... if an amendment to ALLOW was brought forward and passed you potentially will have owners filing lawsuits. For example if everyone purchased on one acre lots and the Declarations stated could not be further subdivided ... everyone agreed to that statement and large sums of money were expended by them and mortgage lenders based on what was stated. If later only some of the one acre lots are divided into 1/4 acre lots it would change the character and "intent" (as you noted above).

My CCR's do not allow further subdivision of lots (most are 2-6 acres) except for 3-4 which are 11+ acre lots. For an owner to subdivide those they need to get approval from the County who will take into account the size of the other lots in the subdivision, HOA approval (with provided new Plat and proposed CCR change, deposit to HOA for attorney to review) to be voted on by the members. All costs are to be on the individual owner to accomplish. However, this was disclosed to all owners in the CCR's prior to their purchase as a potential future action that could happen.

If anyone wanted to allow all lots to be subdivided ... that would be a cold day down below.