Single Family defined

ElenaB FLA The excellent Florida commenters can help you here. But with your asking for 'Please explain', this may help you open the analytical door to helpful questions when you hire competent legal advice. This ain't such legal advice.

Depending on how well & actionably your governance documents define 'single family' and on what your jurisdiction's statute & judicial caselaw can do with all such, one approach includes to ask whether a SEQUENCE of 'single family' full unit usages technically contravenes lawful unit uses ?

1- For example, does an hotel-keeping/Innkeepers Act type SEQUENCING with marketing to get short term visitors or partiers, frequent check-ins/check-outs, etc constitute a contravention ?

After all it superficially looks like 'one single family at a time'.

2- Or instead of frequent turnover, hotel-like sequencing of what looks like a short term single family, would a DORM STYLE group of unrelated university students under a single lease without bedroom locks but lacking any family connection/ blood line nor adoptive connection, ( would such ) be a violation of docs/law/caselaw ?

3 - ( A no-nonsense judge in my own jurisdiction ruled that the hotel-like sequencing of short term single families was a commercial contravention of judicially-treated 'single family' within my own jurisdiction. The precedent would be useless to you, but not its demonstration of judicial analysis/ the judicial mind at work if the raw material allows it :

http://ontario.cafcor.org/index.php?option=com_fireboard&Itemid=46&func=view&catid=9&id=18644#18644

Single Family designator isn't an HOA thing. It's a Bank/Real Estate definition. To break it down. It means you can't turn your home into a rehab center. A single family home isn't a business nor is it broke up into separate entities. Now you can have a "mother-in-law" suite and still be a single family home. However, you can't break up the inside of the home and rent/sell each portion out.

I've heard where some homes in HOA's have been converted to half-way, frat, or rehab houses. Which is what the "Single family" home definition is put into HOA documents to prevent.

Interesting question. I do not think that its wise to limit rental restrictions in terms of 'family' since that term is open to debate. Although we have a rental amendment, a prior board allowed 2 women to rent a house together (they were not gay), so now we cannot adhere to our own rules without subjecting ourselves to a possible lawsuit. We decided that a family would consist of no more than 2 unrelated adults (with both being on the lease) and only the amount of children that our local ordinances say is legal occupancy. So 2 women with 5 kids each would not be able to rent a 3 bedroom home. This makes more sense to us than trying to define a family. I cannot imagine trying to force folks to prove they are related by blood and marriage also includes same sex couples but try asking 2 women to prove they are gay. Its a futile attempt to force people into your classification. What are you really trying to accomplish? You are trying to limit how many tenants are in a home.

In today society this is potentially a stupid item depending on how worded to have in documents. For example if you have same sex partners who purchase a home together and your State does not allow same sex marriage ... they are not related. However, under other laws if you give them grief you could end up in a large lawsuit.

My question ... Why are you asking this question???

LOL ...