Enforcement ability in TN

I'm looking for thoughts and opinions on a situation in Tennessee.

I'm a real estate professional that represents clients that are buying a property in the rural area of a county. The MLS listing did. Or mention an HOA, the past few deeds on the property do not list any restrictions. My clients went next door and spoke with a woman that told them that the water runs off of a natural spring and that there is an HOA that handles that for 25.00 a month. They tell her of their intentions of having about 5-10 chickens and a goat or two and she tells them that "the association" doesn't allow farm animals. She loves on a farm with 100 chickens, 30 peacocks, several head of cattle, but tells them she is exempt because she was been there since before the "association" was started in the 80's.

I called the director of the association to obtain the by-laws and was told they are on file at the county courthouse. We searched courthouse records for the property as well as several neighborhood properties and could not find any bylaws. All the deeds we searched have no restrictions on them.

Is this basically a group of neighbors trying to keep people from having certain things that move into the area, or are their requirements enforceable?

Thanks.

I am surprised you don't know this information already being a Real Estate Professional. Your looking for the WRONG documents first of. Your to look for the Covenants and Restrictions (CC&R's) not By-laws. By-laws are not required to be filed and are in the possession of the HOA itself (If they exist). CC&R's are PUBLIC documents and are to be recorded at the records department of that county.

You also may have to look for the Articles of Incorporation. They are filed with the STATE. They are also PUBLIC documents. This is what incorporates the HOA. They contain a lot of the business setup/operations of the HOA. May be available on a STATE website.

The HOA is NOT responsible for providing you this information. They can do it as a courtesy. Your NOT a member until you sign that dotted line. So it's really up the HOA to decide what information to share with outsiders. Otherwise, the documents your looking for is PUBLIC.

Thanks Tim.

I was trying to be simplistic and quick in my original post by just using "bylaws".

We obviously have looked for any and all documents pertaining to the "HOA" and have found nothing.

I did forget to mention that when all this was created, a developer owned all of the land including the roads and they even restricted motor cycles. The president told me that they no longer enforce that because now the roads are owned/maintained by the county and they can't enforce it.

The company that developed that land and had those rules has gone bankrupt. Is there a possibility that those rules are now not enforceable now that the company that developed them is no longer in the picture and we can't find anything else?

I thought I was clear that we have searched for those and found nothing.

My question is based on the premise that with none of those documents existing, can they still hold my clients to the rules regarding farm animals?

You want a "can they or can't they" answer and that answer depends on the existence of those documents. As Kerry said, the title company should be able to help.

Being recorded and not being found are two different things.


If the documents were not recorded, then your clients would not be held to those deed restrictions.

However, if they were simply not located because they were misfiled, then they could be in a huge legal battle.

One poster on a different thread found out in a legal action against them that some restrictions were indeed filed. Nobody found them until the actual legal process began. So it does happen.

Have you tried searching other properties within the development to see if they can point you to the book and page number of the recorded documents for their land?