Do neighborhood covenants expire when all lots are sold

[MadAngler]

Someone told me that covenants were mostly for builders and that they expired when all lots were sold. After that, the neighbors had to get together to decide if/how to extend them.

Has anyone ever heard this before?

 

[Wxguru]

Not necessarily true. I am in the middle of dealing with this in Arkansas. The covenants or Bill of Assurance as it is otherwise known, usually have stipulations on the initial time frame they are valid. Basically, most BOA's/covenants are initially set to run for a 25yr period, and at the end of that period renew in increments of 10yrs unless a change is made to those covenants/BOA's.
As far as being for builders....initially, they are enforced by the developer of the neighborhood. Once said neighborhood is completed, it is then up to the owners of homes in that nighborhood to enforce said convenants/BOA's either via a POA or thru their own means.
So if someone was to break a covenant then, the person filing the complaint would bear the initial responsibility to sue for an injunction against the violator (atleast that is how our BOA spells it out.). At that point, then you are talking about lawyers and courts and that nonsense for simple chickens.
In our city, chickens are allowed as far as I know, and the city does not get involved in disputes over them.
For our BOA, if we want to have a covenant amended, we are required to get 51% of all owners to agree to the change, and submit to the grantor who then would either agree and take to the county courthouse to have the covenants updated.

 

[speckledhen]

Someone told me that covenants were mostly for builders and that they expired when all lots were sold. After that, the neighbors had to get together to decide if/how to extend them.

Has anyone ever heard this before?

In a word, no, they don't expire when all the lots are sold. It's generally similar to what the previous poster said. The neighborhood where we moved has some very minor covenants, made up by the man who bought up the farm land, divided up the lots and sold them to all his friends. There is no association, no one to enforce anything, but they are on file with the county, I guess as permanent covenants. To enforce, say if someone tried to place a mobile home on one of these lots, which is forbidden here, you'd have to appeal to the county to enforce that particular covenant.