neighborhood covenant says no poultry

[itom37]

If your nearby neighbors (Ideally anyone who might realize you have them and have even the slightest cause to care) are ok with it, then i'd go for it.

If anyone ever gives your grief, try to be nice, offer free eggs, reason with them. If they're insistent, I'd say you'll need to get rid of your birds.

 

[qtbird]

Thats sad

we had actually planned them as pets. Believe it or not. My husband travels a lot and our kids are all grown and out of state. I love animals and had chickens when I was younger. Oh well, I guess all I can do is try.

 

[itom37]

Quote:
she could just be interested... but you know her motives better than I do.

with neighbors like that... plausible deniability is the way to go. Privacy fence (even just to obscure the coop and run), obfuscating plantings, etc. I built a privacy fence because I knew my coop-adjacent neighbor was selling his house and might not want them for that reason (our city says chickens ok if neighbors within 150 feet agree). I also, out of pure neighborliness

, helped him build a similar fence. He didn't even know i had them until that day, and said that he didn't even know they were there, which i take as consent and acknowledgement that they aren't a disturbance.

 

[qtbird]

Thanks for your response. We have a privacy fence & they will be confined to a run most of the time. Maybe I am worrying over nothing. I am just the kind to plan and prepare rather than waiting to see what happens. If I am wrong wonderful if not then I will be ready to take care of whatever comes up. She says its ok so I am going to go by that verbal agreement. My husband said he will contact the person who was supposed to be overseeing our covenant just to see if there is any other problems we could face. We are both pretty much governed by rules so we want to make sure we dont offend or break rules. Three years ago when he told us not to worry about the covenant we just figured it wasnt being followed or enforced. But better safe than sorry. Thanks again.

 

[PaulaSB12]

Quote:
who in their right mind bans clothes drying on a clothes line?

 

[wyoDreamer]

There was a court case recently in the area (Wyoming) where a neighborhood sued one of the homeowners for getting peacocks (or pheasants,something like that). It seems that poultry were forbidden in the covenants of the HOA. The guy won and got to keep his birds because every house in that subdivision broke one or more of the covenants. Judge said if none of the other covenants were being enforced, then that one could not be enforced either.

 

[Sonoran Silkies]

Quote:
Selective enforcement is not legal--exactly. If the board operates on a complaint system, and cracks down wheneever someone complains, but does not otherwise do inspections for compliance, it would probably be upheld. If they enforce some provisions, but not others, the ones that are not enforced can be ruled as not enforceable. If they try to enforce a rule against some, but not all who break it, chances are it will be tossed as well.