Holiday Lake Estates, Goodrich Texas, Polk County, is proposing a Deed Restriction change to their governing documents. To accomplish this, they will be using Texas Property Code 211 ( –> Read More Here ). Here is an explanation of the proposed change, and an image that we hope can make others understand why some of the residents are very concerned about this change (please read through the entire, very long, post):
We have 450+ unique owners, of those 236 own more than 1 lot. Which means that over 50% of the property owners here own more than 1 lot. That is the majority of owners. I own 1 lot, but if I were one of those ‘majority of multiple lot’ owners, I would not want my voting rights on deed restriction changes to be taken away from my additional lots. Not when I am paying more in dues, for each. Our community is too diverse. Some people own multiple houses with parents or children in them. Some own rental properties. Some owners have inherited additional parents homes on death. Do you take away their voting rights?
THE EXISTING DEED RESTRICTIONS PARAGRAPH VS. THE NEW CHANGE AND WORDING:** This is an image of the original Deed Restriction paragraph that will be changed with new wording and an additional paragraph. Read it. The wording in the ORIGINAL, boxed in purple, is going to be replaced the the wording on the REVISED that is boxed in red.
EXAMPLE: right now, people who own 10 lots get 10 votes, but they also pay, and invest in the maintenance of the common areas, $140. A person with 1 lot, gets 1 vote, and pays $14. So, over 10 years, the person with 10 lots will pay $1,400 and the person with 1 lot will pay $140, and so on. Resident who have been able to vote their 10 lots, some, for decades, will only have 1 vote. For all those years, they have been paying 10 times the amount of a single lot owner, investing more in the community.
But that is not the ONLY thing that concerns us. It is also the wording of who can vote for deed restriction changes. The original says simply says “owners of lots”, the changed wording is “allocated to property OWNERS ENTITLED TO VOTE on the amendment.” So, who, or what ‘rule’ declares if a lot owner is ‘entitled to vote’. Our last issue is this voting change is being done for deed restrictions, ONLY. Interestingly, elections votes will still go by number of lots. The wording for elections states “At each election, the owner, or owners, of EACH lot shall be entitled to vote one vote. So, in an election, the 10 lot owner gets to vote 10 votes. Election votes effect things until the next election. Deed Restriction changes can last FOREVER ! Does this really seem fair to everyone???
I have said this, many times before, if this proposed change is totally about eventually increasing HLE monies, and you believe that the yearly or even monthly dues need to be more, there is nothing stopping you from paying more. Just give more on a yearly or monthly basis. But, there are people in HLE who cannot afford much more, believe it or not. And, there are people who already spend a lot of personal funds doing service work within the community. Remember, any changes to Deed Restrictions ‘go with the land’ and even if the HOA, for some reason, is ended, that will NOT CHANGE THE DEED RESTRICTIONS. Once they are recorded with the county, that is it.