I’m all for neighborhoods in the dry West creating fire-safe homes and making firebreaks to help head off wildfires, but in the story linked below you have to read between the lines.
In Summit County, Colorado the Summit Park Homeowners Association is telling homeowners that the HOA’s covenants require homeowners to maintain wildfire breaks around their properties.
A number of property owners are saying, “Huh? This isn’t a Homeowners Association! I only moved here because there wasn’t a Homeowners Association!”
Somebody pushing to enforce wildfire advice went back into real estate records and discovered there actually were some covenants created back in 1959, but nobody told the homeowners, not even Realtors who originally sold the properties. Now those homeowners may be stuck with covenants never recorded in their deeds.
The lesson here isn’t that we’re mad at requirements to properly maintain your property. It’s that Homeowners Associations can suddenly pop up in neighborhoods where most folks thought they were HOA-free!
(click here for Park Record News)
