A Deed Restricted Community: Fill & Download for Free

People in the United States, being the freedom loving folks we are, believe when we purchase something it is ours to do with as we wish once the purchase is finalized. This is not always true.If you are Italian, Black, Irish, Jewish, Catholic, Asian, Protestant or even just plain old Caucasian, at some point in time a contract was written with the express intent of keeping you out of a community.Those contracts were real estate contracts and those exclusions were/are called covenants.A covenant is a promise in a written contract or a deed of real property. ... Covenants which run with the land, such as permanent easement of access or restrictions on use, are binding on future owners of the property.Note that last sentence, “are binding on future owners of the property”. Racial and religious covenants were widespread in the early 20th century, preventing perceived undesirables from moving into a neighborhood by restricting who could by a house.A mapping project shows how racial discrimination in housing persists in DCThankfully discriminatory deed restrictions were ruled unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1948, in the case of Shelley v. Kraemer. But if you go to your local downtown and search the records sometimes the covenants still exist as purging the hundreds of thousands of written records was impossible in the age before computers.Covenants do still exist and are still legally enforceable though, just not the racist ones. Probably the biggest user of covenants are Churches. A lot of beautiful churches sit vacant and people wonder why. The answer is usually the covenants placed on the church are so restrictive there is not much you can do with the building. Here is an example of one by the Catholic Church. https://www.cimls.com/data_sale/documents/document2_123927.pdfPrivate parties also put restrictive covenants into property sales. For instance (and this has come up recently) you own a lot of land by a body of water, you want to sell some of the land but you dont want the view from your house to be obstructed, when you sell the acre in front of your house you can put a restriction in the contract that the buyer can not build any home higher then one story, or that otherwise restricts the view of your home. That is perfectly legal and binding.In commercial real estate, deed restrictions are used as a business tactic. When some companies permanently close businesses and sell their properties, they attach restrictions to the sites that prohibit rivals from using the land and buildings. Walmart does this a lot when they close a store in favor of a super store they are opening nearby. The deed restrictions usually prohibit sales to other big box retailers.Former owner Caesars Entertainment closed the Showboat in June 2014, deciding that while it was still profitable, it wasn't profitable enough. They placed deed restrictions on the building and the new owner is not allowed to do any casino or sports wagering.Last summer when I went the old casino floor was empty and kind of creepy at night.Showboat Atlantic CityNow whether you consider covenants ridiculous is another matter. Jack Kitty has decided if we are ever to sell our house he wants a deed restriction on dog owners. I told him that was ridiculous but he is still insisting on it as I type this.Go figureJack Kitty on my deskNo dogs, dog owners, or people that like dogs. Keep our neighborhood kitty!

It depends on where you live. I live in a deed restricted community. This means there is an entire Book of Rules we are all supposed to follow in order to maintained a similar look from the outside... However, I also have a walled in Garden attached to my townhome. I can grow whatever I like in there, and I do, using raised planter beds for food.My neighbor has an end unit, so she has a lot of space outside of her Inner Garden area as well to plant in. She has several citrus trees, and herbs growing amongst the decorative plants. Some ways around deed restricted community rules are to do them at night when nobody's watching and follow the “it's better to ask forgiveness than permission” rule. However, I do think they would notice if you were plowing rows and growing corn!There are many great DIY ideas on Pinterest for container gardening for food? But again, you're going to have to check with the rules and regulations within the city and the county where you live, as well as any others imposed upon you, if you live in a suburb or deed, or other somehow restricted community, as to where you're allowed to build/place them.

That all depends on the local ordinances where you live and whether you live in a deed restricted community. I own a home with no restrictions and I have a forty foot old ocean container on my property that was installed by the previous owner. It has a large work bench in it as well as being a great place to store stuff. Old containers are not just cheap, but very useful with large internal spaces. However, they are ugly and have no aesthetic value at all, but mine is tucked away in the back and is hardly visible.