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Townhouse bylaws and shared property - question


skwatra

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I have a friend that lives in a set of 3 townhomes near Montrose. They do not have any bylaws, been living in harmony for years. They basically split cost for someone to maintain the landscaping and shared grass and there is really nothing else to deal with. They had talked about parking before, and only the people that live there park in front of each garage in the shared drive, and its tight but everyone can get in and out. Last week one of the tenants got angry (about something unrelated to parking) and said that my friend's roommate can't park where he parks because its in the way of her being able to pull out of her garage. She said she would take legal action if he parked there.

 

1. Does she have legal recourse?

2. If there is no formal HOA, who owns and governs the shared property?

3. Are they required to have an HOA or Bylaws?

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Look at the plats. In this situation, the property line is likely the midline between the houses, and there's likely an easement that grants all of the other owners access to use the driveway. There isn't any shared property, most of the time. There should have been a lot of documents at closing that made add ll of this clear.

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Thanks that's helpful! I only asked her if bylaws exist at this point, I haven't gotten any details on what info she has.

How do I search for plats? I found the Harris County website but don't know how to search for a specific address.

 

But you did give me an idea to use the HCAD map viewer, and I found her property dimensions on there so I assume that is the same concept? I think that provides me enough info to figure out where her property line ends.

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HCAD maps are a good place to start, as are the Harris County Tax office block books(http://www.hctax.net/Property/Resources). The closing documents should have had a copy of the survey. The Harris County Clerk's website has images of deeds available.

 

Some of this is from our experience owning a townhome in Midtown, where the only common property was the mailbox area, and that was owned by the HOA. Everything else was split up to where someone owned it.

 

 

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