Appellate
Decision Sheds Light on Owners' Obligation for
Maintenance in a Voluntary Association; Reaffirms
"Lot Combination" Rule
The North Carolina Court
of Appeals recently held that property owners
within a subdivision must contribute their fair
share to maintaining all of the subdivision’s
roads and amenities even though they actually used
only a portion of the roads to get to and from
their home, did not use any of the subdivision’s
amenities, and were not even members of the
subdivision’s voluntary owners’
association. In
Tanglewood POA v. Isenhour, the property
owners argued that if they bore any responsibility
for maintenance at all, it should be limited to
contributing a pro rata share to the
maintenance of the portion of road they actually
used, and not for amenities ‒ a boat ramp and
picnic area among them ‒ that they did not
use. Although the trial court agreed with
the Isenhours, the Court of Appeals did not.
First noting that there was
no binding agreement on the matter, and that the
Isenhours freely admitted that they owned
easements to all of the common area and roads by
virtue of the subdivision plat, the Court of
Appeals held that the Isenhours should contribute
to maintenance of all of the common area depicted
on the plat. While the Isenhours themselves
may not be using the amenities and other roads in
the Subdivision, the Court stated, their easement
afforded them the right to do so and that
right would “run with the land;” this conferred a
benefit and added value to their property, the
Court concluded. In
analyzing the situation, the Court was careful to
point out the importance of the fact that the
Isenhours used a portion of the road for
ingress and egress, suggesting the possibility
that it might have held differently if the
defendants had no interaction whatsoever with the
common areas and roads (e.g., separate access to
state-maintained roads).
Claremont Decision re
“Lot Combination” Reaffirmed
In a notable digression,
the Court of Appeals further held that the
Isenhours owed two assessments ‒ one for each of
the original two lots that they had purchased ‒
despite the fact that they had since combined
their lots into one for tax purposes.
In reaching that
conclusion, the Court relied on, and essentially
reaffirmed the holding it reached sixteen years
ago in Claremont v. Gilboy. In
Claremont, the Court articulated the rule
that, absent any contrary provisions in the
governing documents, combining previously-platted
lots does not relieve an owner from
paying the same number and amount of assessments
as the owner did on the lots as originally
purchased. Until the Tanglewood
case, the Claremont opinion remained
something of an “outlier” with no decisions in
North Carolina either following or distinguishing
it since it was decided in 2001.
Tanglewood
underscores that the rule in Claremont
remains the law of North Carolina. Keep in
mind, however, that a subdivision’s declaration
can expressly counter that holding by expressly
providing for lot combinations that reduce the
owners’ obligations for
assessments.
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