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Old 09-30-2016, 01:14 AM
 
11 posts, read 10,713 times
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Maybe you all can answer this for me. What, exactly, does it mean when I see a house that says: Protective Covenants & HOA in place with $300 yearly dues?

I understand what an HOA is but where I am from the HOA maintains the community swimming pool, makes you keep your grass at a certain height, and tells you what colored Christmas lights you're allowed to use in December. What would an HOA do for a property that sits on 40 acres and is ready for horses?
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Old 09-30-2016, 02:08 AM
 
Location: Where the mountains touch the sky
666 posts, read 1,044,192 times
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Westcliffe is in a gorgeous valley, has a cute little town with character and lots of horse people/horse properties. It's small though, and I don't know anything about the schools there but imagine they don't offer the opportunities of a larger town. It's about an hour and half away from Co Spgs and worth the drive if only to admire the scenic beauty of the Sangre de Cristo mountains.
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Old 09-30-2016, 08:32 AM
 
914 posts, read 2,189,283 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by rphwrites View Post
Maybe you all can answer this for me. What, exactly, does it mean when I see a house that says: Protective Covenants & HOA in place with $300 yearly dues?

I understand what an HOA is but where I am from the HOA maintains the community swimming pool, makes you keep your grass at a certain height, and tells you what colored Christmas lights you're allowed to use in December. What would an HOA do for a property that sits on 40 acres and is ready for horses?
Pretty much the same sort of thing, but without the pool. You usually have to get approval for any new or altered building, restrictions on the number of cars/trucks/trailers, any number of things. There may be a community building, or even a lake so that members have something to argue about.
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Old 09-30-2016, 09:00 AM
 
Location: Santa Fe, NM
1,835 posts, read 3,140,890 times
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If you are thinking of buying a place that has covenants, you will have an opportunity to review them and back out of the contract if you find them unacceptable, provided you follow the contract deadlines. Make sure you receive and review a copy of the covenants, meeting minutes and financials of any HOA.

I own a parcel of land in a rural mountain community, and there is an annual HOA fee of about $400, which covers road maintenance, snow plowing, trash service (community dumpsters), maintenance of security gate, etc.
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Old 10-01-2016, 05:25 AM
 
11 posts, read 10,713 times
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Originally Posted by TCHP View Post

If you were seriously considering Branson, I'd suggest going west of the Sangres and look at Monte Vista or Del Norte. Both historic San Luis Valley towns with tons of character and becoup horse properties, although property purchased out of town for livestock use will want to have water rights closely considered for your purchase. Sargent school district is fairly highly rated and is where most of the successful farmers and ranchers kids go to school in The Valley.
We actually only checked out Branson because of the wonderful 11-page thread someone started here about 5 years ago. The poster made it sound great and the idea of getting in on a place kind of at the ground level and working with the community sounded good. We were more curious than anything. We're kind of up for an adventure at this point in our lives.

And thank you for the suggestions of Monte Vista and Del Norte. I found some amazing properties there. We plan on going down that way within the next week to see what the area looks like in person.

That's actually why I started this thread. To me, these places are just names on the map or Wikipedia entries, ha ha. It starts getting overwhelming. I like getting suggestions from people who know them. I know from personal experience that the town where I was raised was wonderful. Cheap properties,friendly people,beautiful scenery, etc. However, if a person was moving to the area and wasn't familiar with it, they'd never find it crop up on any website as a "top 10" or whatever and most realtors wouldn't even think of mentioning it. (Kind of good, I guess. Nice keeping some places a secret. ;-) )
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Old 10-02-2016, 02:28 AM
 
Location: West of the Catalinas East of the Tortolitas
4,922 posts, read 8,532,846 times
Reputation: 8044
Quote:
Originally Posted by rphwrites View Post
Maybe you all can answer this for me. What, exactly, does it mean when I see a house that says: Protective Covenants & HOA in place with $300 yearly dues?

I understand what an HOA is but where I am from the HOA maintains the community swimming pool, makes you keep your grass at a certain height, and tells you what colored Christmas lights you're allowed to use in December. What would an HOA do for a property that sits on 40 acres and is ready for horses?
Protective Covenants, Covenants, CC&R's (Conditions, Covenants and Restrictions) are basically the Rules and Regulations that the HOA and/or their attorney or the Community's developer drew up, filed with the State, and give the community structure. They really don't have anything to do with HOA Dues. Dues are collected to keep the budget in the black, to cover maintenance, legal fees, insurance for community buildings, pools, lakes, roads and operating expenses. An association usually has an audit review to make sure the finances are in good shape.

CC&R's can also include acceptable housing paint colors; roof materials, roof pitch, whether construction projects need to be run by the Architectural Committee. Some HOA's require any structure being built to have AC approval including exterior lighting or exterior screen door, what landscaping you can have and whether you need approval from a landscape committee before planting certain trees or shrubs; whether you can use household water for outside plants or animals (many don't allow it and the collection of rain water had been prohibited for centuries), the size and kind of fencing you're allowed, the kind and aggregate of domesticated animals you may have and many other restrictions.

As was said before, you will be given a copy of your CC&R's or Covenants at closing. Read them over carefully so you know whether you agree with them or not. Sometimes a community's CC&R's can be so strict as to be offputting. Other times, they are so lax and enforcement is a joke so that the community looks like a mess. There's a happy medium so make sure you can live with the CC&R's because they're the law of the land...and you're paying to keep the land nice.
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