Oak Harbor Property Owners' v. Millennium

934 So. 2d 814, 2006 WL 1194316
CourtLouisiana Court of Appeal
DecidedMay 5, 2006
Docket2005 CA 0802
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 934 So. 2d 814 (Oak Harbor Property Owners' v. Millennium) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Louisiana Court of Appeal primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Oak Harbor Property Owners' v. Millennium, 934 So. 2d 814, 2006 WL 1194316 (La. Ct. App. 2006).

Opinion

934 So.2d 814 (2006)

OAK HARBOR PROPERTY OWNERS' ASSOCIATION, INC., Oak Harbor Architectural Review Committee, Azalea Lakes Partnership and Oak Harbor Investment Properties, L.L.C.
v.
THE MILLENNIUM GROUP I, L.L.C. and Esplanade Title, Inc.

No. 2005 CA 0802.

Court of Appeal of Louisiana, First Circuit.

May 5, 2006.

*815 Judith Otero, Mandeville, Counsel for Plaintiffs/Appellees Oak Harbor Property Owners' Association, Inc., Oak Harbor Architectural Review Committee, Azalea Lakes Partnership, and Oak Harbor Investment Properties, LLC.

Ross F. Lagarde, Lawrence E. Abbott, McChord Carrico, Covington, David S. Cressy, Mandeville, Counsel for Defendants/Appellants The Millennium Group I, LLC and Esplanade Title, Inc.

Before: WHIPPLE, McCLENDON, and WELCH, JJ.

McCLENDON, J.

Defendants, The Millennium Group I, L.L.C. (Millennium) and Esplanade Title, Inc. (Esplanade), appeal a judgment in favor of plaintiffs, Oak Harbor Property Owners' Association, Inc., Oak Harbor Architectural Review Committee, Azalea Lakes Partnership, and Oak Harbor Investment Properties, L.L.C. The December, 2004 judgment held that the Restated Declaration and Covenants, Conditions, and Restrictions, Oak Harbor Subdivision, St. Tammany Parish, Louisiana, dated June 26, 1989 (restated restrictions), and the Supplementary Declaration of Covenants, Conditions, and Restrictions, Oak Harbor Boater Service Area, St. Tammany Parish, Louisiana, dated July 28, 1994 (supplementary restrictions),[1] "apply to and encumber" lots located in the Oak Harbor Boater Service Area and owned by *816 either Millennium or Esplanade. In the same judgment, the trial court also found that Azalea Lakes Partnership was the "Declarant" identified in the 1994 supplementary restrictions. Further, the trial court held that the Second Supplementary Declaration of Covenants, Conditions, and Restrictions, Oak Harbor Boater Service Area (second supplementary restrictions), which were confected and filed by the defendants in 2004, were invalid, and ordered the St. Tammany Parish Clerk of Court to remove those restrictions from the public record. Finally, a preliminary injunction was issued directing the defendants to cease uses and construction not approved by the restated and supplementary restrictions and to comply with those restrictions in the Oak Harbor Boater Service Area.[2]

After a thorough review of the record before us, we reverse the holding that Azalea Lakes Partnership was the "Declarant" under the supplementary restrictions governing the Oak Harbor Boater Service Area. We affirm the judgment in all other respects.

The injunction prohibits the defendants from developing the Oak Harbor Boater Service Area in violation of the restated and supplementary restrictions. Thus, the primary issue on appeal is whether the restated and supplementary restrictions apply to Oak Harbor Boater Service Area. Initially, defendants argue that the supplementary restrictions failed to adequately describe the property covered by the restrictions. Thus, Millennium argues that, without a description, it had no notice that the property was encumbered by the provisions of either the restated or supplementary restrictions. Secondly, defendants assert that their approval of the second supplementary restrictions, in the absence of a negative act by the "Declarant," was sufficient to amend or revoke the prior restrictions.[3] In response, Oak Harbor asserts that the supplementary restrictions contained an adequate description and the second supplementary restrictions were not validly authorized, regardless of the status or validity of Azalea Lakes Partnership as the "Declarant."

APPLICABILITY OF RESTRICTIONS

Oak Harbor Boater Service Area was developed as part of the larger Oak Harbor Planned Unit Development (Oak Harbor PUD), which was governed by the restated restrictions. As part of the overall plan of development for the Oak Harbor Boater Service Area, the supplementary restrictions were established and filed of record. Through the supplementary restrictions, the restated restrictions were made applicable to Oak Harbor Boater Service Area. See Article XII, supplementary restrictions. However, Article 11.11 of the supplementary restrictions, governing "Duration, Amendment, and Termination," specifically provides that if a conflict arose between the two sets of restrictions, the supplementary restrictions controlled.

*817 Description

The restated restrictions contain a legal property description of the Oak Harbor PUD. The supplementary restrictions filed in the public record are entitled "SUPPLEMENTARY DECLARATION OF COVENANTS, CONDITIONS AND RESTRICTIONS FOR OAK HARBOR BOATER SERVICE AREA." The introductory paragraph of the supplementary restrictions states that "Declarant [, Landmark Land Company of Louisiana, Inc.,] is the owner and developer of certain real property situated in the Parish of St. Tammany, State of Louisiana, known as Oak Harbor Boater Service Area, which property is more particularly described on Exhibit `B' attached hereto and made a part hereof (hereinafter the `Property') ...." However, Exhibit "B" was not attached to the supplementary restrictions filed in the parish public record in 1994. Landmark sold lots 1-21, 23 and 24 of the Oak Harbor Boater Service Area on July 29, 1994. The cash sale document fully described the property conveyed, including the name of Oak Harbor Boater Service Area, the township and range, a listing of lot numbers, and a reference to the official plan of the Oak Harbor Boater Service Area, found in Map File Number 1053-B filed in the public record on June 10, 1991. Landmark's vendees sold the same property in January of 1997. The 1997 act of sale also contained a full description of the property and referred to the official plan of Oak Harbor Boater Service Area found in Map File Number 1053-B in the parish public record. By act of sale dated August 20, 2003, Millennium acquired certain lots in the Oak Harbor Boater Service Area. The sale document described the property by township and range in St. Tammany Parish, "in that part thereof known as OAK HARBOR BOATER SERVICE AREA, and being more fully described as LOTS 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 23 and 24 ..., as more fully shown by reference to the official plan of Oak Harbor Boater Service Area," found in Map File Number 1053-B, and stated that the said property was subject to the restated and supplemental restrictions. Esplanade acquired lot 10 from Millennium by an act of sale dated August 25, 2004. Although the act stated that the sale was made subject to the second supplementary restrictions, an exhibit to the act referenced the restated and supplementary restrictions as cancelled.[4]

Building restrictions are incorporeal immovables and sui generis real rights likened to predial servitudes. LSA-C.C. art. 777. As real rights, building restrictions are not rights personal to the vendor. Rather, they inure to the benefit of all other property owners under a general plan of development, and are real rights running with the land. Once they are recorded in the public records, a subsequent acquirer of immovable property burdened with such restrictions is bound by them. The restrictions need not appear in the act of acquisition of the present owner or in his chain of title. It suffices that the document establishing the restrictions was filed for registry in the public record at the time the original subdivider conveyed the property to the ancestor of the present owner. Five N Company, L.L.C. v.

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934 So. 2d 814, 2006 WL 1194316, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/oak-harbor-property-owners-v-millennium-lactapp-2006.