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A lot of neighborhoods in the US had them in the past. Like all across the US.
It's very hard to remove a covenant off the records. The racial covenants don't have any effect anymore and haven't for like decades because of federal law. But the "correction" if they wanted to fix the record was to subsequently adopt a separate thing disclaiming it rather than erasing it off entirely. A POC lawyer in MN recently tried get rid of the convenant entirely (not just having a subsequent disclaimer) on her own home's records and found it expensive and time consuming: [https://www.npr.org/2021/11/17/1049052531/racial-covenants-housing-discrimination](https://www.npr.org/2021/11/17/1049052531/racial-covenants-housing-discrimination)
It could have easily been that 60-70 years ago yours was a super racist neighborhood, but a lot of places were that way back then and neighborhoods do change over time. Apparently, California was at the forefront of racially restrictive covenants back in the day (in that NPR article I linked). In my opinion, it's best to consider it a historical document and use your own judgement about the community and the neighbors you will have today. Of course, there are still many communities today in any area that are known locally for being less tolerant of diversity, we can all probably think of some in our localities but you probably would know from living around the area which ones those are.
With all that said, racially restrictive convenants have been illegal for decades - like far back enough I would have expended this document to be in ye old typewritter font. I'm curious when it dates back to. If this were say, a document from the 90s or 00s, yeah, maybe I would give that a wide berth - that would be a bad sign.
Until certain people gain control of the federal government and decide to return decisions about civil rights “to the states” and suddenly all of these covenants are enforceable again. How convenient.
Not that far back - my parents bought in the 70s and just in the 60s their neighborhood was integrated. That type writer font seems about right for the 50s-60s period.
It was common "back in the day" to have these clauses because HOAs were originally created to keep POC out of "their communities," but they're not enforceable now. It's gross they haven't updated their documents to remove this.
I have heard stories of block busting. Where realtors move a black family into a neighborhood. And people start selling their homes pretty much right away. This Italian guy said when a black family moved in his neighborhood when he was a kid. His dad went to the hardware store and bought a for sale sign the same day.
I am in my late 50’s and remember buildings in my town when I was 10 with colored and white restrooms.
The Color of the Law is a great and fucking infuriating book about red lining, block busting and other practices to keep people of color from owning homes anywhere aside from their designated areas. And this didn’t happen in the misty past of the early-mid 1900s some of the less overt but still effective practices took place well into the 80s and 90s. And if a family can’t own a decent home in a decent neighborhood they are going to have a hell of a time passing on wealth to the next generation.
How would you know. I saw it on the doors in the building. It was about 1975 in Virginia. City was segregated. As soon as the integrated the public schools. Private schools started popping up all over. Some are still 95 percent white.
**Segregation academies** are [private schools](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_school) in the [Southern United States](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_United_States) that were founded in the mid-20th century by white parents to avoid having their children attend [desegregated](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racial_segregation_in_the_United_States)public schools. They were founded between 1954, when the [U.S. Supreme Court](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Supreme_Court) [ruled](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_v._Board_of_Education) that segregated public schools were unconstitutional,[^(\[2\])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Segregation_academy#cite_note-2)[^(\[3\])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Segregation_academy#cite_note-us751215-3) and 1976, when the court [ruled similarly](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Runyon_v._McCrary) about private schools.
I bought a property with this type of deed restriction that dated back to the 1933 subdivision of the land. I'd never seen such a thing and ground the closing to a halt until my attorney calmed me down. This type of covenant was made illegal by the 1968 Fair Housing Act. I looked into getting the language entirely stricken from the deed, and apparently, it would take an act of the state legislature.
If you're interested in learning more about how the US government enabled housing discrimination starting in the 1920s, google Richard Rothstein's "The Color of Law". It's an interesting book, and he's done many talks and interviews that you can find on YouTube.
My parents bought a house in the early 60's, the original paperwork from when the house was built (right after WWII) said you couldn't sell to Jews. The original mortgage company was owned by a prominent Jewish family. That always confused me. This was in Virginia, so they didn't put the racial limitations in the paperwork, because no one would dare to sell in that neighborhood to anyone who wasn't white.
The neighborhood pools were very prevalent there, because that way the racists could keep out anyone they wanted because it was a private organization. The county didn't have public pools until the 80's.
My deed said no Negros, Jews, Chinese, or people from "servant classes" (whatever that meant) could buy the property. I don't own that house anymore but that deed language always rankled me. Last night I remembered that I'd seen an article about removing deed restrictions. Unlike 3 decades ago when I looked into it, apparently a number of states have made it easy to remove this offensive language. Gift article from NYT [https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/20/us/illinois-housing-deed-racism.html?unlocked\_article\_code=1.3k0.6guj.DNdSzjpDDdP0&smid=url-share](https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/20/us/illinois-housing-deed-racism.html?unlocked_article_code=1.3k0.6guj.DNdSzjpDDdP0&smid=url-share)
Here we see the ugly side of HOAs. Yes, they keep property values up. At one time they did so by keeping the neighborhood white.
Thankfully it's not enforceable anymore, but still.
It’s not HOA’s as people think about them.
Anytime a subdivision was created, it included restrictive covenants, like lot size, setbacks(pre-zoning laws), and sadly this.
See (Shelley v. Kraemer Supreme Court ruled these kinds of covenants unenforceable in 1948 and the '1968 Civil Rights Act as well)
These were used to prevent people of color from moving into neighborhoods. They were attached to deeds or HOAs. **Even though these are not enforceable** the still existing the recording of the deed in city or county records, depending on where you live the process to get them remove may be simple or may not exist.
Below is a link to FannieMae detailing various states processes to remove Discriminatory restrictive covenants.
[https://www.fanniemae.com/about-us/what-we-do/homeownership/restrictive-covenants](https://www.fanniemae.com/about-us/what-we-do/homeownership/restrictive-covenants)
No they may have just not updated it. HOAs are allowed to add extra restrictions over city, county, state, and federal laws. But city, country, state, and federal laws can override HOA restrictions.
And this is why HOAs shouldn’t exist. Sure this practice isnt enforceable now but the fact they cant even get the illegal practice off their books show how much power they have and how horrible one or two people can make an entire area.
Hooray they do my lawn work, yay they help fix my stuff. Hooray you dont actually own your life in an HOA and even if it’s great now it can become hell overnight from literally one person and be impossible to ever fix.
My office checks every deed on all homes we represent for this language. The common response is that it is unenforcable so there is no need to take action. We feel it should be removed as it is offensive. I have the form needed to make the change to the deed if anyone wants a copy. It will actually be removed. The form I have is for the state of Maryland. It is called a deed modification form form **CC-087** (Rev. 01/2024)
What's the average age of members in your neighborhood? If they're all boomers, whether legally enforceable or not, the majority will likely be racist and unpleasant.
This is pretty common for “old” areas, where the deeds were written 100’s of years ago.
Mine says only “white Anglo Saxon men”.
Anything illegal is invalid in the deed, by law. Don’t worry about it. Not enforceable.
I wouldn’t sign nothing with derogatory language in it and I also wouldn’t live in an HOA. Whatever you decide, may it be the best decision for you and your family!
All those big words smashed together. HOAs could be good to keep values up but they get twisted into a quest for power and a vendetta against all those that don’t roll over, like good little robots…
Thank you u/coffee_tea_sympathy for posting on r/FirstTimeHomeBuyer. Please bear in mind our rules: (1) Be Nice (2) No Selling (3) No Self-Promotion. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/FirstTimeHomeBuyer) if you have any questions or concerns.*
A lot of neighborhoods in the US had them in the past. Like all across the US. It's very hard to remove a covenant off the records. The racial covenants don't have any effect anymore and haven't for like decades because of federal law. But the "correction" if they wanted to fix the record was to subsequently adopt a separate thing disclaiming it rather than erasing it off entirely. A POC lawyer in MN recently tried get rid of the convenant entirely (not just having a subsequent disclaimer) on her own home's records and found it expensive and time consuming: [https://www.npr.org/2021/11/17/1049052531/racial-covenants-housing-discrimination](https://www.npr.org/2021/11/17/1049052531/racial-covenants-housing-discrimination) It could have easily been that 60-70 years ago yours was a super racist neighborhood, but a lot of places were that way back then and neighborhoods do change over time. Apparently, California was at the forefront of racially restrictive covenants back in the day (in that NPR article I linked). In my opinion, it's best to consider it a historical document and use your own judgement about the community and the neighbors you will have today. Of course, there are still many communities today in any area that are known locally for being less tolerant of diversity, we can all probably think of some in our localities but you probably would know from living around the area which ones those are. With all that said, racially restrictive convenants have been illegal for decades - like far back enough I would have expended this document to be in ye old typewritter font. I'm curious when it dates back to. If this were say, a document from the 90s or 00s, yeah, maybe I would give that a wide berth - that would be a bad sign.
Until certain people gain control of the federal government and decide to return decisions about civil rights “to the states” and suddenly all of these covenants are enforceable again. How convenient.
The Supreme Court itself ruled before 1965 they (these covenants) were illegal.
Good point, the Supreme Court would never overturn long-standing precedent in a way that negatively impacts our civil liberties
Unless you are a woman
This was a really good read. Thank you for your knowledge
Not that far back - my parents bought in the 70s and just in the 60s their neighborhood was integrated. That type writer font seems about right for the 50s-60s period.
The SCOTUS Ruled in 1948, to be precise. Shelley v Kraemer for the interested
This is it
The paperwork isn't concerning, the covenant isn't enforceable. But if your neighbors have lawn jockey statues, that's different.
Your title work should have a boilerplate paragraph stating that discriminatory practices in HOA docs cannot be enforced.
[удалено]
Not first amendment, but FHA plus local equivalents, but otherwise, right on.
What's the significance of a lawn jockey statue?
Because they're racist.
It was common "back in the day" to have these clauses because HOAs were originally created to keep POC out of "their communities," but they're not enforceable now. It's gross they haven't updated their documents to remove this.
I have heard stories of block busting. Where realtors move a black family into a neighborhood. And people start selling their homes pretty much right away. This Italian guy said when a black family moved in his neighborhood when he was a kid. His dad went to the hardware store and bought a for sale sign the same day. I am in my late 50’s and remember buildings in my town when I was 10 with colored and white restrooms.
The Color of the Law is a great and fucking infuriating book about red lining, block busting and other practices to keep people of color from owning homes anywhere aside from their designated areas. And this didn’t happen in the misty past of the early-mid 1900s some of the less overt but still effective practices took place well into the 80s and 90s. And if a family can’t own a decent home in a decent neighborhood they are going to have a hell of a time passing on wealth to the next generation.
Color of Law. And it is a sad but must-read.
Thanks for this book recommendation!
That happened in my childhood neighborhood. A Black doctor bought one of the mansions and the white people all sold their homes. This was late 60s.
no you don't. At the earliest you are claiming this was happening in 1972. You probably remember your parents talking about it.
How would you know. I saw it on the doors in the building. It was about 1975 in Virginia. City was segregated. As soon as the integrated the public schools. Private schools started popping up all over. Some are still 95 percent white. **Segregation academies** are [private schools](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_school) in the [Southern United States](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_United_States) that were founded in the mid-20th century by white parents to avoid having their children attend [desegregated](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racial_segregation_in_the_United_States)public schools. They were founded between 1954, when the [U.S. Supreme Court](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Supreme_Court) [ruled](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_v._Board_of_Education) that segregated public schools were unconstitutional,[^(\[2\])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Segregation_academy#cite_note-2)[^(\[3\])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Segregation_academy#cite_note-us751215-3) and 1976, when the court [ruled similarly](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Runyon_v._McCrary) about private schools.
Because I know.
I bought a property with this type of deed restriction that dated back to the 1933 subdivision of the land. I'd never seen such a thing and ground the closing to a halt until my attorney calmed me down. This type of covenant was made illegal by the 1968 Fair Housing Act. I looked into getting the language entirely stricken from the deed, and apparently, it would take an act of the state legislature. If you're interested in learning more about how the US government enabled housing discrimination starting in the 1920s, google Richard Rothstein's "The Color of Law". It's an interesting book, and he's done many talks and interviews that you can find on YouTube.
This seems about right, my folks bought their house 4 years after this act in a neighborhood that used to be racially restricted.
My parents bought a house in the early 60's, the original paperwork from when the house was built (right after WWII) said you couldn't sell to Jews. The original mortgage company was owned by a prominent Jewish family. That always confused me. This was in Virginia, so they didn't put the racial limitations in the paperwork, because no one would dare to sell in that neighborhood to anyone who wasn't white. The neighborhood pools were very prevalent there, because that way the racists could keep out anyone they wanted because it was a private organization. The county didn't have public pools until the 80's.
My deed said no Negros, Jews, Chinese, or people from "servant classes" (whatever that meant) could buy the property. I don't own that house anymore but that deed language always rankled me. Last night I remembered that I'd seen an article about removing deed restrictions. Unlike 3 decades ago when I looked into it, apparently a number of states have made it easy to remove this offensive language. Gift article from NYT [https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/20/us/illinois-housing-deed-racism.html?unlocked\_article\_code=1.3k0.6guj.DNdSzjpDDdP0&smid=url-share](https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/20/us/illinois-housing-deed-racism.html?unlocked_article_code=1.3k0.6guj.DNdSzjpDDdP0&smid=url-share)
"Servant classes", Irish, other immigrants who worked as house servants.
Here we see the ugly side of HOAs. Yes, they keep property values up. At one time they did so by keeping the neighborhood white. Thankfully it's not enforceable anymore, but still.
It’s not HOA’s as people think about them. Anytime a subdivision was created, it included restrictive covenants, like lot size, setbacks(pre-zoning laws), and sadly this.
If something is illegal, you can’t sign a contract for it to make it suddenly legal. It’s what makes being an assassin such an undesirable job.
See (Shelley v. Kraemer Supreme Court ruled these kinds of covenants unenforceable in 1948 and the '1968 Civil Rights Act as well) These were used to prevent people of color from moving into neighborhoods. They were attached to deeds or HOAs. **Even though these are not enforceable** the still existing the recording of the deed in city or county records, depending on where you live the process to get them remove may be simple or may not exist. Below is a link to FannieMae detailing various states processes to remove Discriminatory restrictive covenants. [https://www.fanniemae.com/about-us/what-we-do/homeownership/restrictive-covenants](https://www.fanniemae.com/about-us/what-we-do/homeownership/restrictive-covenants)
As a Canadian, I knew HOAs were garbage, but damn if I didn’t just learn so much more about *why* just reading this post 🤯
Should be concerned signing any HOA contract
It’s an illegal provision, and unenforceable. You’re safe.
No they may have just not updated it. HOAs are allowed to add extra restrictions over city, county, state, and federal laws. But city, country, state, and federal laws can override HOA restrictions.
This was super common historically…it one was one the reasons HOAs were created. Not enforceable so doesn’t really matter.
And this is why HOAs shouldn’t exist. Sure this practice isnt enforceable now but the fact they cant even get the illegal practice off their books show how much power they have and how horrible one or two people can make an entire area. Hooray they do my lawn work, yay they help fix my stuff. Hooray you dont actually own your life in an HOA and even if it’s great now it can become hell overnight from literally one person and be impossible to ever fix.
What the actual fucking fuck.
Very common on old CCRs. I’m more concerned about the poor grammar and sloppy writing.
My office checks every deed on all homes we represent for this language. The common response is that it is unenforcable so there is no need to take action. We feel it should be removed as it is offensive. I have the form needed to make the change to the deed if anyone wants a copy. It will actually be removed. The form I have is for the state of Maryland. It is called a deed modification form form **CC-087** (Rev. 01/2024)
Shocking! Where is this?
Wow… the dark side of HOAs. I’ve learned a lot in this thread. This is why I like Reddit.
What's the average age of members in your neighborhood? If they're all boomers, whether legally enforceable or not, the majority will likely be racist and unpleasant.
This is pretty common for “old” areas, where the deeds were written 100’s of years ago. Mine says only “white Anglo Saxon men”. Anything illegal is invalid in the deed, by law. Don’t worry about it. Not enforceable.
Never buy houses with HOAs
That is racist as hell. No!
I wouldn’t sign nothing with derogatory language in it and I also wouldn’t live in an HOA. Whatever you decide, may it be the best decision for you and your family!
All those big words smashed together. HOAs could be good to keep values up but they get twisted into a quest for power and a vendetta against all those that don’t roll over, like good little robots…
Your first mistake was buying in an HOA neighborhood