AND THE VERDICT IS ...

...in favor of the students who are not a "single-family!"

The N.C. Supreme Court has ruled that four UNC college students did legally inhabit a house in a neighborhood with a covenant restricting the use of the property to a single-family residential dwelling.

Beth Velliquette writes in today's CHH:

"The restrictive covenant is only a limitation on the type of structure that may be placed on the property and not a restriction on the type of occupancy permitted within the dwelling," according to the ruling.

The case did not come down to whether unrelated college students can be restricted from living in certain residential neighborhoods, but rather on the meaning of the words, "single-family residential dwelling" as they were used in the Winding Ridge Homeowners Association's restrictive covenants.

The ruling may mean that homeowners associations must be more precise in the wording of their restrictive covenants if they want to exclude unrelated groups of people, including college students, from living in their neighborhoods.

The case worked its way up from Orange County Superior Court to the N.C. Court of Appeals and finally to the N.C. Supreme Court. Superior Court Judge Carl Fox ruled in favor of the homeowners association, as did the Court of Appeals, but the N.C. Supreme Court ruled in favor of Joffe and the students.

The homeowners association argued through its attorney Gordon Brown that the words "single family residential dwelling" meant that only a family could live in a house in the neighborhood.

Joffe and the college students argued through their attorney Nick Herman that the words described a type of structure such as a house, and that it restricted anyone from putting a duplex, an apartment building, a mobile home, a tent or a commercial or industrial building on the property, and did not restrict who could live in the dwelling.

Two of the N.C. Court of Appeals judges ruled in favor of the homeowners association, but Judge Martha Geer wrote a dissenting opinion, and the members of the N.C. Supreme Court referred to her opinion as the same reason they ruled in favor of Jaffe and the students.

Geer pointed out that the homeowners covenant allowed for a small housekeeper's apartment, which could result in the house being inhabited by two families.

She also wrote that if there was ambiguity in the covenant, then the judges must rule in favor of the freest use of the property.

"I believe the law is clear, but the restrictive covenant is not," Geer wrote in her opinion. "This Court may not restrict the use of the property when the restrictive covenant has failed to do so in a clear manner."

Neither Gordon nor Brown returned calls seeking comment.

The Supreme Court sent the case back to the Court of Appeals for further proceedings not inconsistent with its decision.

I suspect that HOAs might want to spend some time considering the implications of this decision.