What the recorded documents actually say about Erskine Manor in South Bend — fences, sheds, pools, pets, parking and the rest — with the part of the document each answer comes from.
7 homes have sold here in the last four years, which is why this neighborhood was compiled early.
Before you rely on this page
These answers come from the Declaration of Protective Covenants of Erskine Manor Subdivision, recorded with the St. Joseph County Recorder as instrument 8022484 and filed on December 17, 1980. The copy on file is a scan of typed paper. Its first page carries a typed SECTION 1 label beside the recorder stamp, and the body of the declaration never uses a section number anywhere in its text.
That matters for which homes these answers govern. Article I subjects one described tract of about 13.4 acres to the covenants, and the plat of Erskine Manor Section 3 was recorded separately in 1983 as document 8308308, after this declaration was signed. Nothing in the seller packet shows whether Section 3 lots, or any later Erskine Manor section, sit inside the Article I tract or carry restrictions of their own. The declaration itself refers in one place to the specific Erskine Manor Subdivisions, in the plural, which suggests more than one subdivision was expected. If the home you are looking at is in Section 3 or a later section, ask the title company to confirm which recorded restrictions actually appear in that lot's chain of title before you rely on this page.
One more thing about the packet. The two largest documents in it are a Declaration of Horizontal Property Regime for Erskine Downs, a neighboring condominium development, plus a board rules summary for Erskine Downs updated in 2024. Those govern Erskine Downs condominium units and not Erskine Manor lots, and nothing from them was used here. If you were handed a thick stack of covenants on an Erskine Manor house, most of it may well be the condominium's.
There is no homeowners association for Erskine Manor in this declaration, and no dues or assessments of any kind. Approvals run through an Architectural Review Committee appointed by the developer, and the covenants are enforced by lawsuit, which any lot owner may bring. It is worth asking the title company whether that developer corporation still exists and whether anyone is still appointing the committee, because if nobody is, the restrictions still run with the land while there is no longer an obvious body to grant an approval.
A fence needs written approval from the Architectural Review Committee before it goes up. The same paragraph covers any building, wall or other structure, and any addition, change or alteration other than interior work. What you submit is the plans and specifications showing the nature, kind, shape, height, materials, color scheme, location on the lot and approximate cost, plus a grading plan and a landscape plan. The committee may refuse anything it considers unsuitable or undesirable for aesthetic or other reasons. The declaration sets no fence height, material or placement limit of its own, so those are left to the committee. It does name a solid fence as one acceptable way to screen a pool or tennis court from the street.
Accessory buildings are allowed but not by right. The declaration says other accessory buildings and structures may be erected in such manner and location as provided in the covenants or as approved in writing by the Architectural Review Committee, and the committee approves the location of all buildings in advance of erection. There is a height cap of seventeen feet on an accessory building or structure unless the committee approves a greater height in writing. Two further limits sit elsewhere in the document: no permanent building may be placed on a utility easement, and no building may sit within forty feet of a rear lot line or twelve feet of a side lot line that does not adjoin a street.
The one place the declaration names for boats and trailers is the parkway, meaning the unpaved strip between the street pavement and your lot line. That strip may not be used for parking private or commercial vehicles, boats or trailers. Separately, a garage, carport, driveway or parking area may not be used as a habitual parking place for commercial vehicles, which the document defines as vehicles carrying signs or lettering for a business. The declaration never uses the words recreational vehicle, camper or motor home, and it says nothing either way about keeping a boat or trailer inside a garage or elsewhere on the lot, so that is genuinely unaddressed. A separate paragraph bars using a trailer as a residence, temporary or permanent, which is about living in one rather than storing one.
Swimming pools are contemplated and regulated rather than banned. A pool must be screened from all streets by a wall, solid fence, evergreen hedge or other visual barrier approved in writing by the Architectural Review Committee, and the screening has to conform to City of South Bend zoning. Placement is limited too: no pool may sit nearer the front lot line, or a side lot line adjoining a street, than the minimum setback shown on the recorded plat or thirty-five feet, whichever is greater. The general architectural-approval paragraph reaches the pool structure itself, so plans go to the committee first. Tennis courts are handled in the same sentence on the same terms.
Written approval from the Architectural Review Committee is required before any building, fence, wall or other structure is commenced, erected or maintained, and before any addition, change or alteration is made. Interior alterations are expressly carved out. The committee is four to six members, decides by majority vote, and is supposed to send the applicant a written decision with its reasons within thirty days of the plans being filed. Two things in the same paragraph cut the other way for an owner: if the committee neither approves nor disapproves within thirty days of submission, or if no suit to stop construction is filed within thirty days after work starts, approval is treated as not required. If the committee asks for more information, the thirty days restarts when that information is received. The committee may refuse plans it finds unsuitable or undesirable for aesthetic or other reasons, and it is told to weigh how the work sits with its surroundings. No two houses in the subdivision may be of exactly the same design without committee permission.
The declaration bars outdoor television and radio antennae and towers. Its words are that none shall be permitted or erected or used out of doors, whether attached to a building or structure or otherwise, so a roof mount and a free-standing mast are both caught. Worth knowing before you read that as settled: this was signed in December 1980, and it never mentions a satellite dish, a dish antenna or any size threshold, because home dishes were not yet a consumer product. Whether the wording reaches a modern dish, and how it interacts with later federal rules on antennas, is a question for a lawyer rather than something the document answers. There is no amendment in the papers on file that revisits it.
The declaration never mentions solar panels, collectors or skylights. What does reach them is the blanket architectural-control paragraph: no addition, change or alteration to a building may be made, other than an interior alteration, until plans showing the nature, kind, shape, height, materials and color scheme have been approved in writing by the Architectural Review Committee. A roof or ground array is an exterior addition on the face of that wording, so an owner would normally be submitting plans rather than installing freely. There is no solar-specific standard, no size limit and no stated presumption either for or against approval.
Mature trees are the strict part. No specimen or ornamental tree already growing on the property may be removed from any lot for any reason without the written consent of the Architectural Review Committee, and a removal has to be requested by the owner in writing. The declaration explains this by describing the area as wooded and rolling terrain worth protecting. Beyond that, a landscape plan is part of what goes to the committee before building, and grade or contour changes, embankments and depressions all need written approval in advance. Utility easement strips may be used for gardens, shrubs and landscaping, but not for permanent buildings or trees. Owners are responsible for maintaining the parkway or boulevard strip between their lot line and the street pavement, split in half where two lots face the same strip.
We don’t have this one confirmed yet — we can ask the association and get you an answer before you commit to anything.
We can find out →Household pets are allowed, with a count limit. The declaration bars livestock and poultry, and bars keeping or maintaining more than two dogs or cats over four months of age on any lot. Animals under four months are not counted by that wording. There is no breed restriction, no weight limit, no leash rule and nothing about fencing or waste in the document. The general nuisance sentence sits in the same paragraph and bars anything that may become an annoyance or nuisance to the neighborhood, which is the clause a barking complaint would run through.
The only rental restriction in the declaration is narrow and specific: a garage may contain living quarters for the sole use of the owner or occupants, and those quarters may not be used for rental purposes. Nothing in the document restricts leasing the house itself, sets a minimum lease term, requires approval of a tenant or caps how many lots may be rented. There is no association here to add a rental rule later, so what governs is this recorded text plus anything a later recorded instrument added, which the title company can check for the specific lot.
We don’t have this one confirmed yet — we can ask the association and get you an answer before you commit to anything.
We can find out →The declaration allows one nameplate per lot and regulates it closely. It limits the plate to roughly forty square inches, and note that the second digit of that figure is damaged in the recorded copy. Content is limited to the name of the occupant and the address of the dwelling, or one of the two. It may go on the front door or the wall beside it, on the wall of an accessory building or structure, or free-standing in the front or side yard as long as it is no more than twelve inches above the adjoining ground. Separately, the definitions section treats a sign or other advertising device, detached or projecting, as a structure in its own right, which brings it under the written architectural-approval requirement. The document says nothing specific about a for-sale sign, a political sign or a contractor sign.
Everyday parking is not restricted, but commercial vehicles are. Using any garage, carport, driveway or parking area in front of, adjacent to or part of a lot as a habitual parking place for commercial vehicles is prohibited. The document defines a commercial vehicle by its markings rather than its size: automobiles, station wagons, trucks and other vehicular equipment bearing signs or printing referring to a commercial undertaking or enterprise. The word habitual is doing real work there, and the declaration does not define it. Repeated breaches of this paragraph are declared to be a nuisance and a violation of the residential-use covenant. The parkway strip between the street pavement and the lot line may not be used for parking private or commercial vehicles, boats or trailers. Nothing caps the number of cars or bars street parking generally.
This one is unusually flat for a document of this age. No home occupation or profession may be conducted in any dwelling or accessory building in the subdivision, with no carve-out for a business with no clients visiting, no sign and no employees. The same paragraph reinforces it from another direction by barring habitual commercial-vehicle parking on a lot, and Article IV opens by limiting every lot to private residential purposes only. The declaration was written in 1980 and does not address remote or computer-based work, so how the wording lands on someone working from a laptop is not something the document resolves.
We don’t have this one confirmed yet — we can ask the association and get you an answer before you commit to anything.
We can find out →We don’t have this one confirmed yet — we can ask the association and get you an answer before you commit to anything.
We can find out →The declaration has one rule about refuse and it is about burning it, not storing it. No burning of refuse is permitted outside the dwelling, with one exception for burning leaves where that is allowed by City of South Bend ordinance. Nothing in the document addresses where trash containers are kept, whether they must be screened from the street, or when they may be set out for collection, so those are left to city rules and to whatever the neighbors do.
The declaration never names a grill, a barbecue or cooking of any kind. What it has is a refuse-burning rule: no burning of refuse outside the dwelling, except burning leaves where City of South Bend ordinance allows it. That wording is aimed at waste disposal, so on its face a contained cooking grill, charcoal or gas, is not what it bans. Since the document is silent on cooking, an owner is reading a waste rule for an answer it was not written to give, and city fire and open-burning ordinances are likely to be the practical limit rather than this covenant.
Outdoor drying is allowed in a limited way. Laundry-drying equipment may be permitted only in a rear yard, must be of a temporary nature, and may not be permanently installed in that rear yard unless the Architectural Review Committee authorizes it. So a retractable or removable line in the back is the shape the document contemplates, and a permanent post-set line needs committee sign-off. There is no height or material limit and no rule about taking the washing in.
Flag poles are expressly permitted, subject to one number: the pole may not be more than twenty-five feet in height unless the Architectural Review Committee approves otherwise. The declaration says nothing about which flags may be flown, how many, lighting, or a bracket mounted on the house rather than a pole.
We don’t have this one confirmed yet — we can ask the association and get you an answer before you commit to anything.
We can find out →Tell us the question and we will get you the answer from the recorded documents.