What the recorded documents actually say about Southfield in South Bend — fences, sheds, pools, pets, parking and the rest — with the part of the document each answer comes from.
9 homes have sold here in the last four years, which is why this neighborhood was compiled early.
Before you rely on this page
STEP 0: the input is truncated three times over. Every one of its three document blocks carries a not-shown-here marker, dropping 1,274, 1,210 and 1,097 lines. Working from the input alone would have lost Article X - the 27 use restrictions that answer most of these topics - and all of Exhibit C. Everything below was read from the full page files on disk under data/ocr_text/. STEP 1b - THE THREE PRIMARIES ARE ONE RECORDING. hoa__southfield (69 pages), hoa__southfield__2 (66 pages) and hoa__southfield__3 (64 pages) are three scans of the same instrument, 8926039, the Declaration of Covenants and Restrictions of Southfield made 27 September 1989 by Southfield, Inc. All three carry the same signature page (LeRoy S. Troyer, President and Owen E. Shoup, Secretary) and the same September 1989 notary acknowledgment, so none of them is an unsigned draft. They differ only in how many follow-on instruments the listing agent scanned after the Declaration: the 69-page scan is a superset, running Declaration + Exhibits A, B and C + the 1999 amendment + Exhibit D + the 1999 Addendum (instrument 9965090) + a 2001 bylaws amendment recorded 6-05-2001 (instrument 0125129). The 66-page scan stops after the Addendum and its OCR of Exhibit C is poorer; the 64-page scan stops after Exhibit D. The 69-page scan was used as the instrument. Because all three render the same paragraphs, the cite for POOLS was taken from the 64-page scan, where that paragraph OCR'd more cleanly; the substance is identical in all three. RECOVERED DOCUMENTS (the reader warning named two). hoa__southfield__5 (3 pages) is a standalone scan of the December 29, 1999 Amendment to the Declaration, instrument 9965089. It IS this neighborhood's document, and it is the cleanest OCR of that amendment anywhere in the pile - which is how the satellite-dish change could be read with confidence. In content it duplicates pages 61 to 63 of the 69-page scan, so it added no new instrument, only legibility. It is applied. hoa__southfield__4 (51 pages) is EXCLUDED. It declares itself the 2014 SCHA Homeowner's Manual for the Southfield Condominium and the Southfield Condominium Homeowners' Association, Inc. - a separate horizontal property regime recorded in 1991 as instrument 9106955 on Lot 2 of Southfield Subdivision Section One "A", which is the sibling record southfield-a. It governs the condominium units and the villa units in SCHA, not the platted single-family homesites this Declaration covers, so answering this page from it would have published the wrong association's rules. STEP 4 - HOW THE TWO RECORDS RELATE, established from title blocks, not assumed. Southfield and Southfield "A" are not the same development and not unrelated; they are two regimes inside one development. This record is the platted subdivision governed by Southfield Homeowners' Association, Inc. under instrument 8926039. Southfield "A" is the Southfield Condominium horizontal property regime created in 1991 on Lot 2 of Southfield Subdivision Section One "A" and run by SCHA. The overlap is real and is named in the Addendum recorded as instrument 9965090 and in the 2001 bylaws amendment recorded as instrument 0125129, both scanned at the end of the 69-page document: the nine fee-simple lots 51 through 59, platted as Southfield Subdivision Section Four (instrument 9925490) and swept into this Declaration by the 1999 amendment, were also made villa members of SCHA. A home on one of those nine lots answers to both sets of documents. STEP 2 - SUPERSESSION THAT CHANGES AN ANSWER. Article X Section 18 of the 1989 Declaration bans every outside antenna including any satellite dish, and Exhibit C item 10.b repeats it. The 1999 amendment reverses that for small dishes. The satellite answer below is written off the amendment, not off the original ban. Exhibit C is also expressly amendable under Article VII Section 3, so the Exhibit C standards quoted here are the recorded 1989 version and may have been restated since. One OCR discrepancy worth recording: the recording stamp on the first page of all three scans reads 8926039, while the 1999 amendment's own reference to the original recording OCRs as 8926038. 8926039 is used here.
No perimeter fence of any kind is allowed on a homesite unless the Architectural Control Committee approves it in advance in writing, and the ban is written broadly enough to catch hedges and other growing fences as well as chain link and split rail. The Committee also has to approve any privacy fence before it goes in. Two further standards sit in the recorded architectural manual: fencing the front yard is not permitted, and complete rear yard fencing is discouraged because open space between homes is treated as part of the character of the neighborhood. Trash containers, sprinkler controls and similar utilitarian items may be fenced or walled if they stay out of the setback and are screened in a way the Committee approves.
A detached storage building or pet shelter is allowed only with the Architectural Control Committee's approval before construction, and it has to be quality construction kept in attractive and neat condition. The recorded architectural manual says the same about accessory structures generally, naming playhouses, tree houses, tool sheds and doghouses, and requires specific written approval before installation. Any approved structure must be finished within one year of the written approval or removed, and the Committee can extend that or require removal if completion looks unlikely.
Boats, trailers, trucks, campers, recreational vehicles and commercial vehicles may not be parked or kept anywhere on the property unless they are inside a garage. The exceptions are narrow and are about work, not storage: trucks and commercial vehicles may come in to make pickups and deliveries, and may be present when they are needed for building a home or maintaining the common area. Separately, no mobile home, modular home, manufactured home, recreational vehicle, travel trailer or portable or temporary structure usable as living quarters may ever be placed on a homesite, except by special permission of the Architectural Control Committee for temporary storage of construction tools during building, and no such structure may be lived in.
An above-ground pool is not permitted, and neither is a tennis court. An in-ground pool may be built only after the Architectural Control Committee approves it in writing first. The recorded architectural manual adds the detail: design and construction details have to be submitted for review, the submittal must cover privacy and visual separation, a pool may not go on the front street side of the residence, pool screening may not be visible from the street in front of the house and may not extend past a line aligned with the side walls of the dwelling unless the Committee approves, and green screens and raw aluminum are expressly prohibited.
An owner may not paint, decorate or change the appearance of any part of the exterior in a way that varies from the plans the Architectural Control Committee approved for that home, without prior written approval from both the board and the Committee. Changing sidewalks or driveways, paint color, roof color, adding on, or installing a pool all need that prior written approval too. More broadly, no structure may be erected, placed, altered or repainted and no change made to the topography or drainage of a homesite until full plans, specifications and a homesite plan have been submitted and approved in writing. The recorded architectural manual adds standards for materials and color: artificial, simulated or imitation exterior materials need Committee approval, bright colors other than white are prohibited as the dominant color, the Committee has final approval of the whole exterior color plan including roof, walls, shutters and trim, roof stacks and metal chimney caps must be painted to match the approved roof color, awnings, canopies and shutters may not be added without prior approval, air conditioning units must be shielded and hidden from any street or adjacent property, and window or wall air conditioning units are not permitted.
This one changed, and the change is easy to miss because the original ban is still in the text. The 1989 Declaration prohibits any above-ground television, AM, FM or short wave radio antenna of any type, including any satellite dish, anywhere on a homesite or structure, and the recorded architectural manual repeats that no outside antenna or TV dish is permitted. The amendment recorded in December 1999 then allows the smaller dishes, no larger than 24 inches in diameter, with review by the Architectural Control Committee and the homeowners association so that dishes are not installed in an unsightly way or in a way that could endanger anyone. A larger dish and a conventional outside antenna remain prohibited, and all utility service - water, sewer, electric, gas, telephone and cable - has to run underground and out of sight.
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 →Planting is tied to an approved plan: an owner may plant, install or maintain flowers, trees, shrubbery or other plant material only in accordance with the landscaping plan the Architectural Control Committee approved for that homesite, and the structures and grounds have to be kept neat and attractive. If they are not, the Committee may, after 30 days written notice, have the grass, weeds and vegetation cut as often as it thinks necessary and have dead trees, shrubs and plants removed, and charge the cost to that homesite as part of its assessment. The recorded architectural manual requires a tree survey with the plans, all non-paved areas to be seeded in grass or appropriately landscaped, mechanical equipment such as air conditioner condensers and heat pumps to be landscaped or screened on all sides, and trees destroyed by construction or an act of God to be replaced with a tree of similar proportion and quality. In protective screening areas shown on the plat the association maintains the plantings, and no screen planting over 36 inches high is allowed between the building setback line and the front lot line. Grading changes that would alter storm drainage across a drainage swale are not permitted.
A mailbox is not a free choice here. No mailbox, paper box or other delivery receptacle may be put up on a lot until the Architectural Control Committee has approved its size, location, design and material, and the recorded architectural manual says the Committee will provide a mailbox design so that boxes match the community theme.
Dogs, cats and other household pets belonging to the household are allowed. No livestock or poultry of any kind may be raised, bred or kept. The conditions are that the pets are not kept, bred or maintained for any commercial purpose and are not allowed to become a neighborhood nuisance or hazard. A detached pet shelter counts as a structure and needs Architectural Control Committee approval before it is built.
Renting is allowed but fenced in three ways: the home may be leased only to a single family, no lease may be entered into at all without the association's prior approval, and no lease may run longer than one year. A member may pass along the right to use the common area to family, tenants or contract purchasers who live on the homesite.
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 →One sign is allowed on a homesite: a for-sale or for-rent sign of no more than five square feet, and even that has to be approved by the Architectural Control Committee first. A builder may use a sign of any size during construction and sales, also subject to Committee approval. Nothing else may be displayed to public view. The recorded architectural manual is stricter still, prohibiting all signs, billboards and advertising structures except with the Committee's written permission, letting the Committee set size, color, content and location, and barring any sign nailed or attached to a tree. The declarant reserved its own right to put up signs to promote and sell lots.
The only parking rule in these documents is about what may sit outside. Trucks and commercial vehicles, along with boats, trailers, campers and recreational vehicles, may not be parked or kept anywhere on the property unless they are inside a garage - and unlike some newer covenants this one does not carve out pickup trucks. Trucks and commercial vehicles may still come in to make pickups and deliveries or to do construction or common-area work. Every home is required to have a full-size attached garage holding at least two and no more than three cars. The documents say nothing about where an ordinary passenger car may park, on the street or otherwise.
A homesite may be used only as a single-family residence, with one narrow exception for a home occupation. To qualify, the work has to be carried on entirely inside the home, only by a member of the immediate family living there, and has to be clearly incidental and secondary to living there without changing the character of the home. On top of that: no sign or display may show from the outside that the building is being used for anything other than a residence, no commodity may be sold on the homesite, nobody may be employed except an immediate family member living there, and no mechanical or electrical equipment beyond customary office equipment may be used. The Declaration then names uses that can never count as a home occupation - a barber shop, styling salon, beauty parlor, tea room, fortune-telling parlor, animal hospital, or any form of animal care or treatment such as dog trimming.
The documents were written in 1989 and do not use the words short-term rental, but the leasing clause reaches any lease: no lease of a home may be entered into without the association's prior approval, and the home may be leased only to a single family. The clause caps how long a lease may run at one year but sets no minimum, so the gate on a short stay is the association's prior approval rather than a stated minimum term. Ask the association how it applies this before counting on rental income.
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 →Garbage, refuse, rubbish and cuttings may not be put on any street, road or common area, and on a homesite only in a suitable sanitary container in an appropriate spot, emptied regularly by a local waste removal service. Containers have to be kept clean and sanitary. Burning barrels and outdoor incinerators are not permitted, and no fire may be burned on any street or roadway. The recorded architectural manual adds that garbage and trash containers go in an enclosed or landscaped area approved by the Committee and that sanitary capped containers are required. Storage areas must not be visible from a street, road or common area.
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 →A clothesline may not be placed where it can be seen from a street, road or common area - the same rule covers drying yards, service yards, wood piles and storage areas. The recorded architectural manual goes further and says a clothesline is not permitted at all unless the Architectural Control Committee approves it, so treat this as needing Committee approval and a location out of public view.
A flagpole is allowed for displaying the American flag only, and its placement and design have to be approved. The flagpole may not double as an antenna. A flag pole is also on the Declaration's own list of structures that may not be erected or placed on a homesite until the Architectural Control Committee has approved the plans in writing.
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.