What the recorded documents actually say about Sussex Point in Granger — fences, sheds, pools, pets, parking and the rest — with the part of the document each answer comes from.
4 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 Protective Restrictions, Covenants, Limitations and Easements for Sussex Point Section One and Section Two, recorded with the St. Joseph County Recorder on June 27, 1994 as instrument 9424931 by Sussex Point Development LLC, and they are read together with both recorded amendments to it.
Two amendments matter and both are reflected above. The first, instrument 9507705, recorded in February 1995, lowered the minimum house size to 1600 square feet for a ranch and 1800 for a two-story. The second, instrument 0264379, recorded November 21, 2002 by the association after a vote of the owners, did three things: it reopened satellite dishes up to twenty-four inches, it moved assessment billing to April, and it replaced the architectural approval paragraph in full, moving approval from the developer to the association and adding a fourteen-day decision window and a one-hundred-and-eighty-day deadline to finish approved work. If you read the 1994 document on its own you would come away with the wrong answer on satellite dishes and on who approves an exterior project.
These covenants govern Section One and Section Two, described in the recorded Exhibit A as a 22.33 acre parcel in the Northeast Quarter of Section 14, Township 38 North, Range 3 East, Harris Township. The declaration is written lot by lot and does not list lot numbers. If Sussex Point was later extended by another section or phase, any declaration for it is a separate recorded document and is not on file here, so confirm which instruments run with your particular address.
A few things are worth knowing about what is not here. The documents say nothing at all about renting or leasing a home, short-term letting, basketball goals, mailboxes, clotheslines, flags, window treatments, or vehicle repair, and there is no fires or burning paragraph of any kind, which is why there is no answer about grilling. Silence in a recorded covenant is not the same as permission and it is not the same as a rule; it means the association may have a policy that is not recorded. Ask them.
The dues figure in the recorded document is from 1994 and the board has been able to change it by its own vote ever since, so treat one hundred forty dollars a year as history rather than as the current number.
The copies on file are scans of paper with no digital text, so individual words can be misread by the software that reads them. Every answer here quotes the document's own wording so you can weigh it yourself, and the pages carrying the answers, along with all three recording stamps, were read a second time by eye off the scanned images. Confirm the complete set of recorded documents for your own address through the title company before you rely on any of this.
A fence takes written approval before it goes up, and the paragraph sets out where fencing may and may not sit. No fence, landscape planting or wall may be put in between the back of the house and the front side of the lot, so the front yard is closed to fencing. Fences may be put around patios and around in-ground swimming pools. No fence may be higher than 6 feet. A perimeter fence around the whole lot is allowed only by a written variance. Approval is named as the developer or the Sussex Point Homeowners Association; a 2002 amendment moved architectural approval generally to the association, so the association is who to ask today.
The prohibited-structures paragraph names an out building in a list of structures that may not be used as a residence or a storage facility, along with temporary structures, barns, pole barns, trailers and tents. The document never uses the word shed. The qualifying phrase about use as a residence or storage facility sits at the end of that list, so how far back up the list it reaches is something a reader has to weigh, but a storage shed is the thing that sentence describes most directly. Separately, the architectural paragraph as rewritten in 2002 requires written association approval before any structure is built, with plans showing floor plan, exterior design, setbacks, topography and finished grade. Ask the association before counting on a detached building of any kind.
This clause names a place where vehicles belong rather than barring them from the neighborhood. Every vehicle housed on the lot has to be housed in the garage, and street or lot storage is not permitted for automobiles, boats, trucks, campers, trailers, recreational vehicles, commercial vehicles or other wheeled vehicles. So the practical question tends to be whether a camper, boat or trailer fits inside the garage rather than whether one may be at the property at all. The same paragraph caps that garage at no more than three automobiles and requires it to hold at least two, which is the size limit a long trailer or boat tends to run into. The document sets no loading or unloading window, says nothing about a guest arriving with a camper, and does not define storage against ordinary short-term parking.
In-ground pools are permitted on one stated condition: a privacy fence installed as required by law. Above-ground pools are prohibited. The fences paragraph separately allows a fence around an in-ground swimming pool and caps fence height at 6 feet, with written approval required for any fence. A pool is also construction, so the architectural paragraph as amended in 2002 puts the plans in front of the association first, and once approval is signed the work has to be finished within 180 days.
Nothing may be built or altered until the association has approved the plans in writing. The plans have to show floor plan, exterior design, setbacks, topography and finished grade. The association gives written approval or disapproval within fourteen days of receiving them. Once approval is signed the project has to be completed within one hundred and eighty days, though the association may grant a written extension at its sole discretion if the owner applies in writing. This whole paragraph was replaced in 2002; the 1994 original put approval with the developer and required every home to be built by one named builder, and that older text is no longer the operative rule.
A dish and a roof antenna get different answers here. A 2002 amendment permits satellite dishes no larger than twenty-four inches across, on the condition that the dish is fixed to the house so it does not rise more than three feet above the peak of the roof. That amendment reopened only the satellite dish part of the paragraph. The rest of the 1994 wording still reads against above-ground AM, FM and short wave radio antennas, so an ordinary roof antenna is on a different footing from a dish. The same paragraph requires telephone and other utility service to run underground and requires a post light at each home.
The recorded wording is flat: solar panels may not be installed on any building or lot in Sussex Point. That sentence sits in the same paragraph as the antenna rules, and the 2002 amendment that reopened satellite dishes amended only the satellite dish provision, so this sentence stands as written in 1994. A covenant from 1994 is not the only thing bearing on a solar installation today, so if solar matters to you it is worth raising with the association and with your own attorney rather than treating this line as the end of the question.
There is one real planting restriction and one sightline rule. Landscape plantings, like fences and walls, may not be put in between the back of the house and the front side of the lot. On a corner lot nothing may obstruct the triangle formed by the two street property lines and a line joining them 26 feet back from the intersection, and the document names shrubs and a tree as examples of an obstruction. Grading is limited too: no lot area used for drainage runoff may have its grade changed. Mowing and landscaping of the entrance and common areas is among the things the association may assess for. Beyond those, the document sets no rule about lawns, beds or plant types.
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 numbers attached: a maximum of two dogs and a maximum of two cats, or other household pets. They may not be bred or kept for any commercial purpose, and they may not be allowed to become a neighborhood nuisance or hazard. Outside that exception the paragraph reads against livestock, poultry and animals of any kind being raised, bred or kept on a lot. Nothing is said about leashes, a fenced dog run or waste pickup.
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 sign paragraph is a short allow-list rather than a set of conditions. For sale signs by the homeowner or a Realtor are permitted at no larger than five square feet, along with signs promoting Sussex Point and for sale signs by the original builder. Commercial signs advertising an in-home business, or anything else commercial, are not permitted. The land use paragraph adds that there may be no sign or other indication that the house is being used as anything but a home. Political, seasonal, security and contractor signs are not mentioned anywhere, so anything outside that short list is a question for the association.
Vehicles are meant to live in the garage. Every vehicle housed on the lot has to be housed in the garage, and the document does not permit street or lot storage of automobiles, boats, trucks, campers, trailers, recreational vehicles, commercial vehicles or other wheeled vehicles. The garage has to be full-size, attached, and able to hold at least two automobiles but no more than three. Driveways carry their own specification: four inch thick concrete and at least sixteen feet wide. The document draws no line between a car parked in the driveway during the day and a car stored there, and it sets no visitor parking rule, so how that plays out day to day is worth asking the association.
A home occupation is expressly carved out of the single-family use requirement, with two conditions on it. Only immediate family members of the owner may use the residence as a home occupation, so a business with an employee coming to the house sits outside what this allows. And there may be no sign or other indication that the house is being used as anything but a home. The signs paragraph repeats the point from the other side, barring commercial signs advertising an in-home business. Customer traffic, deliveries and business parking are not addressed.
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 garbage paragraph is unusually short for a covenant of this era. Garbage and refuse may not be dumped on any lot, and oil or fuel storage tanks are not permitted. There is no requirement that trash be kept in sanitary containers, and nothing about where a container may sit or when it goes to the curb, which most covenants of this period do spell out. The association does have authority to enforce the restrictions, including those relating to rubbish or weeds, so day-to-day practice here may come from the association rather than from the recorded document. Worth asking what the current practice is.
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 →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 →Tell us the question and we will get you the answer from the recorded documents.