What the recorded documents actually say about Whippoorwill Valley in South Bend — fences, sheds, pools, pets, parking and the rest — with the part of the document each answer comes from.
3 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 one recorded document: the Amended and Restated Protective Restrictions, Covenants, Limitations and Easements for Whippoorwill Valley, in St. Joseph County, Indiana, stamped by the St. Joseph County Recorder on December 6, 1994 under instrument number 9444942. It is the only covenant document on file for this neighborhood, and nothing newer than it was found.
It runs twelve pages and thirty-five numbered paragraphs, and the numbering is complete from the first to the last. Two things about the copy on file are worth knowing. It is stamped DUPLICATE, with the original in the files of the St. Joseph County Recorder. And it stops at the end of the last numbered paragraph, so the Exhibit A legal description that the first page says is attached, and the signature and notary page, are not part of the copy on file. That matters because Exhibit A is where a document like this spells out exactly which lots it covers. The text itself says it binds all the lots in Whippoorwill Valley and that assessments fall on every lot in all additions to and sections of the recorded plat, so it is written to govern the whole subdivision, but the lot-by-lot description is not here to confirm it. Confirm with the title company which recorded documents run with the specific lot you are buying.
One line at the top of one page was cut off when the document was copied, so the heading and opening words of one paragraph cannot be read. What survives of that paragraph is a one hundred fifty foot front setback that applies to nine lots named by number, and an electric service requirement for the same nine lots. It does not affect any of the answers below.
Two things to carry into any plan for the outside of the house. First, the approval requirement here is unusually wide: nothing may be built, placed or altered on a lot, and the lot's own grade and drainage may not be changed, until the Architectural Control Committee has approved the plans in writing. That can reach a project this page does not name. Second, the sign paragraph requires written approval for any sign in public view and names for-sale and for-rent signs specifically, which is worth knowing before you list.
Several everyday questions are not addressed anywhere in the document: solar panels, mailboxes, renting or leasing a home, short-term letting, basketball goals, clotheslines, flags, window treatments, repairing a vehicle, and where ordinary cars may park. Silence is not permission and it is not a rule. It means the recorded covenants say nothing, and the association may have adopted a policy that was never recorded, so ask.
The recorded copy is a scan of typed paper with no digital text, so it was read by software that can misread individual words. Every answer below was also read by eye off the scanned page images, and each one quotes the document's own wording so you can weigh it yourself. Confirm the complete set of recorded documents for your own address through the title company before you rely on any of this.
A fence around the whole lot is not allowed. What is allowed is a privacy fence around the immediate patio or pool, up to six feet, and it has to match the architectural standard set by the style of the house. It needs the Architectural Control Committee to approve it in writing first, and the committee can also approve a written variance from the fencing rule. A separate paragraph adds a sight-line limit on corner lots: no fence between two and six feet tall inside the triangle formed by the two street lines and a line joining them twenty-five feet back from the corner, and the same limit applies within ten feet of where a driveway meets the street.
A detached storage building or a pet shelter is contemplated and allowed, with conditions. It has to be of quality construction, kept in attractive and neat condition, and blend with the house already built on the lot, and the plans go to the Architectural Control Committee for approval before construction starts. The committee can also require protective screening around it. No size, height or material is specified, so the standard is the committee's judgment rather than a number. A separate paragraph bars a barn, shack, tent or other temporary structure from being used as a residence at any time, which is about living in it rather than storing things in it.
The covenants bar recreational and commercial vehicles, naming campers, trailers, trucks and boats, from being kept in open areas in the subdivision, and that reaches open areas whether they are on the lot or off it. What the document does not do is define what counts as an open area, and it never mentions a garage in either direction. So the ban on leaving one out in the open is clear, and whether one may be kept inside a closed garage is simply not addressed by this document. If that is the question that decides the house for you, ask the association for its position in writing before you rely on either reading.
An above-ground pool is not permitted. An in-ground pool is permitted, and so is a tennis court, with the prior approval of the Architectural Control Committee. The fencing paragraph then allows a privacy fence up to six feet around the immediate pool area, also subject to committee approval in writing.
This is the widest requirement in the document and it is worth reading before any outside project. Nothing may be built, placed, kept or altered on a lot, and the lot's own natural grade and drainage may not be changed, until the Architectural Control Committee has approved the plans. The submission has to show the floor plan, the quality of construction, the materials, the outside colors, how the design sits with the houses around it, and the location relative to the lot lines, the topography and the finished grade elevations. Two complete sets go in, one is kept and one comes back, and the approval or refusal is in writing. Building anything that departs from the approved plans is not permitted, and changes to approved plans need the committee's prior written consent. Related paragraphs set the materials for the house itself as brick, wood or stone, require front walks of brick or cement, require a dusk-to-dawn post light in front of the building setback line, and require a masonry fireplace chimney and a driveway of asphalt, brick or concrete at least twelve feet wide.
The covenants prohibit any outside above-ground antenna on a lot or on a structure, and they name satellite dishes specifically as being covered. The same paragraph requires all utility service, including cable television, to run underground and out of sight. The document sets out no size exception, no screened-location exception and no approval route, so on its own wording there is no permitted way to mount one outdoors. Federal rules on over-the-air reception devices can affect how a restriction like this is enforced in practice, which is a question for the association and for a lawyer rather than something this document answers, so ask before you assume either way.
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 →Several rules apply. Within one hundred and twenty days of the house being finished or occupied, whichever comes first, the side, front and rear yards have to be planted with grass seed, sod or ground cover unless the Architectural Control Committee approves something else. Trees are protected: a live tree more than four inches across, measured twelve inches above the ground, a flowering tree such as dogwood or redbud, a broad leaf evergreen, or live vegetation on a slope steeper than twenty percent may not be cut without the committee's prior approval, and the committee sets the rules for selective clearing. Separately, no live tree of any size within ten feet of the lot perimeter may be cut without that approval. Where the plat marks a protective screening area, the owner maintains the plantings at their own expense and nothing but a screen fence, landscaping, a wall, utilities or drainage may sit there. Screen planting over thirty-six inches high is not permitted between the building setback line and the front lot line.
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 →Dogs, cats and other household pets are allowed. Livestock and poultry of any kind may not be raised, bred or kept on a lot. The two conditions on household pets are that they are not kept, bred or maintained for any commercial purpose, and that they are not allowed to become a neighborhood nuisance or hazard. No number limit, size limit or breed restriction appears anywhere in the document. A separate paragraph allows a detached pet shelter structure with committee approval.
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 →This one is stricter than most buyers expect, so read it before you plan a sale. No sign of any kind may be displayed to public view on a lot without prior written approval from the developer, and the paragraph names for-sale and for-rent signs specifically, along with a builder's sign during construction and sales. That approval is the only route the document gives, and as written it runs to the developer rather than to the architectural committee or the association. The developer also reserved the right to put up its own signs to promote and sell lots. The document was recorded in 1994, so the practical question is who exercises that approval today; ask the association before you order a yard sign.
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 home occupation is permitted, and the document defines it narrowly. The work has to be conducted entirely inside the house, carried on only by a member of the immediate family living there, and be clearly incidental and secondary to the use of the house as a home without changing its character. Four conditions come with it: nothing on the outside may indicate the building is used for anything other than a dwelling, no commodity may be sold on the premises, nobody may be employed other than an immediate family member living there, and no mechanical or electrical equipment may be used. The paragraph then names uses that may not be run as a home occupation at all, among them a barber shop, styling salon, beauty parlor, tea room, fortune-telling parlor, animal hospital and any form of animal care or treatment such as dog trimming. The no-outside-sign condition lines up with the separate sign paragraph, which requires written approval for any sign in public view.
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 →Trash, garbage and other waste have to be kept in sanitary containers, and a lot may not be used or maintained as a dumping ground for rubbish. Any incinerator or other equipment for storing or disposing of waste has to be kept clean and sanitary. The document does not set out a screening requirement, a day for putting containers at the curb, or a place on the lot where they have to sit. The association is separately given the power to enforce the restrictions on accumulations of rubbish, weeds and trash.
There is a fires paragraph, and what it bans is a fire burning on a street or roadway in the subdivision. It does not reach a fire on a lot, and it never names a grill, a barbecue or a fire pit in either direction. So on the face of this wording a contained cooking grill used on your own lot is not what the paragraph is aimed at, while anything burning on the pavement is. Read the sentence and judge the edge yourself, and if you are planning something closer to an open fire than a grill, ask the association.
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.