Posted on 01/18/2024 1:22:10 PM PST by Responsibility2nd
A Northeast Side homeowners association wants residents of a home at 7310 Roveen Trail to be held in contempt of court for allegedly failing to remove livestock from the property.
The request is the latest twist in a legal fight the Ventura Maintenance Association Inc. has been waging against a homeowner and his tenants.
In August, Ventura sued homeowner William Wade, his wife Amanda and tenants Richard and Ja’Net Hayes, alleging they had been keeping “various unauthorized animals” — including “a horse, goats, chickens and most recently ducks” — on the property since about April. The Wades live in Arizona; the Hayes family has rented the house for about five years and have a right to purchase it.
Richard Hayes said he intends to argue at the contempt hearing — set for Friday morning — that the goats serve as “emotional support animals” for his two children.
BIG BUILDER: Homebuilder Ray Ellison built 55,000 houses in S.A.
The neighborhood’s restrictive covenants, established in 1985 by homebuilder Ray Ellison Homes Inc., prohibit livestock and poultry from being kept on any lot. They also restrict animals to “household pets.” No more than two dogs and two cats are permitted.
Retired state District Judge Larry Noll granted the association a temporary restraining order on Aug. 30, the day it filed suit, preventing the defendants from bringing any additional livestock on the property.
A temporary injunction hearing was held two weeks later before Judge Norma Gonzales.
“These animals, all of them are being housed in the backyard of this 7,000-square-foot lot,” William Crist, a San Antonio lawyer representing the HOA, said during the hearing.
Earlier communication Prior to filing suit, the homeowners association sent multiple letters requesting the animals be removed. But Crist said the Hayeses “continued to accumulate additional animals, most recently the ducks.”
Richard Hayes, who attended the court hearing with his wife and son, said they had been in contact with the HOA and went to a couple of its meetings.
“We even told them, this is not permanent,” he said at the hearing, adding that some of the animals had already been “sold off or whatnot.”
He acknowledged they had a horse, two Nigerian goats, another goat and two ducks on the property at the time of the hearing. “The chickens have been gone forever,” he said.
His daughter and son, who were in Future Farmers of America while they attended Judson High School, have been raising the animals, he said. He added he only learned about the restrictive covenants after moving into the house.
Hayes told Gonzales the family was working on finding a place to keep the horse.
The judge issued a temporary injunction that, like Noll’s order, barred any new animals on the property. She declined to grant the association’s request that the defendants remove the animals already on the property, however, instead giving the family time to “take care of the issue.”
Gonzales added, “Continue to work with rehoming the horse, and I guess the Nigerian goats, and whatever else … ” She set it for a “full-blown hearing” on Nov. 14 in the event the animals remained on the property.
But the association on Oct. 13 moved for summary judgment, asking the court to grant a mandatory injunction requiring the removal of the unauthorized livestock and a permanent injunction preventing the defendants from keeping livestock on the property.
The request was granted by retired Judge John Specia Jr. on Nov. 7. He gave the defendants 30 days to remove the animals. He also ordered them to pay more than $8,500 in legal fees and costs to the HOA. The Hayes family didn’t attend the hearing because they didn’t know about it, Richard Hayes said, adding they don’t have an attorney.
Then, late last month, the HOA filed its motion for contempt. It said the defendants didn’t comply with the Nov. 7 order to remove the animals by Dec. 7. It doesn’t appear the Nov. 14 hearing that Gonzales scheduled was ever conducted.
A court hearing on the contempt motion is scheduled for Friday morning.
‘No concerns’ During an interiew, Richard Hayes said the family has relocated the horse — a 20-year-old white broodmare — on Dec. 6 to a ranch he declined to disclose. He suspects an opossum may have killed the three chickens they had. His family still has two Nigerian goats, a show goat and a duck at the home, though.
“We told them (the HOA) the horse was temporary” in the backyard, he said. Bexar County Animal Control Services came out and told him “everything was peachy keen” as long as he didn’t add another horse, he said.
Both Animal Control and Bexar County Environmental Services have visited the property multiple times in response to complaints, county spokeswoman Monica Ramos said in an email Thursday.
“Each time, there were no concerns found,” she said.
Bexar County Sheriff Javier Salazar also paid a visit to the house and said he had no problem with the animals on the property, Hayes said. Ramos was unable to immediately confirm Hayes’ account.
Hayes’ daughter has raised the show goat and didn’t want to sell it for fear it would be slaughtered and sold for meat. But Hayes also said the goats serve as emotional support animals for both of his children. His son, 21, is autistic, and his daughter, 19, is intellectually disabled, he said.
“This is something that really helps them thrive and move forward with their lives and their daily routines,” he said. He has documentation from a medical professional to support the claim.
Fair housing laws Hayes plans to contest the contempt motion and fight to keep the goats on the property. His family still has to figure out what to do about the duck, though.
The law may be on his side if he can show documentation of his children’s disabilities from a counselor or health care professional and the need for an accommodation permitting his children to possess the animals.
“The federal fair housing laws prohibit discrimination on the basis of disability, and that includes requiring that most municipalities and property owners associations grant reasonable accommodations of their rules and regulations with respect to housing so as to permit persons with legitimate disabilities the opportunity to have equal use and enjoyment of their homes,” said Tom Newton, a San Antonio lawyer who represents associations. He is not involved in the case.
In 2020, the U.S Department of Housing and Urban Development issued a notice explaining certain obligations of housing providers under the Fair Housing Act (FHA) with respect to animals when individuals with disabilities request accommodations.
Complaints about denial of reasonable accommodations and disability access accounted for 60% percent of all FHA complaints, the agency said. And “those involving requests for reasonable accommodations for assistance animals are significantly increasing.”
Reasonable accommodations can include more than one animal, too.
Newton recalled attending a seminar on assistance animals that included investigators from the Texas Workforce Commission’s Civil Rights Division.
“They said if you have a doctor’s note that’s legitimate, you can have a flock of emotional support chickens,” he said. “So it’s not limited to one.”
Kick ‘em out. Animals should not be in a neighborhood like that.
And get rid of the goats, ducks, horse, etc. as well.
The landlord should have informed the tenants of the covenants.
At least they put up a nice painted fence.
My thoughts exactly.
Ohhhhhh, Wilbur
He added he only learned about the restrictive covenants after moving into the house.
And this is exactly the type of moron you don’t want living within a mile of your home.
He added he only learned about the restrictive covenants after moving into the house.
And thats the kicker. It’s the buyers duty to know such things.
“a horse, goats, chickens and most recently ducks”
Getting ready for some more animals.....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-krsNziXEw
San Antonio, Texas
A goat, a duck, and a horse walk into a bar. . .
We had a rooster in our HOA. You knew it, every day.
I live there; every house I pass on NY way to work has animals of one kind or another in their FRONT yards - it’s not unusual here.
They are renting, so they are tenants.
“a nice painted fence.”
LOL...made me go look. Yep, Early Pallet is always a good choice.
“horse, goats, chickens”
OK, where’s the rest of the story? Where’s the boat and the farmer trying to get the animals to the other side of the river?
Isn’t there a song about this?
Old Man Hays had a yard.
And in that yard he had horses, goats and ducks as Service Animals.
Ee - I - Ee - I - Oh
I live in Phoenix, and near our last address (which also was not HOA), there was a similar house with a horse or two and small animals. I assume they were grandfathered in, as Phoenix has historically been horse territory. I would RATHER have a horse and some quacking ducks and goats than a litter of pit bulls or blasting mariachi music at 10 PM. A number of people in nearby smaller cities (Tempe, Queen’s Creek) keep chickens.
It makes the city a bit less sterile.
San Antonio has city ordinances about livestock in the backyard. But this address is outside the city limits. So it’s up to the HOA to enforce restrictions.
HOA gonna do what HOA’s do.
You’d be surprised how many people don’t know that you can actually fire your HOA.
Sure! Meetings residence consensus and fire their asses and get another one or not.
I’m on and off again about HOAs I can see why they exist, I have a friend who lived in a peaceful little neighborhood down in North Cakolacky and he retired and his next door neighbor who was in the Navy started building this Large Garage in his backyard. My friend asked him about it and was told that he was retiring from the Navy starting an auto repair business. Well my friend didn’t want to live next to an auto repair business but there was nothing he could do about it because there was no HOA.
What did he do? He moved to a neighborhood with an HOA so he didn’t have to live next to an auto repair shop in somebody’s backyard.
Looks a bit cramped. 😆
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.