Comment by Glyptodon

2 days ago

Why did the suit get dismissed? Local good ol boys doing the K-Drama USA dance?

I've been trying to find this out. I suspect it was dismissed because they lacked standing. Because there were a bunch of transfer, likely only the last seller has standing to sue for ignoring a deed restriction and of course they don't care.

That's not absolute. There can be other cases where you have standing even if you aren't involved in the transaction but those cases are limited.

Now it's also possible that the deed wasn't properly recorded. If it was, there might be more people who have standing, such as those near the project who are negatively impacted. It's possible that the district court erred or maybe the people bringing suit didn't live in the area or otherwise have standing.

It does seem wrong that you can effectively invalidate a deed restriction by simply selling it enough times.

  • Yeah, there's no point to deed restrictions if the average person doesn't have standing to do anything about them.

My guess is standing. The family bringing the suit is not the family that donated the land.

  • If it is a park, does it mean anyone living in the city has standing because their entire city lost the park?

    • Hopefully just being a resident of a city doesn’t give you standing to sue over any decision that has a tenuous adverse effect on you. I mean if that holds why shouldn’t visitors who might one day hope to visit the given park have standing to sue?

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