The drafting defect, stated plainly

Architectural control provisions in Indiana declarations are very often written in terms of “Lots,” because that is what the drafter had in mind: houses, fences, sheds, decks, the things owners build on the parcels they own. The category the drafter did not have in mind is an owner building something on association common ground.

That gap is not theoretical. Common-area encroachments are among the most frequent live disputes in Indiana lake and golf-course communities — docks, ramps, retaining walls, plantings, fencing, boat lifts, and exactly the chain-and-post installation at issue here. An association discovering after the fact that its approval power stops at the lot line has very little to enforce with.

What actually controls a common area

The association's remedy in this situation is not architectural review at all. It is ownership. Where the association holds title to a tract, its authority comes from:

• Its property rights as owner — trespass, ejectment, and injunctive relief against an unauthorised installation, which do not depend on a covenant at all.
• Common-area use rules adopted under the declaration's rulemaking power, which is a different clause from the architectural-review clause and is frequently broader.
• Licence or permit arrangements for owner installations on association ground — the mechanism most lake communities use for docks, and the one that produces a written, revocable, insurable record.

Christmas Lake pleaded the covenant. On these facts, the ownership theory was the stronger one, and the opinion says nothing to foreclose it on remand.

The audit this opinion should trigger

For any Indiana association holding common ground that owners physically use — lakefront, riverbank, retention areas, trails, medians, entryways:

1. Read the architectural clause for its object. If it says “Lot,” “Parcel,” or “Living Unit,” it does not reach your common area, and no amount of consistent past practice changes that.
2. Check whether a separate common-area rule exists. Many declarations grant a general power to adopt rules for common-area use. That power is usually exercisable by the board without a membership vote, which makes it the fastest available fix.
3. Inventory what is already installed. Existing owner-built structures on association ground are the ones that will generate the next dispute, and they are easier to license now than to remove later.
4. Map the actual boundaries. The entire waterfront half of this case turned on a strip of land sitting where the owner did not think it sat. Recorded plats settle that question; assumptions do not.

On the waterfront holding

The rights-side holding is the more conventional one but worth noting for its method: the panel found the covenant “clear and unambiguous” and therefore never reached extrinsic evidence about what the 2005 drafters intended. Indiana courts interpret restrictive covenants as written, and an association arguing that everyone always understood a provision to mean something other than its words is arguing uphill.

What to watch

The opinion does not state whether transfer to the Indiana Supreme Court was sought, and we did not independently confirm the transfer docket. The case was remanded, so the trial-court proceedings on the reversed counterclaim may yet generate further rulings.