A motocross course is not a “residential” use, Montana's high court holds
A motocross course is not a “residential” use, Montana's high court holds
2026-09-15 · Montana · Courts
What happened. A Montana association does not have to prove a business is being run to enforce a “residential purposes only” covenant. A recreational installation can breach it on its own.
The decision
Larsen v. Sayers, 2025 MT 24, 420 Mont. 270, 563 P.3d 269, docket DA 24-0151, decided February 4, 2025. Justice Baker wrote for the Court. Published and citable. On appeal from the Second Judicial District Court, Butte-Silver Bow County (Hon. Kurt Krueger), which had held after a bench trial that the motocross activities did not violate the covenants.1
The covenant
Section 1 of the McGuiness Tracts declaration provided that lots
“shall be used for residential and agricultural purposes only, … and no business, trade, manufacture or other commercial activity shall be conducted thereon”
with a separate clause barring use that “unreasonably disturb[s] the owners of tracts located in the said real property.”
The holding
The Court found the declaration not ambiguous. “Residential” means “used as a residence or by residents,” per Hillcrest, 239 Mont. 56, 778 P.2d 423. The defendants' own testimony did much of the work: one agreed at trial that a motocross course is not a residential or agricultural use, and the other conceded motocross is not necessary to a residence.
The Court rejected the argument that using the course incidentally to living on the property made the course itself residential. It reversed on breach of the residential-use covenant and on injunctive relief, affirmed that ramp-building did not violate the commercial-activity restriction on this record, and reversed the denial of attorney fees, remanding to set a reasonable award for the enforcing neighbours.
The rule that transfers: ancillary is not residential
Category-level, this is the useful proposition. A use ancillary to living on the property is not thereby a “residential” use. The test is what the installation is, not whether the people using it happen to live there.
That reaches a set of disputes Montana boards see constantly and often assume they cannot win without proving commerce:
- Recreational and hobby installations — tracks, ramps, ranges, large workshops, motorsport or equipment storage
- Intensive outdoor uses that generate noise, dust or traffic without generating revenue
- Structures whose scale or purpose has no residential function, even on a large rural lot
An association enforcing a “residential purposes only” clause need not establish a business. If the use is not a residential or agricultural one, the clause reaches it directly.
Two other reasons this opinion keeps appearing
Larsen has become load-bearing in Montana covenant law within a year, for reasons beyond motocross:
- It is the current authority on “prevailing party” in covenant actions — paragraph 37, cited for that proposition in Brandt v. R&R Mountain Escapes, 2025 MT 155.2
- It supplies the covenant-interpretation rules the Court applied in Waddell v. Studer, 2025 MT 269 — paragraphs 18 and 19, on reviewing covenant interpretation as a conclusion of law for correctness.
A board or counsel working a Montana covenant question in 2026 is likely to be citing Larsen for the standard of review whatever the subject matter.
The evidentiary lesson, which is unglamorous and decisive
The defendants lost substantially on their own admissions. Asked directly whether a motocross course is a residential or agricultural use, one said no. That single concession removed the interpretive question the district court had resolved in their favour.
For an association building an enforcement record, the implication runs the same way. The question worth asking, and documenting, is not whether the owner is making money — it is what the use is. A clear answer on that question can be worth more than a file of complaints about its effects.
A footnote on fees, in the other direction
Larsen and Brandt came out differently on fees in the same year, and the difference was the clause. In Larsen the denial of fees to the winning neighbours was reversed. In Brandt the denial was affirmed, because that declaration's fee clause was permissive and the district court had discretion. The word in the document decided it. Worth checking which word yours uses before relying on fee recovery in an enforcement budget.
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