Texas Property Code 82.104 – Transfer of Special Declarant Rights
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(a) Special declarant rights created or reserved under this chapter may not be transferred except by an instrument evidencing the transfer recorded in each county in which any portion of the condominium is located. The instrument is not effective unless executed by the transferee.
(b) On transfer of any special declarant right, a transferor is not relieved of an obligation or liability arising before the transfer. A transferor is not liable for an act or omission or a breach of an obligation arising from the exercise of a special declarant right by a successor declarant who is not an affiliate of the transferor.
Terms Used In Texas Property Code 82.104
- Affiliate of a declarant: means any person who controls, is controlled by, or is under common control with a declarant. See Texas Property Code 82.003
- Bankruptcy: Refers to statutes and judicial proceedings involving persons or businesses that cannot pay their debts and seek the assistance of the court in getting a fresh start. Under the protection of the bankruptcy court, debtors may discharge their debts, perhaps by paying a portion of each debt. Bankruptcy judges preside over these proceedings.
- Board: means the board of directors or the body, regardless of name, designated to act on behalf of the association. See Texas Property Code 82.003
- Condominium: means a form of real property with portions of the real property designated for separate ownership or occupancy, and the remainder of the real property designated for common ownership or occupancy solely by the owners of those portions. See Texas Property Code 82.003
- Declarant: means a person, or group of persons acting in concert, who:
(A) as part of a common promotional plan, offers to dispose of the person's interest in a unit not previously disposed of; or
(B) reserves or succeeds to any special declarant right. See Texas Property Code 82.003 - Declaration: means an instrument, however denominated, that creates a condominium, and any amendment to that instrument. See Texas Property Code 82.003
- Deed: The legal instrument used to transfer title in real property from one person to another.
- Development rights: means a right or combination of rights reserved by a declarant in the declaration to:
(A) add real property to a condominium;
(B) create units, common elements, or limited common elements within a condominium;
(C) subdivide units or convert units into common elements; or
(D) withdraw real property from a condominium. See Texas Property Code 82.003 - Foreclosure: A legal process in which property that is collateral or security for a loan may be sold to help repay the loan when the loan is in default. Source: OCC
- Liabilities: The aggregate of all debts and other legal obligations of a particular person or legal entity.
- Mortgage: The written agreement pledging property to a creditor as collateral for a loan.
- Obligation: An order placed, contract awarded, service received, or similar transaction during a given period that will require payments during the same or a future period.
- Person: includes corporation, organization, government or governmental subdivision or agency, business trust, estate, trust, partnership, association, and any other legal entity. See Texas Government Code 311.005
- Property: means real and personal property. See Texas Government Code 311.005
- Real property: Land, and all immovable fixtures erected on, growing on, or affixed to the land.
- Special declarant rights: means rights reserved for the benefit of a declarant to:
(A) complete improvements indicated on plats and plans filed with the declaration;
(B) exercise any development right;
(C) make the condominium part of a larger condominium or a planned community;
(D) maintain sales, management, and leasing offices, signs advertising the condominium, and models;
(E) use easements through the common elements for the purpose of making improvements within the condominium or within real property that may be added to the condominium; or
(F) appoint or remove any officer or board member of the association during any period of declarant control. See Texas Property Code 82.003 - Trustee: A person or institution holding and administering property in trust.
- Unit: means a physical portion of the condominium designated for separate ownership or occupancy, the boundaries of which are described by the declaration. See Texas Property Code 82.003
(c) Unless otherwise provided by a mortgage instrument or deed of trust, in case of foreclosure of a mortgage, tax sale, judicial sale, sale by a trustee under a deed of trust, or sale under Bankruptcy Code or receivership proceedings, of a unit owned by a declarant or of real property in a condominium subject to development rights, a person acquiring title to all the real property being foreclosed or sold may request to succeed to all special declarant rights or only to rights reserved by the declaration to maintain models, offices, and signs. The judgment or instrument conveying title may provide for transfer of only the special declarant rights requested.
(d) On foreclosure, tax sale, judicial sale, sale by a trustee under a deed of trust, or sale under Bankruptcy Code or receivership proceedings of all units and other real property in a condominium owned by a declarant:
(1) the declarant ceases to have any special declarant rights; and
(2) the period of declarant control terminates unless the judgment or instrument conveying title provides for transfer of all special declarant rights held by that declarant to a successor declarant.
(e) The liabilities and obligations of a person who succeeds to special declarant rights are as follows:
(1) a successor to a special declarant right who is an affiliate of a declarant is subject to all obligations and liabilities imposed on the transferor by this chapter or by the declaration;
(2) a successor to a special declarant right, other than a successor described by Subdivision (3) or (4), who is not an affiliate of a declarant, is subject to all obligations and liabilities imposed on the transferor by this chapter or by the declaration;
(3) a successor to only a right reserved by the declaration to maintain models, offices, and signs, who is not an affiliate of a declarant, may not exercise any other special declarant right, and is not subject to any liability or obligation as a declarant, except the obligation to provide a condominium information statement and any liability arising as a result; and
(4) a successor to all special declarant rights held by the successor’s transferor who is not an affiliate of that declarant and who succeeded to those rights pursuant to a deed in lieu of foreclosure or a judgment or instrument conveying title to units under Subsection (c) may declare the person’s intention in a recorded instrument to hold those rights solely for transfer to another person; thereafter, until all special declarant rights are transferred to a person acquiring title to any unit owned by the successor, or until an instrument permitting exercise of all those rights is recorded, the successor may not exercise any of those rights other than any right held by the successor’s transferor to control the board as provided by § 82.103(c) for the duration of the period of declarant control, and an attempt to exercise those rights is void; so long as a successor declarant may not exercise special declarant rights under this subdivision, the successor is not subject to any liability or obligation as a declarant other than liability for acts and omissions under § 82.103(a).
(f) This section does not subject a successor to a special declarant right to any claims against or other obligations of a transferor declarant, other than claims and obligations arising under this chapter or the declaration.