Bylaws Bind the Board, Not Your Backyard

The Garden Oaks Maintenance Organization (GOMO) is a Texas nonprofit corporation, formed in 2002 to serve owners in Sections 1, 2, 3 and 5. Section 4 is not part of GOMO.

GOMO was created to act as the neighborhood’s property owners association. Following a lawsuit and a 2017 decision by the Fourteenth Court of Appeals in Houston, GOMO is no longer legally an HOA. One practical consequence: GOMO cannot collect mandatory assessments.

A second consequence touches the deed restrictions themselves. With a mandatory HOA in place, Texas law lets owners amend a section’s deed restrictions with a vote of the owners of 67% of the lots. Without one, as now, the bar is generally 75%.

GOMO remains a working nonprofit. It provides deed restriction information to title companies, buyers and owners, and the board is considering resuming plan review on a voluntary basis for owners who want it. GOMO is also separate from the Garden Oaks Civic Club (GOCC).

The Garden Oaks deed restrictions were recorded section by section between 1937 and 1945, more than half a century before GOMO existed. They are part of the Harris County real property records and attach to each lot, binding every owner in that section. Their force does not come from GOMO, and GOMO’s change in legal status did not change them. Under Texas law, any owner or group of owners in a section may enforce its deed restrictions, a principle the court of appeals applied in that 2017 decision.

Depending on the section, deed restrictions address residential use, building lines and setbacks, and outbuildings and garages. Each section has its own set, so a rule in Section 2 may read differently from the one in Section 5.

Changing a deed restriction takes a vote of the owners in that section, at thresholds set by Texas law. Those thresholds are measured against all owners in the section, not just those who vote, so an owner who does not vote counts the same as a no. A GOMO board vote cannot do it. Neither can a GOMO membership meeting.

GOMO’s bylaws are the internal operating rules of a nonprofit corporation. They set how many directors serve and which sections they represent, how directors are elected, how meetings are noticed and conducted, what records members may inspect, and how members vote.

Think of the bylaws as the referee’s rulebook, not the rules of the game. They bind GOMO and its board. They say nothing about your fence, your garage or your setback.