Teal Trading & Dev., LP v. Champee Springs Ranches Prop. Owners Ass'n
Decision Date | 05 July 2017 |
Docket Number | No. 04-16-00063-CV,04-16-00063-CV |
Citation | 534 S.W.3d 558 |
Parties | TEAL TRADING AND DEVELOPMENT, LP, Appellant v. CHAMPEE SPRINGS RANCHES PROPERTY OWNERS ASSOCIATION, Appellee |
Court | Texas Court of Appeals |
Kimberly S. Keller, Keller Stolarczyk, PLLC, Boerne, TX,Richard C. Mosty, Charles Dixon Mosty, Mosty Law Firm, Kerrville, TX, for Appellant.
Randall B. Richards, The Law Office of Randy Richards, Boerne, TX, for Appellee.
Sitting: Sandee Bryan Marion, Chief Justice, Marialyn Barnard, Justice, Patricia O. Alvarez, Justice
Opinion by: Marialyn Barnard, Justice
This appeal concerns the validity and enforceability of a property restriction—specifically a one-foot reserve strip ("the Non-Access Easement")—that if valid precludes ingress and egress across the strip. This court has previously reviewed this dispute, holding that neither side was entitled to summary judgment and remanding to the trial court for further proceedings. See Teal Trading and Dev., LP v. Champee Springs Ranches Prop. Owners Ass'n , 432 S.W.3d 381, 384 (Tex. App.—San Antonio 2014, pet. denied). Upon remand, the trial court granted partial summary judgment in favor of appellee Champee Springs Ranches Property Owners Association ("Champee Springs"), and the remaining issues were tried to the court. After trial, the trial court ruled the Non-Access Easement was valid and awarded attorney's fees and costs to Champee Springs. On appeal, appellant Teal Trading and Development, LP ("Teal Trading") raises three issues challenging the trial court's partial summary judgment, its findings, and the award of attorney's fees and costs.1 We affirm the trial court's judgment.
As noted above, we previously reviewed this matter. See id. In our prior opinion, we provided a detailed rendition of the facts. Accordingly, we have taken portions of the factual background from our prior opinion and then revised, updated, and supplemented it as necessary. See id.
Teal Trading owns almost 2,000 contiguous acres of land in the Texas Hill Country. The majority of its property lies in Kerr County, Texas, although some portion of its land spills into neighboring Kendall County, Texas. Champee Springs represents residents of the Champee Springs Ranches subdivision and The Quarry at Champee Springs Ranches subdivision, which are located in Kendall County. See TEX. PROP. CODE ANN. § 204.004 (West 2014) ( ).
Six hundred and sixty acres of Teal Trading's property, and some or all of the land now comprising the subdivisions represented by Champee Springs, were originally owned by E.J. Cop, who purchased 9,245.95 acres of land in Kendall and Kerr Counties on June 3, 1998. Cop platted and developed his property as Champee Springs Ranches. On June 4, 1998, Cop signed a "Declaration of Covenants, Conditions and Restrictions," which was recorded in the deed records of Kendall and Kerr Counties. See TEX. PROP. CODE ANN. § 202.001(1)(A) ( ). The Declaration contains the restriction, i.e., Non-Access Easement, at issue. In pertinent part, the Declaration states:
The restriction in paragraph two is the "Non-Access Easement." The parties appeared to agree on original submission to this court and still seem to agree the Non-Access Easement prohibits any person—aside from Cop or his assignees—who owns land along the original edge of the Cop tract from permitting anyone else access across the edge of their property.2
Ultimately, Cop began to sell lots from his property. The following is a summary of relevant events and conveyances in chronological order:
We will refer to the 660-acre tract sold by Luigs and now owned by Teal Trading as the "Privilege Creek Tract." All of the deeds in the chain of title from Cop to Teal Trading state, in some form or another, that the property conveyed is "subject to" the restrictions in the Declaration filed by Cop.
When Cop acquired 9,245.95 acres, the portion of his property that would later be sold as the Privilege Creek Tract was at the northwestern end of his tract. Thus, the Non-Access Easement runs along the edge of the Privilege Creek Tract to the extent that the edge of the tract was also the edge of the original Cop tract. The additional 1,173 acres owned by Teal Trading adjacent to the Privilege Creek Tract were not part of Cop's original 9,245.95 acres. Accordingly, Teal Trading's additional acreage is seemingly "divided" from the Privilege Creek Tract by the Non-Access Easement. In contrast, although the Champee Springs Ranches subdivision is directly adjacent to the Privilege Creek Tract, it was not "divided" from the tract by the Non-Access Easement because the property comprising the subdivision was also part of Cop's original tract. This is demonstrated by the following illustrative map:
The area depicted in orange—also designated as "section 1"—is the 1,173 acres owned by Teal Trading that was not part of the original Cop Tract. The acreage in yellow—also designated as "section 2"—is the Privilege Creek Tract. The Non-Access Easement, which is depicted by the bolded red line,4 "divides" the properties owned by Teal Trading. The document shows how the Champee Springs Ranches subdivision is adjacent to the Privilege Creek Tract, but not "divided" from the tract by the Non-Access Easement.
After BTEX Ranch, LP acquired its property from Mallard Royalty Partners, it began to develop the entire property as a single, contiguous residential subdivision. It then built a construction road that connected Turkey Knob Road to Lane Valley Road. Turkey Knob Road is located within the Privilege Creek Tract and the Champee Springs subdivisions and gives those tracts access to Interstate 10, but it does not otherwise cross the "dividing line" created by the Non-Access Easement. Lane Valley Road is on the other side of the "dividing line" created by the Non-Access Easement. To enforce the Non-Access Easement, Champee Springs intervened in a lawsuit filed by Kendall County against BTEX Ranch, LP relating to BTEX Ranch LP's development. The trial court denied the intervention, but severed Champee Springs's claims into a separate lawsuit. During the BTEX Ranch, LP/Champee Springs litigation, Teal Trading foreclosed on BTEX Ranch LP's interest and intervened.
Champee Springs sought a declaratory judgment that BTEX Ranch, LP—and subsequently Teal Trading—was bound by the Non-Access Easement and estopped to deny its force, validity, and effect, and because Teal Trading was bound, the restriction was enforceable against it. Teal Trading...
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