Recently, a Washington State Court of Appeals ruled that a 1951 plat restriction preventing the further division of a lot within the subdivision was still valid. In Jones v. the Town of Hunts Point, Patrick Jones wished to divide his lot into two independent lots within the Hunts Point Park Addition subdivision. King County had approved the subdivision in 1951 with an owner-imposed restriction that prohibited lots from being further divided. Mr. Jones argued that the restriction was a private covenant that the town had no authority to enforce. The court disagreed. Since RCW 58.17.170 in the subdivision statute provides that a plat is to be governed by the terms of approval of the final plat, the town necessarily must enforce restrictions imposed on a subdivision as a term or condition of approval. The subdivision statute, however, does give Mr. Jones some relief that he did not take advantage of. If the subdivision is subject to restrictive covenants, then all parties subject to the restriction can agree to terminate it. This would require all 22 lot owners in Mr. Jones’s subdivision to agree to lift the restriction. This would be a tall order, and is likely why Mr. Jones did not pursue that course. The case illustrates that owners should give careful thought to owner-imposed plat restrictions because they may stick around for a very long time.
