The City of Rock Hill wants residents of a development to vote for annexation so they’re cutting off the water of people that won’t vote for it.
The city has received only 20 of the 90 votes it needs to annex. To say annexation isn’t wanted would be an understatement but the city REALLY wants that extra tax revenue so they’re playing dirty.
“That’s a nice house. It would be a shame if anything happened to it.”
Sometimes you get to see the true nature of government.
another great reason to own guns!
You think they might enact Police warrants as well?
“Oh we had a tip you were hiding drugs/guns/Asian Women/ Conflict Diamonds et al in your home. We conducted a THROUGH search of your property and are happy to inform you the reports were wrong…sorry about the mess and broken stuff. BTW on an unrelated note, you haven’t voted for the city’s cause….”
That’s some dirty f’ing pool right there.
I’m not going to add any further comment because the things I’m thinking are likely illegal.
So is what the city is doing, isn’t it? Eye for an eye!
ZerCool, I’ll say it for ya …..
Hey there, City Water Official Schmuckatelli ….. nice grape you got there. It would be a shame if a couple of 185gr JHP’s found their way in there.
Did anyone read the story before getting angry?
If it was in the contract when they bought their houses, then the city is in the right. If they didn’t want to be annexed, they shouldn’t have bought property where the city has a contractual right to annex them. As for not knowing about it, that’s why you read the contract (including the deed) before you sign it!
It’s pretty common in real estate for an obligation to be passed along to new owners as part of the title. With new developments, it’s usually a requirement to join a future HOA, or -like what this is about – annexation-on-demand by a neighboring town or city.
If you don’t look out for that kind of thing when you buy, you can find yourself unpleasantly surprised, and it’s nobody’s fault but your own.
Hey Jake,
So how do you reconcile the city’s state-requirement to get 75% of the current owners permission to get annexed with the pre-condition contract made between the city and the developer vs the current owners? The city should have just annexed the land while the developer was the majority owner. I’d say they lost their window.
The homeowners ought to give the city the finger and hire a driller to put them in a well and a septic tank.
“the city agreed to provide utilities in exchange for annexation at a later date.”
As long as that date isn’t specified, all the residents have to say is “Not now, but maybe later. Ask us again in eight years.”
At that point, the city is on the hook to meet its contractual obligations as long as the residents don’t bar the possibility of every being annexed.
Yeah… can you tell I used to do contracts for the gubmint?
Contractual agreement or not, cutting off someones water because they won’t do what the government wants is definition tyranny, and in my book, a killin’ offense.
The state law probably doesn’t allow them to just do the annexation based off the contract. Since the provision of water service was contingent on permission for annexation, the city is well within it’s rights to cut of water service when the homeowner has repudiated that part of the contract.
Uh, no. It was part of their contracts when they bought their homes, so they agreed to it when they signed the contracts. It was an open-ended agreement that the city could annex them whenever it chose – there was no “window.” The city could have waited another 25 or 50 years, and it would still be the city’s right to do the annexation if they wanted.
That may be an option. Or it could be a violation of the purchase contract as a whole, and leave them open to foreclosure or other penalties. It depends on how the contracts were written.
The bottom line is that the homeowners that are refusing annexation are violating the contracts they signed when they bought their homes. Having the city cut their water off is a consequence of that violation.
@Tirno:
It would depend on how it’s worded. If it’s an “on demand” agreement (which is the most likely), then they’re in violation. It may also depend on contract law and case law in that state.
@Packetman:
The residents (by buying the homes with the pre-existing agreement in the contract) agreed to allow annexation as part in exchange for city water. Why should the city have to continue to provide them water when the residents have broken the agreement?
Assume for the argument that I’m a city. I agree to provide you with water in exchange for a monthly payment based on a per-gallon rate. If you stop paying me, should I have to continue to provide you with water? This is the same thing, except that in addition to that monthly payment, the residents also agreed to vote to allow the city to annex their development whenever the city decided to do so.
They are not paying for their water, so the city is turning it off. That’s what happens.
Having been on the short end of this stick, when the city decided to put in new roads, sidewalks on both sides of the street, and then charge us for it based on a pre-existing agreement that they cannot prove was ever part of MY purchase, it ends up being cheaper to simply pay the bill than it is to pay the attorneys to fight it.
The city knows this, thus they swing the biggest stick.
It sucks, and is one of the reasons that America is no longer the great country it was. We have given too much power to the apparatchiks!!
PS.
What is legal is not always what is RIGHT!
Jake,
What you obviously fail to understand is that, as a contractual matter, the proper place to hash it out is in the courts, not by cutting off services.
Were I an owner of a house in the subject area, I would be happy to get this settled in court.
But when a necessary utility is threatened, that’s when I’ll get nasty.
Why? If you violate the terms of your contract with your ISP, but continue to pay the bills, do they have to take you to court before they terminate your service? What about with a power company, or the gas company, or the phone company, or the cable company. Why should this be any different?
The city agreed to provide water service in exchange for a monthly fee based on usage, and in exchange for the homeowner’s agreement to allow annexation whenever the city decided to do so. The homeowners have violated that agreement, so the city, which provides the water, is cutting off the service. It’s just like if they had violated their agreement with any other utility company, the service gets cut off.
More, why should the city be obligated to continue to provide them a service if the homeowners have violated the terms on which the provision of that service was made contingent from the beginning?
They have a word for what the gov. is doing here.
Extortion.