When the developer mapped out and began construction on Plats 11-14, he created an addendum to those properties to include them in membership of a to-be-built Pool. He was also building houses in Wexford, and created the same covenant ties to the to-be-built pool at that time. So those are the only properties that have a legally binding membership to the pool, and they are not able to opt-out of it.

When the pool was built, not all of the houses in the “member” plats were built, so the pool was done before there were enough homes to sustain operations. At that point, the pool board offered membership to some of the houses in the existing Briarwood neighborhood. But these memberships are not bound to the property in the way that the covenant-member properties are.

Those “voluntary” memberships have slowly fallen out over time, but from what we can tell, these are essentially hand-shake agreements. Failure to maintain membership by paying annual dues in effect ends membership forever. We do not have a sense for how many of them are still active. I also am not privy to whether those agreements are transferable when houses are sold.

The Briarwood HOA feels fairly confident that the pool has no obligations to include anyone other than the covenant-bound properties. As the neighborhoods are fully developed, they do not necessarily need the extra money to operate.

If you bought your home with the assumption that you had pool membership and later learned that you actually aren’t a member (perhaps if it was on the listing), it might be worth a call to the realtor.