COMMENT OF THE DAY: A GUESS AT PROPER ETIQUETTE FOR OUT-OF-FASHION DEED RESTRICTIONS “My old neighborhood – two houses ago – should be very worried as well. Right before I got there, some people had tried to rewrite the deed restrictions. Some other people blocked the rewrite. Which basically meant that the old restrictions – from the 1950s – were still in force – or were they? Half the regulations were either moot (who has a garbage incinerator in their back yards nowadays?) or illegal today. But more importantly: the restrictions were supposed to have been renewed in the 1970s and again in the 1990s, but it’s not clear they ever were. I wound up basically following the practical rule that whatever the county clerk has on record is in force whether it makes sense or not, so long as it is not rendered illegal by some other law. But I am not a lawyer, and I know that approach probably would not hold up in court.” [ZAW, commenting on Comment of the Day: Garden Oaks Question Marks Raise Question Marks Citywide] Illustration: Lulu