Restrictive Covenants-Can they be "pierced?"

[Jeff White]

I'm wondering if anyone has dealt with "piercing" HOA restrictive covenants? This has been a great "learning opportunity" about various due diligence areas which thankfully hasn't cost anything (yet). For background, I purchased the home for my mom, which she loves. So, from that perspective, the purchase was certainly worth it. Just the same, she will likely only live in the home for another 2-3 years. At that point, my thinking was that the home would be a great rental as inventory in the area tends to be very limited.

Short version of the situation is that the subdivision's HOA allows for only single family owner occupants. (note: one reason for the covenants was to prohibit college students from renting in the subdivision). We have recently been considering subletting rooms over the garage in the short term to give the rental approach a test run. While there was plenty of interest in subletting the rooms, my mom discovered the restriction at a social gathering. Unfortunately, we never received the disclosure package at closing as normally the case. I'm not saying that would have caused us to walk away from the home, but that was a somewhat "unpleasant" surprise.

Interestingly, the covenants also dictate all homes in the subdivision will have two car garages.  However, there are two homes with only single car garages.  Based on this and my limited understanding of covenants, I've been told that if one of the covenants are invalidated, then all of the covenants are invalid.  While I'm not looking for legal advice here, I would appreciate thoughts on how to approach the issue.  On the other hand, if someone has dealt with a situation like this, I would be interested in learning the approach taken.

As a reference, Ken Corsini wrote a blog post (2012) titled, "3 Ways to Overcome Restrictive Leasing Covenants" 

<https://www.biggerpockets.com/blog/2012/08/22/ways...> I haven't, however, found an update to this blog.

Thanks!  Jeff