Nobody could have known

I'm not a fan of over-55 deed restrictions. They seem like illegal housing discrimination to me. They're also likely to diminish tax support for the public schools, if they're filled with childless people with no ties to the town they're in.

But what really frosts me is businesses selling - to the towns that have passed bylaws allowing this and to the people who have purchased one of the homes - sellling with one story and then changing it when they don't make enough money.

Nobody could have known that the age limits would become such an albatross as the Massachusetts real estate market softened, [Joanne] Foley said.

Had your clients disclosed to their buyers the ephemeral nature of the deed restrictions, you'd be in the clear, but no doubt they didn't. Yet now you're screwing them. It stinks.