[singleshot_]

What would happen if the deed (a contract) was an agreement to violate the law restricting minimum lot sizes and was therefor illegal?

It would be void and regardless of recordation, no transfer or subdivision would have occurred.

[mindslight]

My point was that the laws regarding those minimum lot sizes are about buildable lots. Although now that I'm looking into this I think the snag would be trying to record that plot plan, where the Registry would be mechanically looking for a town approval stamp on the plan before they were willing to record it.

But a new avenue has occurred to me that actually saves money on deed costs - nothing prevents multiple corporate entities from jointly owning a piece of real estate on one deed, right? So you could conceivably create one Delaware Series LLC, create an unlimited number of distinct legal entities with that, and then write one deed that lists all of those entities as joint owners of the single piece of real estate. Basically similar to multiple residents living in one house, and each getting a vote (but applied to infinitely scalable corporate entities!)

The fundamental flaw here is the law framing the entity itself as having voting rights (also why this attracts so much attention!), whereas if it were framed such that every beneficial owner with over say 35% of the ownership interest could vote, that would be intrinsically limiting.

[singleshot_]

This idea is equally wrong for different reasons, but I do have a measure of appreciation for you having abandoned your first intrinsically broken idea upon the first resistance you encountered. Fail fast!

Why would thirty companies that owned a company together get one vote each instead of one thirtieth? The thirty companies would each have one vote in determining how to vote the one parent's vote.

(You are, however, correct to note that you can record absolute gibberish if you want to, so long as you pay the recorder. This does not effectuate a transfer of land, though; it merely serves as constructive notice to the person who is bound to look for such recorded notice, i.e., the beneficial purchaser for value. In a way, you could think of the function of a recorder as preventer of race conditions, not the database).

[mindslight]

Well the choice was either accept the likelihood of a common restriction that seems to exist in many places, or dig into the actual specifics of the law in this Delaware county. I don't need to give myself a headache for fun.

Why would thirty companies each get a vote? Because that is what the charter says. There wouldn't be one parent company, rather the real estate would be owned by them all directly as tenants in common.

> 9. A. (2) Non-residents. Every property owner as of March 1 prior to the annual municipal election, whether a natural person or artificial entity, including but not limited to corporations, partnerships, trusts, and limited liability companies, and who is registered to vote, if provided by ordinance, shall have one (1) vote. A natural person shall be a citizen of the United States and age 18 on or before the date of the election. An artificial entity shall be a domestic entity in the State of Delaware.

https://charters.delaware.gov/fenwickisland.html

So they must be Delaware entities. Another thing I'm giving up on is that the Series LLC might not work. While each Series is legally independent from the others, I think they still might not be considered distinct "entities" (once again, not looking to give myself a headache to solidly determine that).

So either do one LLC/corporation per vote, or perhaps trusts might be even cheaper (no idea what filing/recording would be required for trusts, especially to substantiate them enough to register to vote)

[singleshot_]

I apologize for being dismissive. You have read this a little more closely than I have.

Do you think Section 9A(3), which more or less says these rules would be construed under one person/entity, one vote would break your plan? I believe if you tried to have thirty voters tied to one parcel of land by joint tenancy, that would be how the court stops you. The plaintiff here is arguing vote dilution, but vote dilution gets multiplied by an arbitrary factor in your model.

[mindslight]

IANAA. My reading is that "one person/entity one vote" is an extension of the common "one person one vote" where say owning two pieces of real estate or other qualification for an election means you still just get one vote (rather than multiple by having more stake in the outcome). Read the examples around those sections.

There might be an angle where if a given person has the voting POA from two different entities, that person would still only get a single vote, limited by being a natural person? This doesn't seem to be the intent though.

To be [close to] sure you'd have to ask a Delaware attorney, as they should have a good handle on the jurisprudence around this topic.

[singleshot_]

If there are thirty companies, and each owns a piece of land, one entity/one vote is pretty clearly observed.

If those thirty companies reconfigure their holdings so they each own one thirtieth of each of thirty parcels, under your model all of a sudden each company has thirty votes.

I believe if you tried to exploit the ambiguity in the law in a way that mattered enough for anyone to care, you would catch a lawsuit predicated on the idea that the one entity/one vote concept was violated by this trick. I think a court would approve of the idea.

I still agree with you that this law is poor, I just don’t think this exploit flies in court. But no one knows until they try.