Tennessee Deed Modification

[Dauntless]

Thank you in advance for any advice. This will be a bit of a story, but I cannot find any information on any legal site or via the clerk in my county.

I purchased my first property in east TN in February of '23. Semi rural, 5.5 acres. My property and the surrounding properties have deed restrictions that I desired and was happy to comply with. ie..no poultry, no business run out of home, minimum home size, home type, no living in garages or sheds, no trash pile up. Pretty standard stuff. So, to my east, I have a neighbor who has nine acres. Beyond him, another who has 8. There are three more smaller lots on the southwest side.
We all have or had these restrictions on our deeds. No HOA, as I said, pretty rural area.
Right after I moved in, the next door neighbors moved into their garage, a 30x30. They moved 7 dogs into a pen they made 60 feet from my back door. These dogs howl and bark all day long. A huge nuisance.  He began running a landscaping business out of his property, he got chickens. He let trash pile up and, despite my best effort to be reasonable and ask nicely, suggest compromises, he and his wife (who I DID get along with just fine) took offense to the fact that they were ignoring the deed restrictions and started, what I call, a neighbor war.
Alright, so fast forward. For context, I am a 100% disabled veteran. Heart failure. PTSD. Anxiety. I'm divorced, retired and have done so much work on this property. I don't want to sell it but the stress going on is unbearable. I will leave out the harassments and further drama, it's like a bad novel.

After attempting common courtesy and being stonewalled,  I had my attorney send them a request to please correct and/or come to mutually beneficial terms. They more or less ignored it. So, in order to compel them to correct the violations of the deed restrictions and allow me peaceful use of my property, I brought suit against my neighbors. They corrected the chicken situation but that was it. First they tried to hide the chickens, lol. But the chickens got out and came on my property. Busted! Anyway, they answered the lawsuit, denying everything despite the obvious nature of the violations and so it's ongoing.

So, here it is....the "big" one.

The neighbor and the one next to him, who is one of three that's being hateful, sought out the seller of the "subdivision" and had him file a "correction" to the deed.

1. No correction is on the deed, same information.

2. None of us, none of the other neighbors were consulted or advised.

3. It appears the procedure for this type of removal was not followed.

And here's the big one.

3. The original seller, dated the "correction" retroactively to the date of sale two years ago.

My attorney believes this is illegal as do the register of deeds and myself. However, I cannot find, specifically, anything that addresses this. Attorney is still researching. Retroactively?

It's an obvious attempt to circumvent the lawsuit but since they've already made partial corrections, it's our thought that this is invalid and cannot stand. They've already acknowledged violations, right?

Thoughts? Links? Anyone ever heard of anything so bizarre? Help!

[jsahara24]

I'm not sure I can offer anything that will help you, but I can imagine it is quite frustrating.  

So it sounds like the original owner did a subdivision and put these requirements on all the created lots?  When they removed them did they remove them from your lot, or the other ones as well?  

[MountainDon]

It does not seem correct that restrictions could be changed after lots have neen sold.

I also wonder if you have a fully competent attorney.

Best of luck