4 ms·

The covenant is simply something you have agreed to with the purchase of the property. And yes, you agree not to sell to anyone who doesn't also agree to the co

The covenant is simply something you have agreed to with the purchase of the property. And yes, you agree not to sell to anyone who doesn't also agree to the covenant. Are you saying that after you have signed this contract you should be suddenly let out of it? That could create actual damage to other property owners (via lower property values) who only bought there because everyone has to abide by the covenant.

tzs 5y ago
> The covenant is simply something you have agreed to with the purchase of the property. And yes, you agree not to sell to anyone who doesn't also agree to the covenant. That makes it sound like covenants that run with the land are something you could simply implement via contract law, binding the first purchaser to them via contract and requiring that they only sell to people who sign a contract agreeing to being bound and the propagating the covenant. In fact, covenants that run with the land are stronger than that. The contract approach might work as long as the land was only conveyed through contractual arrangements between the conveyor and the conveyee. But there are other ways land can be conveyed. My land could be seized by the state because I stopped paying taxes and then sold at auction, for instance. Or I might die intestate and with no close relatives, and the land ends up with some distant relative I've never met or had contact with. Or I go bankrupt and the bankruptcy trustee sells my land to pay my creditors. These and many other ways could result in my land ending up owned by someone else with no contract between me and them, and hence no way for me to impose the restrictions on them. A covenant that runs with the land would still work after all of those. I've not looked into the history of it, but I'd guess that the need to have a way for arrangements to stick no matter how the land is conveyed is why covenants that run with the land were developed.
souprock 5y ago
You can't do that kind of thing with a will. If we ban that for wills, it seems equally proper to ban it for pieces of property. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_against_perpetuities https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_against_perpetuities

tzs 5y ago

> The covenant is simply something you have agreed to with the purchase of the property. And yes, you agree not to sell to anyone who doesn't also agree to the covenant. That makes it sound like covenants that run with the land are something you could simply implement via contract law, binding the first purchaser to them via contract and requiring that they only sell to people who sign a contract agreeing to being bound and the propagating the covenant. In fact, covenants that run with the land are stronger than that. The contract approach might work as long as the land was only conveyed through contractual arrangements between the conveyor and the conveyee. But there are other ways land can be conveyed. My land could be seized by the state because I stopped paying taxes and then sold at auction, for instance. Or I might die intestate and with no close relatives, and the land ends up with some distant relative I've never met or had contact with. Or I go bankrupt and the bankruptcy trustee sells my land to pay my creditors. These and many other ways could result in my land ending up owned by someone else with no contract between me and them, and hence no way for me to impose the restrictions on them. A covenant that runs with the land would still work after all of those. I've not looked into the history of it, but I'd guess that the need to have a way for arrangements to stick no matter how the land is conveyed is why covenants that run with the land were developed.

souprock 5y ago

You can't do that kind of thing with a will. If we ban that for wills, it seems equally proper to ban it for pieces of property. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_against_perpetuities https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_against_perpetuities