Also known as: runs with the land · run with the land · running with the lands · covenant running with land
Written by attorneys · grounded in primary & secondary sources — see below
A characteristic of a right or obligation respecting land use that causes the right or obligation to pass automatically to successive owners or occupiers of the land or the interest in land with which the right or obligation runs.
Roberto Reyes conveyed land to Renata Russo by general warranty deed containing covenants against encumbrances. Russo later conveyed the same land to Roland Rhodes. When Rhodes discovered a recorded party-wall agreement requiring shared repair costs, he sued Reyes for breach. The covenant against encumbrances operated to bind the original grantor even after the land passed to a remote grantee.
Rhea Reynolds obtained a written promise from a neighbor to keep a shared courtyard open for art transport. The deed to Reynolds recited that the promise was intended to benefit the warehouse property for ongoing exhibition use. Reynolds conveyed the warehouse to Rosa Ruiz. Ruiz enforced the promise against the neighbor because the parties had manifested intent that the benefit travel with the land.
Select any source to read its text and confirm it supports the definition.
Riverfront Developments recorded a declaration requiring each condo unit owner to contribute to a shared law library. Reliance Insurance purchased a unit years later and refused to pay its share. The library owner sued Reliance Insurance. The contribution duty passed automatically to Reliance Insurance as the new owner of the burdened unit.
Renee Rogers received a promise from an adjoining owner to keep a loading passage open for large artworks. Rogers conveyed the benefited warehouse to Ridgeway Partners but granted only a non-exclusive license to Renee Rogers for art storage. When the adjoining owner blocked access, the license holder could not enforce the promise because a license does not constitute succession to an interest in the land.
A developer sold lots subject to a recorded covenant requiring a central garden to remain open and uncovered. The purchaser of one lot later acquired title through mesne conveyances and attempted to build on the garden area. The original covenantee obtained an injunction. The covenant bound the remote purchaser who took with notice of the restriction.
A subdivision was platted and sold with restrictions limiting lots to residential use. One lot owner attempted to build a gasoline station. Neighboring owners sued to enforce the residential restriction. The restriction operated as a reciprocal negative easement that ran with every lot in the subdivision even though the station lot's chain of title contained no express covenant.
The benefit of a promise respecting land use runs with the land only insofar as the parties intended that it should run. The recorded declaration or deed language referring to unit owners and successors supplies evidence of that intent.
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The benefit of a promise can run only to one who succeeds to some interest of the beneficiary in the land. A non-exclusive license creates no estate and therefore does not allow the licensee to enforce the benefit.
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Covenants in a general warranty deed run with the land and permit enforcement by remote grantees against the original grantor for breaches existing at conveyance.
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Recording places subsequent purchasers on constructive notice and supports the conclusion that the obligation was intended to attach to the land itself rather than remain personal to the original parties.
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…with buildings. On a motion to discharge that order, Mr. R. Palmer for the defendant contended that the covenant did not run with the land so as to be binding at law upon a purchaser from the covenantor, and he relied on the dictum of Lord Brougham C. in Keppell v. Bayley (2 M. & K. 547) to the effect that notice of such a…