Also known as: subsequent owner · subsequent ownership
Written by attorneys · grounded in primary & secondary sources — see below
Persons who acquire title to property after creation of a servitude or covenant. The benefit or burden of an appurtenant servitude runs automatically to all such persons who take the benefited or burdened land, including lessees, life tenants, adverse possessors, and purchasers at lien foreclosure.
Summit Plaza sold an outparcel to FreshMart subject to a recorded covenant limiting use to a full-line grocery. FreshMart later conveyed the parcel by warranty deed to BargainBox, which planned a general-merchandise store. Summit sued BargainBox to enforce the restriction. Because the burden ran with the land, BargainBox took subject to the covenant as a subsequent owner.
After the state enacted coastal-development restrictions, Palazzolo acquired title to wetlands from a corporation he controlled. He claimed the restrictions effected a taking. The Court held that Palazzolo, as a subsequent owner, could assert the claim even though he took title after the regulation.
Select any source to read its text and confirm it supports the definition.
Coal companies obtained waivers from surface owners decades earlier allowing full extraction. When the companies later sought to enforce the waivers against current surface owners who had not signed them, the Court noted that Pennsylvania precedent treated the waivers as running with the land to subsequent owners.
A coal company retained support rights when it conveyed surface estates. After the surface was subdivided and sold to new owners, the company claimed the support rights still bound those owners. The Court observed that Pennsylvania law allowed such perpetual covenants to run to subsequent surface owners.
A publisher sold textbooks abroad. Kirtsaeng imported and resold them in the United States. The Court held that the first sale exhausted the copyright, freeing all subsequent owners to resell the copies without infringement liability.
Tennessee abolished the year-and-a-day rule in homicide cases after Rogers caused a death. Rogers argued the change could not apply to him. The Court held that subsequent owners of property interests and later defendants alike take subject to judicial alterations of common-law rules that do not violate due process.
Yes. Under the default rule, an appurtenant burden or benefit runs to all subsequent owners unless the creating instrument provides otherwise. Recording supplies constructive notice, so the buyer takes subject to the servitude.
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Yes. When a common-scheme covenant benefits an entire development, each separately owned parcel receives a share of the benefit upon subdivision. Any owner of a benefited parcel may enforce the restriction against a burdened parcel.
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Yes. A life estate is an estate in land that burdens the fee and passes with the property. A subsequent fee owner takes subject to the life tenant's possessory interest and cannot oust the life tenant.
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No. Each separately owned benefited parcel holds an independent enforcement right. One owner may sue alone to enjoin a violation on a burdened parcel.
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Yes. When the declaration states that the obligation runs with each subdivided parcel and is recorded, the duty to contribute binds subsequent unit owners as a servitude.
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…by prospective legislation the State can shape and define property rights and reasonable investment-backed expectations, and subsequent owners cannot claim any injury from lost value. After all, they purchased or took title with notice of the limitation. The State may not put so potent a Hobbesian stick into the Lockean bundle.…