Opinion ID: 2284431
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Heading: Genesis and Development of Covenants Regarding the Use of Property

Text: Covenants regarding property uses have historical roots in the courts of both law and equity. The English common-law courts first dealt with the issue in Spencer's Case, 5 Co. 16a, 77 Eng.Rep. 72 (Q.B. 1583). The court established two criteria for the enforcement of covenants against successors. First, the original covenanting parties must intend that the covenant run with the land. Second, the covenant must touch and concern the land. Id. at 16b, 77 Eng.Rep. at 74. The court explained the concept of touch and concern in this manner: But although the covenant be for him [an original party to the promise] and his assigns, yet if the thing to be done be merely collateral to the land, and doth not touch and concern the thing demised in any sort, there the assignee shall not be charged. As if the lessee covenants for him and his assignees to build a house upon the land of the lessor which is no parcel of the demise, or to pay any collateral sum to the lessor, or to a stranger, it shall not bind the assignee, because it is merely collateral, and in no manner touches or concerns the thing that was demised, or that is assigned over, and therefore in such case the assignee of the thing demised cannot be charged with it, no more than any other stranger. [ Ibid. ] The English common-law courts also developed additional requirements of horizontal privity (succession of estate), vertical privity (a landlord-tenant relationship), and that the covenant have proper form, in order for the covenant to run with the land. C. Clark, Real Covenants and Other Interests Which Run With the Land 94, 95 (2d ed. 1947) ( Real Covenants ). Those technical requirements made it difficult, if not impossible, to protect property through the creation of real covenants. Commentary, Real Covenants in Restraint of Trade  When Do They Run With the Land?, 20 Ala.L.Rev. 114, 115 (1967). To mitigate and to eliminate many of the formalities and privity rules formulated by the common-law courts, the English chancery courts in Tulk v. Moxhay, 2 Phil. 774, 41 Eng.Rep. 1143 (Ch. 1848), created the doctrine of equitable servitudes. In Tulk, land was conveyed subject to an agreement that it would be kept open and maintained for park use. A subsequent grantee, with notice of the restriction, acquired the park. The court held that it would be unfair for the original covenantor to rid himself of the burden to maintain the park by simply selling the land. In enjoining the new owner from violating the agreement, the court stated: It is said that, the covenant being one which does not run with the land, this court cannot enforce it, but the question is, not whether the covenant runs with the land, but whether a party shall be permitted to use the land in a manner inconsistent with the contract entered into by his vendor, and with notice of which he purchased. Of course, the price would be affected by the covenant, and nothing could be more inequitable than that the original purchaser should be able to sell the property the next day for a greater price, in consideration of the assignee being allowed to escape from the liability which he had himself undertaken. [ Id. at 777-78, 41 Eng.Rep. 1144]. The court thus enforced the covenant on the basis that the successor had purchased the property with notice of the restriction. Adequate notice obliterated any express requirement of touch and concern. Reichman, Toward a Unified Concept of Servitudes, 55 S.Cal.L.Rev. 1177, 1225 (1982); French, Toward a Modern Law of Servitudes: Reweaving Ancient Strands, 55 S.Cal.L.Rev. 1261, 1276-77 (1982). But see Burger, A Policy Analysis of Promises Respecting the Use of Land, 55 Minn.L.Rev. 167, 217 (1970) (focusing on language in Tulk that refers to use of land and attached to property as implied recognition of touch and concern rule). Some early commentators theorized that the omission of the technical elements of property law such as the touch and concern requirement indicated that Tulk was based on a contractual as opposed to a property theory. C. Clark, supra, Real Covenants, at 171-72 nn. 3 and 4; 3 H. Tiffany, Real Property § 861, at 489 (3d ed. 1939); Ames, Specific Performance For and Against Strangers to Contract, 17 Harv.L.Rev. 174, 177-79 (1904); Stone, The Equitable Rights and Liabilities of Strangers to the Contract, 18 Colum.L.Rev. 291, 294-95 (1918). Others contend that touch and concern is always, at the very least, an implicit element in any analysis regarding enforcement of covenants because any restrictive easement necessitates some relation between the restriction and the land itself. McLoone, Equitable Servitudes  A Recent Case and Its Implications for the Enforcement of Covenants Not to Compete, 9 Ariz.L.Rev. 441, 444, 447 n. 5 (1968). Still others explain the touch and concern omission on the theory that equitable servitudes usually involve negative covenants or promises on how the land should not be used. Thus, because those covenants typically do touch and concern the land, the equity courts did not feel the necessity to state touch and concern as a separate requirement. Berger, Integration of the Law of Easements, Real Covenants and Equitable Servitudes, 43 Wash. & Lee L.Rev., 337, 362 (1986). Whatever the explanation, the law of equitable servitudes did generally continue to diminish or omit the touch and concern requirement.