Court Opinion

ID: 9660913
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 22:23:49.951045+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:14:23.210164
License: Public Domain

HUGHES, Justice
(concurring).
To sustain the position appellants take in this case would be to grant, in perpetuity, to the stockholders of the dissolved corporation, Stacy Realty Company, and their legal successors, the right to destroy the residential character of Travis Heights.
This could result in neighbor being pitted against neighbor, one bidding for the right to commercialize his property, the other seeking to maintain the residential character of his own property.
It is my opinion that the right reserved by the subdivider to modify the restrictions impressed upon the subdivision expired when the subdivider, as such, had conveyed all the subdivision.1
Appellants do not contend that the Stacy heirs own any unsold lots in Travis Heights. They claim to own as successors to Stacy Realty Company only the power to modify the restrictive covenants.
I have no doubt but that the reservation of the right to modify the restrictive covenants was a valid vested right, nor do I question its assignability. Couch v. Southern Methodist University, Tex.Com.App., 10 S.W.2d 973; Loving v. Clem, Tex.Civ.App., Dallas, 30 S.W.2d 590, writ ref.; Dodson v. Dooley, Tex.Civ.App., Amarillo,. 280 S.W.2d 758, writ ref., N. R. E.; Keith v. Seymour, Tex.Civ.App, Houston, 335 S.W.2d 862, writ ref, N. R. E. See also Central Power & Light Co. v. Purvis, Tex.Civ.App, San Antonio, 67 S.W.2d 1086, writ ref., and Thew v. Lower Colorado-River Authority, Tex.Civ.App, Austin, 259 S.W.2d 939, writ ref. N. R. E.
It is my opinion, however, that the naked authority to modify the restrictive covenants, under this record, does not now exist.
The general rule is that a covenant attached to an estate cannot endure beyond the termination of the estate. 21 C.J.S. Covenants § 74, p. 933. The estate owned by appellants, the unsold lots, no longer exists.
*951Appellants take the position that the right of modification was personal to the subdivider saying:
“The effect of the provision in the dedication expressly limiting the application of the restrictions to the lots after they are sold and reserving to the developer the uncontrolled right to change the restrictions on the lots after sale is to render the restrictions personal to the developer. It is true that the dedication does provide for the enforcement of the restrictions by injunction or other legal process but it is significant that there is no indication that the grantees of the developer may enforce the restrictions against each other.”
Conceding that the Stacy heirs now possess the reservation to modify the restrictive covenants, which they say is a personal covenant, it is a reservation which will not be enforced under the rule that land will not be burdened with personal covenants which are purely for the benefit of one having no interest in the land. Blasser v. Cass, 158 Tex. 560, 314 S.W.2d 807.

. The record shows that Travis Heights Subdivision consists of 53 blocks containing more than 1,000 lots, and that one of the Stacy heirs now owns 3 lots in Travis Heights.