Talk:Covenant (law)

Privity
This article links "privity" to the privity of contract entry, which is incorrect. "Privity" in the context of real covenants pertains to privity of estate. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 170.140.56.68 (talk) 21:14, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

Updates to Law
Some updates to English and Welsh (and Australian) law: The burden of the covenant does not run at common law - Austerberry v Oldham Corporation (1885) 29 Ch D 750 - except where privity of estate (i.e. landlord and tenant relationship) exists. Halsall v Brizell [1957] Ch 169 allows the burden to run in limited circumstances (a positive burden will bind successors in title so long as the elect to take the benefit [burden/benefit relationship]). The burden does run, as long as it is not a positive burden, in equity. Tulk v Moxhay relates chiefly to equity allowing the burden to run in certain circumstances. Anyone else have further updates to this one before I go change it? LudBob (talk) 23:53, 5 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Have commenced editing English/Welsh law to include previous material. The position in UK law is that the burden doesn't run (as outlined above) so having the article say otherwise is somewhat contradictory. A major point is that allowing the burden to run at common law would undermine privity of contract LudBob (talk) 04:44, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

The burden doesn't run, but can be enforced in equity. See Tulk v Moxhay. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.99.32.141 (talk) 05:26, 31 October 2013 (UTC)

Merger
I believe this article should be merged w/ real covenant. Thoughts. I will add a merge tag if I recieve no feedback. Piratejosh85 (talk) 02:10, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

The subject matters are identical. Merge them. Geodanny (talk) 17:09, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

Agreed. Should be merged to create less confusion. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.203.107.100 (talk) 22:59, 11 December 2012 (UTC)


 * Seeing the agreement and the merger notice that Widefox put up a while back, I'm going to go ahead with this. II  | (t - c) 22:41, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

I believe the information on discriminatory covenants should be summarized on this page and then linked to a separate topic where it is expounded upon to such an extent. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.43.232.6 (talk) 18:34, 13 January 2014 (UTC)

Covenant article
It was pointless having a big section in Covenant on the legal term, and then a whole separate article here too. So I decided to redirect Covenant to Covenant (disambiguation), and move all its content elsewhere. So I have put the legal section of that article under Talk:Covenant (law)/Old Covenant article. I am going to start the process of merging them. --SJK (talk) 00:25, 10 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Actually, most of that article was duplicated from this one, or the other way. I ended up only copying the introductory section. --SJK (talk) 00:34, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

Contract law sense and property law sense
This article seems to be mostly about the covenant in the property law sense. That is fine, since that seems to be the major sense of it these days.

But, there is also the contract law sense - a unilateral promise which is enforceable (unlike a contract, which requires two parties both offering consideration.) In order for a covenant to be binding, it must be executed in a solemn manner. Compare deed, which like a covenant, does not require consideration, but unlike a covenant, involves more than one party. Or at least, that's as far as I can work it out - I'm no lawyer. --SJK (talk) 00:34, 10 July 2010 (UTC)


 * If you read the French article above you'll see that modern law (post 2000) has unified easements, real covenants, and equitable servitudes as subcategories of servitudes, which is a direction we should follow. In the contract sense, I don't think that we should say that a covenant is necessarily unilateral. I'm having trouble finding a good discussion of a covenant - the 'Lectric Law Library has an article which is not really clear as it says on the one hand covenants need to be sealed but also that they are sometimes implied. The "implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing" is a big deal in contract law which should likely be mentioned but I'm reluctant to mention it until I can put it into the general context of covenants. II  | (t - c) 03:40, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

Touch and Concern
It would be nice to get a concrete definition. Jgold03 (talk) 12:09, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

Resources for more information
There's not a ton of freely-available resources I think, but a couple sources are: The French article on the Restatements of the Law is pretty good. II | (t - c) 02:49, 10 July 2010 (UTC)
 * French SE, Highlights of the new restatement (third) of property: Servitudes, Real Property, Probate and Trust Journal.
 * Stake J, Decomposition of property rights, Encyclopedia of Law and Business.

Enforcement
Who enforces covenants running with the land, particularly if a previous owner who added them as a condition of the sale (e.g. "you can buy this land from me, but you must promise to keep this bit forested in perpetuity") has long since died. Late 19th century terraced houses in England (of which there are millions) commonly have requirements in the deed that they not be used for tanning leather and other noxious industrial practices. How can this be enforced? Who would take you to court if you broke it? Beorhtwulf (talk) 18:22, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

Split section
Portions of this article should be split into a new article called Exclusionary covenant. The current section is long and the subject is very notable. &thinsp;&mdash; Mr. Guye (talk) (contribs)&thinsp; 22:01, 22 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Support deisenbe (talk) 09:30, 30 September 2018 (UTC)

I agree that this should be split into two pages. Exclusionary covenant is long, well written and has sources. VR-4 Enthusiast (talk) 18:03, 13 August 2019 (UTC)

Support VR-4 Enthusiast (talk) 18:03, 13 August 2019 (UTC)


 * Support This should be closed and the spit should take place. The topic is unquestionably notable and much more can be said about it than can comfortably be placed in this article. Footlessmouse (talk) 21:45, 16 November 2020 (UTC)