RESTRICTIVE COVENANT

in Anglo-American property law, agreement between two or more parties to a written instrument establishing limitations on the use and enjoyment of interests in real property. The restrictive covenant imposes a restraint on a person taking possession of property on his exercise of his full possessory rights, creating a duty to do or to refrain from doing some act(s) relative to his possession. The restrictive covenant is as old as the law of property, certainly a legal concept well-established in Roman law. American courts generally refrain from enforcing covenants that would unduly encumber land titles or would impose on the court the burden of supervision to ensure enforcement. The use of restrictive covenants to exclude members of a particular race from the ownership of property was declared unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1945 and 1953. Although the term is most frequently employed in reference to real property, it may be applied generically to a restraint on the use of any subject of property interests. See also servitude.