Land was conveyed to trustees, they covenanting to maintain and repair it as a road. The covenant was given to the owners and their heirs and assigns, and was given on behalf of the covenantors and their heirs and assigns.
Held: Neither the benefit nor the burden of this covenant ran with the land. A purchaser from the trustees was not bound even with notice of the covenant and of the disrepair. A covenant to perform positive acts is not one the burden of which runs with the land so as to bind the covenantor’s successors in title.
Cotton LJ said: ‘Undoubtedly, where there is a restrictive covenant, the burden and benefit of which do not run at law, courts of equity restrain anyone who takes the property with notice of that covenant from using it in a way inconsistent with the covenant. But here the covenant which is attempted to be insisted upon on this appeal is a covenant to lay out money in doing certain work upon this land; and, that being so . . that is not a covenant which a court of equity will enforce: it will not enforce a covenant not running at law when it is sought to enforce that covenant in such a way as to require the successors in title of the covenantor, to spend money, and in that way to undertake a burden upon themselves. The covenantor must not use the property for a purpose inconsistent with the use for which it was originally granted; but in my opinion a court of equity does not and ought not to enforce a covenant binding only in equity in such a way as to require the successors of the covenantor himself, they having entered into no covenant, to expend sums of money in accordance with what the original covenantor bound himself to do.’
Cotton LJ
(1885) 29 ChD 750, [1882] 55 LJ Ch 633, [1882] 53 LT 543, [1882] 49 JP 532, [1882] 33 WR 807, [1882] 1 TLR 473
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – Rhone and Another v Stephens HL 17-Mar-1994
A house was divided, the house being retained along with the roof over the cottage, and giving a covenant to repair the roof on behalf of the owner of the house. The cottage owner sought to enforce the covenant against a later owner of the house. . .
Cited – Rhone and Another v Stephens CA 17-Mar-1993
A house had been divided. The original owner covenanted to repair the roof over the part which had been sold off. A later purchaser of the that part sought to enforce the covenant against a subsequent owner of the main house. At first instance the . .
Cited – Allied London Industrial Properties Limited v Castleguard Properties Limited CA 24-Jul-1997
The parties disputed the effect of a conveyance of land from 1985 and an associated deed of variation. The variation added an easement which was argued by the purchaser to have attached to the land, and was said by the vendor to have been personal . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Land
Updated: 22 December 2021; Ref: scu.183261
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