HOA & GOVERNANCE
From Listings to Living
A buyer picks a 1954 subdivision in Denver specifically because there is no HOA. No board, no dues, nobody to ask. The title commitment comes back with a recorded instrument limiting every lot to one single-family dwelling, banning detached structures over 120 square feet, and requiring the roof to be composition shingle. No association. Still binding.
That is the first thing to understand about what restrictive covenants are: they are older and broader than homeowners associations, and they do not need one to work.
Leevli EditorialLast updated 2026-09-17
A restrictive covenant is a recorded promise about how land may be used, structured so that it binds future owners rather than just the person who made it. Cornell's Legal Information Institute frames the requirements for a real covenant as intent to create it, a relationship to the property itself, two kinds of privity between the parties, and a writing. Courts also recognize a close cousin, the equitable servitude, which has similar requirements but drops privity and instead requires that the later owner had notice.
Recording is what supplies that notice. Once the instrument is in the county land records against a legal description, every subsequent buyer is charged with knowing it exists, whether or not anyone handed them a copy.
Covenants come in two flavors. Negative covenants say what you may not do: no commercial use, no mobile homes, no fence over six feet. Affirmative covenants require you to do something, usually pay assessments or maintain a shared driveway. Outside associations, the negative kind dominates.
Between roughly the 1920s and the 1960s, American subdividers routinely recorded a blanket set of restrictions over an entire plat before selling a single lot. No association was created and no dues were collected. The restrictions simply sat in the record.
Typical examples still on title today: minimum dwelling square footage, setbacks stricter than zoning, bans on commercial use or livestock, limits on outbuildings, required roof or siding materials, and restrictions on subdividing a lot.
Who enforces them when there is no board? Generally, the other owners in the same subdivision. If the restrictions were imposed under a common scheme, meaning the same set recorded against every lot with mutual benefit and mutual burden, any lot owner usually has standing to sue a neighbor. Enforcement is therefore sporadic and personality-driven: a covenant can sit unenforced for 30 years and then be raised by one neighbor who cares.
CC&Rs are restrictive covenants. The difference is packaging. A modern declaration bundles use restrictions with an association, a board, assessment authority and an enforcement apparatus. A 1954 deed restriction is the same restriction with none of the machinery. If your community has a board and dues, start with what CC&Rs contain and how to read them, and see where the declaration ranks against bylaws and board rules in our guide to governing documents.
Unless the instrument says otherwise, a covenant is written to last indefinitely. Many older ones set a term with automatic renewal. A common formulation gives an initial 20 or 25 years, then successive 10-year renewals unless a majority of owners record a written objection before a renewal date. Those objection windows are short and easy to miss, which is why so many 1950s covenants are still live.
Some states cut the term off by statute regardless of what the document says. Minnesota provides that private covenants, conditions or restrictions cease to be valid and operative 30 years after the date of the instrument creating them, subject to exceptions including common interest communities and to a notice a benefited party can file before expiration.
Marketable title acts reach a similar place by a different route. Florida's Marketable Record Title Act starts from a root of title that has been of record for at least 30 years and extinguishes older unpreserved interests; associations and benefited owners keep covenants alive by recording a statutory notice, and Florida provides a revitalization route for communities whose covenants lapsed. The details vary sharply among the states that have such acts, so this is a title attorney question.
A covenant can be validly recorded and still fail in court. The recurring arguments:
None of these are self-executing. Unless a statute declares the provision void, you generally need a court to say so, which is why the removal routes below matter.
Amendment or release. If the instrument names a percentage of owners who may amend or terminate, get the vote and record the amendment. If one benefited party holds the right, such as a developer still in existence or an adjoining owner, a recorded release does it.
Expiration. Check whether a term has already run, whether a renewal was triggered, and whether any required preservation notice was recorded. This is a records question with a clean answer.
Marketable title acts. In states that have one, an old covenant unpreserved past the statutory window may already be extinguished. A title examiner can tell you.
Court action. A quiet title or declaratory judgment action asking a court to declare the covenant unenforceable on abandonment, changed conditions or standing grounds. Slow and expensive, and the right tool when the covenant blocks a real project.
Millions of American deeds recorded in the first half of the twentieth century contain language barring ownership or occupancy by people who were not white. The University of Minnesota's Mapping Prejudice project documents how systematic the practice was, noting that the National Association of Real Estate Boards wrote discriminatory practice into its 1924 code of ethics and that the covenants were drafted to run with the land in perpetuity.
The legal picture has to be stated precisely, because the shorthand version is usually wrong.
In Shelley v. Kraemer, decided May 3, 1948, the Supreme Court did not strike the covenants down as agreements. It held that such private agreements, standing alone, did not violate the Fourteenth Amendment. When a state court enforced one, though, the court's action was state action, and enforcement therefore violated the Equal Protection Clause. The practical effect was decisive: after 1948, no state court could order a sale unwound or an occupancy barred on the basis of a racial covenant.
Five years later, Barrows v. Jackson (decided June 15, 1953) closed the remaining door. A seller who had breached a racial covenant could not be sued for money damages by a co-covenantor either, because awarding damages would itself be state action producing the discriminatory result. The Court reasoned that damages would simply push sellers to refuse to sell to non-white buyers or to charge them more.
Then the Fair Housing Act of 1968 made the conduct itself unlawful. Among other things, 42 U.S.C. § 3604(c) makes it illegal to make, print or publish any notice, statement or advertisement indicating a preference, limitation or discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, handicap, familial status or national origin. The broader framework of protected classes, what counts as a violation, and where to file a complaint is covered in our piece on Fair Housing Act guidelines.
Many states went further and declared the covenants void outright by statute rather than merely unenforceable. Florida law provides that discriminatory restrictions are unlawful, unenforceable and null and void. Minnesota's statute treats such a covenant as void whether or not anyone records anything.
Being void does not make the words disappear from a title search, and a number of states created a procedure to strike them.
These processes do not change anyone's rights. The covenant already has no force. What they change is the record, so that a family reading their own title history is not handed the sentence intact and a redacted certified copy is what appears in the chain going forward.
Pull the instrument itself rather than the title commitment's one-line summary, check for a term and renewal clause, check whether a preservation notice was recorded, and identify who would have standing to enforce it. If it blocks something specific, like an addition, a second dwelling or a business, bring in a real estate attorney licensed in that state, because every doctrine above is state-specific.
You can start by pulling the recorded chain for the parcel through Leevli's Deeds & Docs, and if what you need is the lived version, meaning whether anyone in the subdivision has ever actually enforced the thing, ask the people already there on Ask a Resident.
A recorded covenant tells you what the paper says. A neighbor who has lived on the street for a decade tells you whether anyone has ever acted on it.
Listings show the property, but they rarely explain the lived reality around it. On Leevli, a mover can explore the city, review neighborhood and building information, and ask a verified resident the specific questions that remain unanswered. That human layer helps readers know what to investigate before signing a lease, making an offer, or choosing between two addresses.
A recorded promise limiting how a parcel may be used, written so it binds whoever owns the land next. Cornell's Legal Information Institute lists intent, a relationship to the property, privity and a writing as the elements of a real covenant. Courts also enforce equitable servitudes, which drop the privity requirement and instead ask whether the later owner had notice.
Minimum dwelling size, setbacks tighter than the local zoning code, bans on commercial use or livestock, limits on outbuildings and their square footage, required roofing or siding materials, fence height caps, and prohibitions on splitting a lot. Older subdivisions often stack several of these in one instrument recorded against every parcel before any lot was sold.
Substance versus packaging. CC&Rs are restrictive covenants delivered inside a declaration that also creates an association, a board, assessment authority and an enforcement process. A standalone deed restriction is the same kind of promise with none of that machinery. Both are recorded, both run with the land, and both bind you whether or not anyone hands you a copy.
Yes. Where a common scheme covers the subdivision, other lot owners generally have standing to sue, and some instruments also name the original developer or a successor. Enforcement tends to be uneven because it depends on a neighbor caring enough to file. That unevenness is not the same as the covenant being dead.
Some do and some do not. Unless the instrument sets a term, it is written to run indefinitely, and many mid-century documents use an initial term followed by automatic renewals that owners must object to in writing before a renewal date. Minnesota cuts private covenants off 30 years after the creating instrument, with exceptions including common interest communities.
In states that have one, it clears interests older than a root of title that has been recorded for a set period, which Florida sets at 30 years. Benefited parties preserve a covenant by recording a statutory notice before the window closes, and Florida offers a revitalization route for communities whose covenants lapsed. The rules differ enough among states that a title attorney should read yours.
Not automatically. Long non-enforcement supports an abandonment or waiver defense, particularly where violations are open and widespread across the subdivision, and laches or a statute of limitations may bar a late claim. All of those are arguments you make to a court, not conclusions you can rely on before starting construction.
Four routes. Amend or terminate it through the vote the instrument allows, or get a recorded release from whoever holds the benefit. Show the term already expired and no preservation notice was recorded. Rely on a marketable title act where the state has one. Or file a quiet title or declaratory judgment action, which is the slowest and most expensive path and the one that fits a blocked project.
No. Shelley v. Kraemer held in 1948 that judicial enforcement of such covenants is state action barred by the Equal Protection Clause, and Barrows v. Jackson closed off damages claims in 1953. The Fair Housing Act of 1968 made the underlying conduct unlawful. Several states go further and declare the provisions void by statute rather than merely unenforceable.
Through your state's removal procedure, where one exists. Washington allows an in rem declaratory judgment action and also lets an owner record a modification document with the county auditor at no filing fee. Minnesota supplies a recordable form at no cost. California counties run a restrictive covenant modification program under AB 1466, and San Diego County charges no fee for it.
Editorial review: verify current federal and state law, insurance regulations, HOA and condominium statutes, and lender guidelines before relying on any single claim. This article is informational and does not constitute legal, financial, tax or insurance advice.
