In real estate, saying that a right or obligation runs with the land means it attaches to the property itself rather than to whoever happens to own it at the moment. Buy a house burdened by a recorded easement letting your neighbor cross the backyard, and that easement doesn’t disappear at closing. It transfers to you automatically, and your duty to honor it will transfer to whoever buys the home after you. The same principle governs restrictive covenants, HOA rules, mineral rights, and several other interests that persist through every sale until they are formally ended.
How the Idea Works in Practice
Think of these interests as features baked into the property, like its lot lines or zoning classification. They exist independently of the current deed holder. When the property changes hands, the new owner steps into the position of the previous one for purposes of that interest. A buyer who inherits a burden has to comply with it. A buyer who inherits a benefit gets to use it. The original parties who created the arrangement are no longer in the picture once the transfer is complete.
This permanence is what separates these interests from personal agreements. A handshake deal with your neighbor letting you park in their driveway probably dies when one of you sells. The same parking right, written into a deed and recorded in county land records, can bind every future owner of both properties for decades or indefinitely.
Interests That Commonly Run With the Land
Easements
Easements are the most recognizable example. An appurtenant easement benefits one parcel (the dominant estate) at the expense of another (the servient estate). A driveway easement letting you cross your neighbor’s land to reach the road is the classic case. When either parcel is sold, the easement follows the land. The new owner of the dominant estate still gets to use the driveway, and the new owner of the servient estate still has to allow it.
Not every easement runs with the land. An easement in gross belongs to a specific person or company rather than to a neighboring parcel. Utility companies often hold easements in gross to maintain power lines or pipelines across private property. These generally do not transfer when the easement holder changes hands, unless the easement was granted for a commercial purpose, in which case it can often be assigned.
Restrictive Covenants
Restrictive covenants are promises about how land can or cannot be used, usually embedded in deeds or neighborhood declarations. Affirmative covenants require the owner to do something, like maintaining landscaping or keeping an exterior painted. Negative covenants prohibit certain actions, such as banning commercial activity in a residential subdivision or capping building height. Both types bind future owners when properly created and recorded.
HOA Covenants, Conditions, and Restrictions
If you’ve ever lived in a planned community, you’ve encountered covenants that run with the land in the form of CC&Rs. These govern everything from fence heights to exterior paint colors. Because CC&Rs are recorded against each lot in the subdivision, they bind every successive owner. Accepting a deed that contains covenants is legally treated as though you signed onto those covenants yourself, even if you never read them before closing.
Mineral Rights and Shared Resources
Mineral rights can be separated from surface ownership and transferred independently. Once severed and recorded, those rights run with the mineral estate. If a property owner grants drilling rights to a neighboring landowner or an energy company and the grant is tied to the land rather than to the individuals, the drilling rights survive a sale of either property. Shared-resource agreements, like arrangements for a well that serves two parcels, work the same way when properly documented.
Conservation Easements
Conservation easements restrict development to protect natural, scenic, or agricultural value. Under federal tax law, a conservation contribution qualifies for a charitable deduction only if the conservation purpose is protected in perpetuity.1Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 USC 170 Charitable, Etc., Contributions and Gifts That permanence requirement means conservation easements run with the land by design. Every future owner is bound by the same development restrictions.
What Actually Makes an Interest Bind Future Owners
Not every promise about property binds the next owner. Courts generally look at four things.
Intent. The original parties must have intended the interest to bind successors. Courts look for this intent in the language of the deed, easement agreement, or declaration. Phrases like “binding upon successors and assigns” or “running with the land” make it explicit. Without clear language, a court may treat the agreement as a personal arrangement that expires when one party sells.
Touch and concern. The interest must directly affect how the land is used, enjoyed, or valued rather than conferring a purely personal benefit. A covenant requiring homeowners to maintain a shared fence touches and concerns the land. A promise to pay someone’s gym membership does not, even if both parties happen to own neighboring lots.
Notice. A future owner must have notice of the interest for it to be enforceable against them. Actual notice means the buyer literally knew about it. Constructive notice arises when the interest is properly recorded; the law treats every buyer as having read every recorded document in the chain of title, whether they actually did or not. Inquiry notice applies when something about the property would prompt a reasonable buyer to investigate, like a visible path worn across the lot. Recording is the most reliable form, because a buyer who skips the title search can’t claim ignorance.
Privity of estate. This is the technical piece, and where many disputes land. Privity refers to the legal relationship between the parties, both between the original creators of the covenant and between an original party and a later owner. For the burden to pass to a new owner, the new owner generally needs to have acquired the same estate the original party held. When the technical requirements aren’t perfectly met, courts sometimes still enforce the restriction in equity if it was meant to benefit the neighborhood and the current owner had notice.
How to Find These Interests Before You Buy
A thorough title search is the single most important step. A title company or attorney reviews public records to trace ownership and identify any recorded easements, covenants, liens, or other encumbrances. The results appear in a title report or title commitment, which should list every recorded interest.
Title insurance provides a financial backstop. Before issuing a policy, the insurer reviews public records and discloses any recorded interests it finds. Standard policies typically cover losses from recorded easements and covenants that the search missed. If an undisclosed recorded easement surfaces after closing and causes financial harm, the policy may cover the loss.
Paper searches don’t catch everything. Unrecorded interests and prescriptive easements, which are rights acquired through long, open use without permission, don’t appear in land records. Walk the property and look for physical signs of use by others: worn paths, utility equipment, fencing that doesn’t follow boundary lines. A survey pinpoints the boundaries and can flag encroachments or improvements that hint at unrecorded agreements.
How These Interests End
They’re durable, but they’re not indestructible.
- Written agreement. All parties sign a document releasing the interest and record it. This works for easements and covenants alike.
- Merger. When one person or entity acquires both the benefited and burdened properties, the interest may be extinguished because there’s no longer a reason for it to exist. A deed can include anti-merger language to preserve it.
- Abandonment. If an easement holder stops using the easement and shows intent to give it up, the burdened owner can argue for termination. Mere non-use isn’t enough; intent to abandon has to be proven.
- End of necessity. An easement created because a parcel was landlocked can end when the parcel gains alternative access to a public road. This applies to easements by necessity, not to written easements that happen to serve a similar purpose.
- Expiration. Some easements and covenants include their own end date or termination trigger. A 30-year easement ends automatically at year 30.
- Changed conditions. Courts may refuse to enforce a restrictive covenant when neighborhood conditions have changed so dramatically that the covenant’s original purpose has been defeated. A residential-only covenant in an area that has become entirely commercial is the textbook scenario.
Conservation easements are the hardest to end. The perpetuity requirement is built into their tax treatment, and removing one almost always requires a court proceeding.1Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 USC 170 Charitable, Etc., Contributions and Gifts
What Happens When Someone Violates One
The party who benefits from the covenant or easement can go to court to enforce it. The most common remedy is an injunction ordering the violating party to stop the prohibited activity or undo whatever they built. If a neighbor’s covenant forbids commercial use and they open a business, the court can order them to shut it down. Monetary damages are sometimes available too, especially when the violation has already caused a measurable loss in property value.
HOA violations work a little differently. Most CC&Rs let the homeowners’ association levy fines, place liens on the property, or sue directly. The association doesn’t need every neighbor’s agreement before acting, which is one reason HOA covenants tend to be enforced more consistently than covenants between individual landowners.
Enforcement isn’t automatic. If neighbors allow violations for years without objecting, a court may find the right to enforce has been waived. Easements are harder to lose through inaction; covenants can erode if the benefited parties look the other way long enough.