Covenant in Europe

Definition of Covenant

An agreement creating an obligation, contained in a deed. It may be positive, stipulating the performance of some act or the payment of money, or negative or restrictive, forbidding the commission of some afct. Covenants may be used to serve the purpose of a bond (q.v.)
A covenant is said to run with the land, or with the reversion, when either the liability to perform it, or the right to take advantage of it, passes to the assignee of the land, or the reversion, as the case may be. At common law covenants ran with the land, but not with the reversion ; but the statute 32 Hen. 8, c. 34, provided that both the burden and benefit of covenants should run with the reversion
To run with the land, covenants must “touch and concern ” the thing demised, and must not be collateral or personal. An assignee of a lease is bound by negative covenants, and by positive covenants as to things actually in existence on the land, but not by covenants as to things not in existence, unless the original lessee covenanted for himself and liis assigns. The Law of Property Act, 1925, s. 79, provides, however, that a covenantor shall be deemed to bind his successors
In equity, negative or restrictive covenants run with the land, except against a bona fide purchaser for value without notice. After 1925 restrictive covenants must be registered as land charges. Positive covenants do not run with the land. See Austerberry v. Corporation of Oldham ; Tulk v. Moxhay

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Definition of Covenant is, temporally, from A Concise Law Dictionary (1927). This page needs to be proofread.

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