Covenants Archives

April 26, 2024April 26, 2024

Michigan Deed Holders: Your Property Rights Could Change

Living in Michigan? It’s time to check your deed restrictions. Michigan deed holders should know that changes made to the state’s Marketable Record Title Act (MRTA) took effect March 29, 2024. And there’s a new deadline to record a notice under the MRTA.

KEY POINT TO KNOW: Michigan deed holders now have until September 29, 2025 to keep certain conditions on their deeds that originated 40+ years back. Otherwise, the law will effectively delete certain longstanding “rights and interests” including deed covenants, restrictions, and easements — by letting them sunset.

Now, let’s go into some details about deeds, restrictions on deeds, and how Michigan’s changes could apply to you and/or your homeowner’s association.

February 12, 2024April 25, 2024

Facing Up to Discriminatory Deed Language: What Pennsylvania Did

With everything that’s happening in the world, maybe more needs to be said about what the Pennsylvania Senate did in December. Every senator agreed to pass state Rep. Justin Fleming’s H.B. 1289, enabling homeowners to publicly condemn offensive language in deed covenants. The new law 1289 makes it cheap or free, and very simple to do.

This law had already passed in the House, of course – in June 2023. It just needed the governor to sign it into law. And the governor did.

It’s a new Pennsylvania law that we all need to know about.

September 16, 2019April 25, 2024

Deed Restrictions: How They Impact Homeowners and Communities

Image of road signs denoting wrong way and one way with trees in the background. Captioned: Deed Restrictions: How They Impact Homeowners and Communities

Your home is your castle. But language in your deed just might keep you from installing a pool, constructing a basement apartment and renting it out, or using a non-neutral shade of paint on your exterior walls. Here is a brief explanation of deed restrictions and how they impact individual homeowners — and entire communities.

July 22, 2019April 25, 2024

Is a Hurtful Deed Restriction Lurking in Your Deed?

Restrictive covenants are binding obligations not to do something with your property. These restrictions on real property are normally contained in a deed.

Restrictive covenants originated to keep industry out of residential areas. To this day, homeowners’ associations use deed restrictions in order to make condo owners adhere to established aesthetics or the property’s historical character.

They have also been used as grotesque tools of discrimination.