COVENANT PROHIBITING CONSTRUCTION OF A COMMERCIAL GARAGE DID NOT RUN WITH THE LAND, PLAINTIFF THEREFORE DID NOT HAVE STANDING TO ENFORCE IT (SECOND DEPT).

The Second Department, reversing Supreme Court, determined plaintiff did not have standing to enforce a covenant in an old deed prohibiting the construction of a commercial garage. The covenant was deemed to run only to the first purchaser, and did not run with the land:

​

… [T]he record establishes that the restrictive covenant from the 1924 deed was not part of a common development scheme created for the benefit of subdivision property owners as concerns the plaintiff and the defendants. … At the time of the conveyance, the covenant cannot be said to have benefitted any part of the land burdened by it. … When the land was conveyed to Hudson … , at least as to the lots now owned by the plaintiff …, it was still in a single piece, and Hudson, the absolute owner of it, was free to do with it as it pleased except as against … the original covenantee … . When Hudson decided to divide the property, neither of the deeds embodied any part of the restrictive covenant, or contained any reference thereto. Hudson is the common grantor of the parties, and it sold the property without restrictions. Neither the plaintiff nor [defendant] have any different title from that which they derived through the unrestricted deeds from Hudson … . Thus, the original covenant is not enforceable as between the plaintiff and [defendant] … . Fleetwood Chateau Owners Corp. v Fleetwood Garage Corp., 2017 NY Slip Op 06431, Second Dept 9-13-17

REAL PROPERTY (COVENANT PROHIBITING CONSTRUCTION OF A COMMERCIAL GARAGE DID NOT RUN WITH THE LAND, PLAINTIFF THEREFORE DID NOT HAVE STANDING TO ENFORCE IT (SECOND DEPT))/DEEDS  (COVENANT PROHIBITING CONSTRUCTION OF A COMMERCIAL GARAGE DID NOT RUN WITH THE LAND, PLAINTIFF THEREFORE DID NOT HAVE STANDING TO ENFORCE IT (SECOND DEPT))/COVENANTS (DEEDS, COVENANT PROHIBITING CONSTRUCTION OF A COMMERCIAL GARAGE DID NOT RUN WITH THE LAND, PLAINTIFF THEREFORE DID NOT HAVE STANDING TO ENFORCE IT (SECOND DEPT))