Real Property – Grantor’s Covenant to Insert Restrictions in Future Deeds as Personal Covenant

Certain farm owners, intending to subdivide the land, conveyed a lot to plaintiff by a deed restricting its use to residence purposes and providing that only single dwellings could be erected. The grantors covenanted to insert the same restrictions in future deeds to the rest of the land. Plaintiff recorded his deed. The grantors subsequently sold another lot to defendant church without inserting a similar restrictive covenant. Plaintiff brought suit to enjoin the erection of the church. On appeal from a decree for defendant, held, affirmed, three judges dissenting. The parties to the first deed, in providing for similar covenants in future deeds from the same grantor, did not impose upon the land retained by the grantors, while owned by them, the same restrictions as were imposed on the land granted; therefore, under the theory of reciprocal negative easements, the restrictions could not subsequently be imposed on the land when sold to the defendants. The language indicated that the grantors’ covenant to insert similar restrictions in future deeds was intended to be merely a personal covenant. Buckley v. Mooney, 339 Mich. 398, 63 N.W. (2d) 655 (1954).