In real property law, what term is used for conditions tied to the use of land?

• A. Real covenants
• B. Easement
• C. Encroachment
• D. Covenant

Answer: (A)

The key idea is that restrictions on how land can be used are covenants that bind the land itself. When these promises are tied to the property and intended to affect future owners, they’re called real covenants. Real covenants set conditions or obligations—positive or negative—relating to land use and run with the land, so they can be enforced against successors if the usual elements are met (the covenant touches and concerns the land, there’s privity of estate between the parties, and there’s intent for the covenant to run with the land; notice may also be required). This distinguishes them from an easement, which grants a right to use someone else’s land, from encroachments, which are intrusions onto another’s land, and from a generic covenant, which might not attach to ownership in the same way. Real covenants are the term that captures those binding land-use conditions across ownership transfers.