Chief among these is the covenant to repair. It has already been
observed that an easement of fencing may be annexed to land, and
it was then asked what was the difference in kind between a right
to have another person build such structures, and a right to have
him repair structures already built. Evidence is not wanting to
show that the likeness was perceived. Only, as such covenants are
rarely, if ever, made, except in leases, there is always privity
to the original parties. For the lease could not, and the
reversion would not be likely to, go by disseisin.
The Dean of Windsor's Case decides that such a covenant binds an
assignee of the term, although not named. It is reported in two
books of the highest authority, one of the reporters being Lord
Coke, the other Croke, who was also a judge. Croke gives the
reason thus: "For a covenant which runs and rests with the land
lies for or against the assignee at the common law, quia transit
terra cum onere, although the assignees be not named in the
covenant." /1/ This is the reason which governed easements, and
the very phrase which was used to account for all possessors
being bound by a covenant binding a parcel of land to warranty.
Coke says, "For such covenant which extends to the support of the
thing demised is quodammodo appurtenant to it, and goes with it."
Again the language of easements. And to make this plainer, if
need be, it is added, "If a man grants to one estovers to repair
his house, it is appurtenant to his house." Estovers for [403]
repair went with the land, like other rights of common, /1/
which, as Lord Coke has told us, passed even to disseisors.
In the next reign the converse proposition was decided, that an
assignee of the reversion was entitled in like manner to the
benefit of the covenant, because "it is a covenant which runs
with the land." /2/ The same law was applied, with still clearer
reason, to a covenant to leave fifteen acres unploughed for
pasture, which was held to bind an assignee not named, /3/ and,
it would seem, to a covenant to keep land properly manured. /4/
If the analogy which led to this class of decisions were followed
out, a disseisor could sue or be sued upon such covenants, if the
other facts were of such a kind as to raise the question. There
is nothing but the novelty of the proposition which need prevent
its being accepted. It has been mentioned above, that words of
covenant may annex an easement to land, and that words of grant
may import a covenant. It would be rather narrow to give a
disseisor one remedy, and deny him another, where the right was
one, and the same words made both the grant and the covenant. /5/
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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