Covenant

A covenant — a deed restriction — is a recorded promise about how land will or will not be used, binding successors: use limits, design controls, maintenance obligations, affordability terms. Private covenants shape what neighbors may do; public-facing ones, like the restrictive declarations that secure land-use approvals or the regulatory agreements behind affordability programs, are how government makes conditions durable beyond the original owner.

Covenants are title facts with zoning-sized consequences: a lot's district may permit what its recorded restrictions forbid, and no map lookup reveals the difference. Diligence therefore reads the recorded chain for restrictions, their beneficiaries, and their enforcement terms — a covenant is only as constraining as it is enforceable, and only as visible as the search that finds it.