From: RO
Sent: Monday, March 20, 2017 6:53 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Deed restrictions
Dear Dr. Block; After reading your recent email response to a question about deed restrictions on the LRC Blog (https://www.lewrockwell.com/lrc-blog/deed-restrictions/), I became concerned that the concept of “ownership” has to be distorted in order to defend deed restrictions. Ownership entails the following property rights: enjoyment, use, occupation, rental, sale or other form of alienation, or even destruction of a property, and the right to exclude others from the exercise of aforesaid rights. Deed restrictions contradict the idea of the enjoyment of something that’s owned. Wouldn’t a contract law judge be justified in invalidating a contract that contained a logical contradiction as a poorly-drafted contract whose language was too confusing to be enforced? After all, the property owner who doesn’t want anyone to wear yellow shirts on his property after he sells it has the alternative of establishing a trust to rent it out in perpetuity to only those who are willing to forego the wearing of yellow shirts.
Dear RO: The essence of your objection is that “Deed restrictions contradict the idea of the enjoyment of something that’s owned.” That is praxeologically impossible. Rather, “Deed restrictions support, or enhance, the idea of the enjoyment of something that’s owned.” Why else would anyone sign such a contract, other than to augment his enjoyment of his property? I join a condo association that prohibits certain types of behavior. Yes, that restricts me from engaging in that type of behavior, but, I wouldn’t do this in any case. I sign this deed restriction so that my neighbors may not do so, which I very much value. Suppose I have an abhorrence for the wearing of yellow shirts. I’m happy to sign on to a mutual restriction to be free of such noxious behavior. But, contracts like this are never in “perpetuity.” Usually, majority vote of the owners can overturn anything agreed upon. The dead hand of the past can’t rule property in the future if people no longer find yellow shirts problematic.
4:24 pm on March 25, 2017
