A restrictive covenant is a promise, recorded against the land itself rather than merely between two contracting parties, that limits how a parcel may be used, its architectural style, minimum setbacks, prohibited commercial use, or similar restrictions. To bind successors in title, the covenant must generally satisfy 'running with the land' requirements: it must touch and concern the land, the original parties must have intended it to bind future owners, and there must be sufficient notice, typically through proper recording, to later purchasers.

Enforcement litigation involves determining who has standing to enforce the covenant (often any other lot owner in the same subdivision, or an association formed for that purpose), whether the restriction is ambiguous and how it should be construed, and defenses such as waiver, abandonment through widespread non-enforcement, changed neighborhood conditions that have made the restriction obsolete or inequitable to enforce, or that the covenant is void as against public policy (historically including now-unenforceable discriminatory covenants, which remain legally void and unenforceable even though many still appear in old recorded documents).

Juricratic models a restrictive covenant claim as contingent on two largely independent findings, first whether the covenant validly runs with the land and burdens the current owner at all, and second whether an equitable defense like waiver, abandonment, or changed conditions defeats enforcement even if it does, since litigants frequently win one prong and lose the other.

Neighbors and associations enforcing a restrictive covenant build the record around the original recorded declaration, proper notice to the current owner through the chain of title, and consistent past enforcement, while owners resisting enforcement look for gaps in recording, ambiguous covenant language construed against the drafter, or evidence of widespread unenforced violations supporting waiver or abandonment.