Private Agreements and Covenants

There are many types of formal and informal agreements which landowners may make without involving a land trust or public agency. These range from verbal commitments between neighbors, to deed restrictions, to mutual covenants among the members of a homeowners association.

In general, these types of agreements provides relatively little security that the land will be conserved in perpetuity because the effectiveness of the restrictions depends entirely upon the interests of the private parties. No independent group has been granted an obligation to monitor and enforce the terms of the agreement. In addition, even when one party chooses to uphold covenant provisions a judge may determine that the specific requirements are frivolous or insignificant. There are no income tax or estate planning advantages for landowners who arrange private covenants.

The advantage of deed restrictions and covenants is that they are relatively inexpensive to execute. In general there is no need for resource inventories, stewardship endowments, or appraisals. (See Conserving Your Land.) Landowners work directly with their own attorneys to arrange the agreements. This option may be appropriate for landowners who are most concerned about how their properties will be used in the relatively short term and who are comfortable relying upon neighborly relations to accomplish conservation objectives.