Legal Question in Real Estate Law in California

Re: Cc&r

First, the private (as opposed to governmental)creation of restrictions on the use of land that would "run with the land" rather than bind just the parties (like a contract) is a very old aspect of English, and now American, common law that goes way back before the California Civil Code or its precursor statutes. So, to know the entire law on the subject, just reading the Code isn't sufficient. The common law was not entirely abrogated by the later passage of statutes.

The starting point for research in the statutes would probably be Civil Code sections 1460 to about 1467, which date back to the original adoption of the Civil Code in 1872. The annotations to these code sections in an annotated version of the Code would be particularly helpful.

CC&Rs for common-interest developments are handled at Civil Code section 1354, and perhaps elsewhere.

In addition to the statutes and older common law, many recent (last 100 years) apellate and state supreme court decisions have addressed various issues as to which CC&Rs are enforceable, which run with the land and which don't, whether an "ancient" restriction should still be enforced, and so on. For example, in law school we study a doctrine that says "changed conditions" can render older CC&Rs no longer enforceable. One would have to read a lot of cases and law review articles about this doctrine to know when it might be applied to a particular restriction or not.

Among the best-known CC&R changes are the laws and judicial policy changes making restrictions on ownership based on race, religion or national origin unenforceable (for the most part).