{"id":805,"date":"2024-06-16T17:00:37","date_gmt":"2024-06-16T17:00:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/?p=805"},"modified":"2024-06-16T17:00:37","modified_gmt":"2024-06-16T17:00:37","slug":"should-covenants-be-construed-strictly-or-liberally","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/2024\/06\/16\/should-covenants-be-construed-strictly-or-liberally\/","title":{"rendered":"Should covenants be construed strictly or liberally?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>The Tennessee Supreme Court affirmed the traditional rule that covenants should be seen as encumbrances on the land and strictly construed in a narrow manner so that free use of land is not unduly limited. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tncourts.gov\/sites\/default\/files\/phillips_ritchie.opn_.pdf\" class=\"mtli_attachment mtli_pdf\">Phillips v. Hatfield<\/a>, 624 S.W.3d 464 (Tenn. 2021). This is inconsistent with the more modern method adopted by an increasing number of courts that interpret covenants by focusing on the grantor\u2019s intent.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Tennessee Supreme Court affirmed the traditional rule that covenants should be seen as encumbrances on the land and strictly construed in a narrow manner so that free use of land is not unduly limited. Phillips v. Hatfield, 624 S.W.3d 464 (Tenn. 2021). This is inconsistent with the more modern method adopted by an increasing number of courts that interpret covenants by focusing on the grantor\u2019s intent.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-805","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-servitudes"],"featured_image_src":null,"featured_image_src_square":null,"author_info":{"display_name":"jsinger","author_link":"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/author\/jsinger\/"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/805","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=805"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/805\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=805"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=805"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=805"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}