Renn v. Whitehurst
| Citation | 181 Va. 360 |
| Decision Date | 26 April 1943 |
| Docket Number | Record No. 2620. |
| Parties | FLORENCE H. RENN v. EDITH WINSLOW WHITEHURST, ET ALS. |
| Court | Virginia Supreme Court |
Present, Campbell, C.J., and Holt, Gregory, Browning, Eggleston and Spratley, JJ.
1. BUILDING RESTRICTIONS — Restrictive Agreements — General Application and Continuity — Case at Bar. — In the instant case, a suit to have building restrictions declared valid and enforceable and violations thereof by defendant abated, defendant contended that the restrictions were not of general application and that there was an hiatus or break in their presence in the chain or title which would indicate an abandonment in the absence of an insistence upon them. The owner of the property which was subdivided conveyed it all to a holding company of which she owned all of the corporate stock, but while she was the individual owner she conveyed twenty lots by deeds which contained uniform conditions and restrictions. Defendant's lot passed to her predecessor in title from the holding company and the deed from the individual owner to the holding company did not contain any of the restrictions, but the restrictions were contained in the deed from the holding company to defendant's predecessor in title.
Held: That it was the intention of the individual owner and her successors in title to preserve intact and enforce the restrictions which she had established and put in operation.
2. BUILDING RESTRICTIONS — Deeds — Granting Clause Complete Without Reference to Restrictions — Case at Bar. — In the instant case, a suit to have building restrictions declared valid and enforceable and violations thereof by defendant abated, it was contended that the deed to defendant's predecessor in title did not impress the property conveyed with the restrictions because the granting clause was complete without reference to them, and that the subsequent language, "subject to the following conditions and restrictions", did not supply the omission or cure the alleged defect.
Held: That the plain language of the deed could not be construed to obscure the manifest intention of the parties by the employment of a view so restricted as that contended for by defendant.
3. BUILDING RESTRICTIONS — Validity. — The judicial trend as well as legislative inclination is to recognize and uphold the validity of building restrictions requiring submission of elevation plans, limiting the number of residences per lot, and prohibiting double houses, storehouses, factories, etc.
4. BUILDING RESTRICTIONS — Restrictive Agreements — Subtleties Not Employed to Evade. — All courts profess to give effect to the plain intention of the parties, in imposing building restrictions, and should live up to their profession in good faith instead of seeking ingenious subtleties of interpretation by which to evade such restrictions.
5. BUILDING RESTRICTIONS — Restrictive Agreements — Enforcement. — When on a transfer of land there is a covenant or even an informal contract or understanding that certain restrictions in the use of the land conveyed shall be observed, the restrictions will be enforced by equity, at the suit of the party or parties intended to be benefited thereby, against any subsequent owner of the land except a purchaser for value without notice of the agreement.
6. BUILDING RESTRICTIONS — Restrictive Agreements — Reasonableness — Case at Bar. — The instant case was a suit to enjoin the breach of building restrictions. The deed to defendant's predecessor in title contained restrictions requiring the submission of plans showing elevations, limiting the number of residences per lot, and prohibiting double houses, storehouses, factories, etc. These restrictions were limited to a period of twenty-one years.
Held: That the restrictions, as limited by the declaration of intention as to time of effectiveness, were reasonable in their scope and they formed a general plan for the purpose of the maintenance of property values in the specific area and the enjoyment and utilization of the property in accordance therewith.
Appeal from a decree of the Circuit Court of Princess Anne county. Hon. B. D. White, judge presiding.
The opinion states the case.
William G. Maupin and H. B. G. Galt, for the appellant.
W. R. Ashburn, for the appellees.
Mrs. Renn, who was a defendant in the trial court, acquired by purchase in 1933, from Bertha R. Barclay and husband, a lot, and residence thereon, at the town of Virginia Beach, which was a part of a subdivision called "Ubermeer", which was a development, by lots, streets and ways, with town conveniences, of a tract of land containing some 131 acres.
There were two maps or plats of this subdivision which were recorded in the appropriate deed books. The first was vacated by a deed of vacation of June 1914, but the second was retained and adhered to, as a muniment of title, and bears date, June, 1926.
When this land was subdivided it belonged to Mrs. Martha Miller Masury, having been conveyed to her in 1908, by her husband, John Miller Masury.
Mrs. Masury conveyed all of the lots in "Ubermeer", which had not been theretofore disposed of, to the McCaa Realty Corporation, which was a holding company, chartered at her instance, and she became the owner of all of its corporate stock. It thus appears that this transaction involved a transfer of record title from individual to corporate ownership without change in the beneficial ownership or identity of control. (Mrs. Masury's conveyance to the McCaa Corporation was dated February 27, 1928 and recorded February 28, 1928.)
The lot now owned by the appellant, Florence H. Renn, which is implicated here, is designated on the plat of "Ubermeer" as lot No. 14, in Block 4, and passed to the holding company under the above deed.
The McCaa Corporation, by charter amendment, became the Masury Corporation, which continued the plan of disposing of a selected portion of the lots composing the subdivision as highly restricted residential property.
The Masury Corporation conveyed the Renn lot to Bertha R. Barclay who, as has been indicated, was the immediate predecessor in title to Mrs. Renn. After the subdivision was developed, and became "Ubermeer", and while it was in the individual ownership of Mrs. Masury, she sold and conveyed some twenty lots by deeds which contained ten uniform conditions and restrictions. The ones which are said to be concerned in this controversy are:
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