The University of Washington has found discriminatory restrictive covenants on more than 40,000 properties in the western part of the state since they started their Racial Restrictive Covenants Project. Whatcom County is just the latest county to be completed.
The effort in Whatcom County was made easier because they had all their records digitized. Neighboring Skagit County will be more challenging because they will need to scroll through microfilm. In Whatcom all racial covenants were found in deeds, but already in Skagit they have found racial restrictions on plat maps covering more than 900 properties.
Racial covenants have been unenforceable since 1948 and illegal since 1968. The University of Washington program was funded by the state legislature in 2021, and their focus is to identify language that sought to keep homes white-only or exclude buyers based on national origin.
The results from Whatcom County showed the majority of the racial covenants are in pockets in and around Bellingham. Most of the covenants contained verbiage indicating only persons of the White or Caucasian race could occupy the property, but some specifically exclude any person of African, Chinese, or Japanese decent. Roughly 60% of the racial covenants were tied to companies associated with one individual that was prominent in the early real estate development in the county.
The Whatcom County Auditor provides instruction on their website for how to find and modify racial covenants Restrictive Covenant Modification | Whatcom County, WA - Official Website. The County strikes the language from the document but doesn’t physically erase.
For more detailed information or to see the complete story from the Cascadia Daily News. Study finds 1,500 racial covenants on Whatcom properties (cascadiadaily.com)
You can also reach out to us here at Extract if your county is considering redacting discriminatory covenants from your land records. Our software is already trained in the land records space and performing automated redactions of restrictive covenants in counties where it is required.
About the Author: Troy Burke
With 30 years of experience providing clients with stellar service and strategic solutions for growth and development, Troy is committed to ensuring his customers receive the highest quality solution, training and support with every implementation. He frequently speaks on the topic of redaction and is actively involved with National Association of Court Management, Property Records Industry Association and several other government organizations.