Across the US, there are historic covenants in land records that in the past prohibited the sale or lease of property based on race, ethnicity, or religion. While not legally enforceable today, these covenants – remnants of a disappointing period in American history – have caused significant pain and harm for many Americans.
There is no question these discriminatory covenants have tainted land records and that property owners should be empowered to repudiate these illegal covenants. Amidst practical hurdles and varying state guidelines, there remains no one-size-fits-all solution to addressing the continued existence of these covenants.
Since 1917, when the U.S. Supreme Court deemed city segregation ordinances illegal, discriminatory covenants began appearing in property records. Even though the Fair Housing Act made these covenants explicitly illegal in 1968, title professionals continue to discover discriminatory language when conducting title searches – a required step before a homebuyer can close on a home.
Recently, state lawmakers have proposed various approaches to further address the existence of these covenants. Some county offices provide notices on their websites and at record access points indicating the potential existence of discriminatory covenants. Others support a declaration in the land records repudiating discriminatory language or a new, superseding document. Redaction is also an option being considered among legislatures – completely removing all discriminatory language from existing land records, while maintaining copies to further research and quantify the harm they have caused. With each of these solutions, steps must be taken to ensure modification or removal of property record information does not inadvertently jeopardize homeowners’ property rights.
Here at Extract, we are committed to proactively working towards solutions that address these covenants while protecting the property rights of all homebuyers. If you are interested in learning more about how Extract can help you redact discriminatory restrictive covenants then we invite you to join our free webinar on May 17th and learn how Extract's is helping counties identify discriminatory restrictive covenants in property records. Once identified Extract can deliver a variety of deployment models.
Whether you want a list of documents/properties to provide to a local college/university for mapping, to redact the unlawful covenants, or append and populate a restrictive covenant modification (RCM) cover page- Extract has you covered.
During this webinar Extract’s Director of Government Solutions, Troy Burke, will show you a demo of our solution and detailed analytics dashboards.
Taylor is a Marketing Manager at Extract with experience in data analytics, graphic design, and both digital and social media marketing. She earned her Bachelor of Business Administration degree in Marketing at the University of Wisconsin- Whitewater. Taylor enjoys analyzing people’s behaviors and attitudes to find out what motivates them, and then curating better ways to communicate with them.