Hansell v. Downing

Citations

• 17 Pa. Super. 235
• 1901 Pa. Super. LEXIS 291

Syllabus

<p>Seeds — Building restriction — Servittide.</p> <p>Where a deed contains a building restriction in favor of another lot, it is not in the power of the succeeding grantors of the servient lot to vary the restriction without the consent of the owners of the dominant tenement.</p> <p>A restriction in a deed that no building should be erected upon a portion of the land conveyed, and that no building on the rest of the land should have a window or other opening so as to overlook the adjoining lot belonging to the grantor, his heirs or assigns, “ at any time hereafter forever,” is a covenant running with the land, and the restriction is appurtenant to the land of the grantor.</p> <p>Where an owner of land subject to a building restriction starts to construct a building on the land in violation of the restriction, and is notified by the owner of the dominant tenement to stop work, which he accordingly does, but several months afterwards resumes the construction, and although on the very day that he starts is again warned by the other owner, rushes the work and completes the structure in two days, he cannot claim that the owner of the dominant lot was guilty of laches.</p> <p>Laches is not to be imputed to a party from the mere lapse of time alone; it is an implied waiver arising from knowledge of existing conditions, and an acquiescence in them. The queslion is one involving equitable principles, and is determinable from the particular facts in each case.</p>