If one person takes your property by force we call it theft and it is a crime.

If a group of people get together to deprive you of your propety we call it a mob and it is lawlessness.

If the majority of people vote to take your property we call it democracy and it is a virtue!

And I mentioned bankruptcy for a reason (or you could add divorce where the non original owning party gets the house). These actions allow contracts to be broken.

Only if the State interferes.

The state regulation of rights of creditors (such as enforced debt relief in bankruptcy) merely forces the creditors to shift the burden of the risk of losing the debt onto honest debtors, thus making them to pay higher interest for the inability of others to manage their finances.

How horribly the divorces can go wrong in US is a common knowledge, and a kind of cottage industry of legal extortion. Honest adults do not pretend to have any right to have another adult to support them.

Actually, the kinds of contracts which can be broken by the divorce commonly have a spousal consent clause, which makes any such contract binding even after divorce, if any half-competent lawyer was involved in drafting it.

PE: I think Rothbard resolves the point nearly in the manner I would, but you still have problems – if you borrow using your house as collateral (or part of your credit application is your property), you then cannot enter into any covenants or you defraud your creditor. Though I will note that most creditors can’t be that intrusive (as a matter of practicality), so it would require candor on the part of the borrower lest he defraud unintentionally.

But there is still a problem in some covenants. I can only be sued on a contract I’m a part of. If you and I buy a property, we each may have individual contracts with the original seller, but if I violate it, the only one who can take action is not you, even if I am violating something you value. Only the original seller would have that right, and it might be easier for him not to.

And I mentioned bankruptcy for a reason (or you could add divorce where the non original owning party gets the house). These actions allow contracts to be broken. The question is where the shear line is.

“… British Imperial Copyright Act of 1911, which was in force in South Africa at the time Linda composed his song, all rights revert to the heirs, who are entitled to renegotiate royalties.”

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060323/ap_en_mu/safrica_sleeping_lions_4

“Can they attach the loss of rights to unborn generations? Can it be recovered? How?”

Fair question and good point. I think Rothbard answers this in his “Ethics of Liberty” here http://mises.org/rothbard/ethics/nineteen.asp

“The only proviso is that there must, at every time, be some existing owner or owners of all the rights to any given property. In the case of a restrictive covenant, for example, there must be some owners of the reserved right to build a tall building; if not the developer himself, then someone who has bought or received this right. If the reserved right has been abandoned, and no existing person possesses it, then the owner of the house may be considered to have “homesteaded” this right, and can then go ahead and build the tall building. Covenants and other restrictions, in short, cannot simply “run with the property” forever, thereby overriding the wishes of all living owners of that property.

“…all rights to any property must be in the hands of living, existing persons. It might be considered a moral requirement for the descendants to keep the land in the family, but it cannot properly be considered a legal obligation. Property rights must only be accorded to and can only be enjoyed by the living.”

As for this

“Lets say you are part of the voluntary restrictive covenant group, but default on a loan and I get your property (can you even use it as collateral if you don’t own it? Or assume the court holds it as an asset). I never agreed to the covenant, so I should be free to build a chemical plant.”

I would argue that, just as it is the creditor’s responsibility to determine that the property has no lien against it and that the borrower is in fact obtaining free title to the property, he must understand the nature of the restrictive covenant under which the property is being sold. For a creditor without underhanded intent to subvert the legitimate purposes of the covenant, this should be just fine, because, as we know, the covenant will have been entered into for the mutual benefit of all property holders to keep property values high.

Next is this:

“No one is forced to buy property in areas where zoning applies, so there is no coercion there either by the very same standard – if you don’t like zoning, merely live in the ex-ex-burbs.”

which may actually get us to the crux of your difficulty with covenants. At the point when zoning first arrives, it is not a voluntary contractual agreement amongst property owners. It is a coercive decree made arbitrarily by those holding the territorial based monopoly of jurisdiction, the state. This decree, most likely reduced property values or else the property owners themselves would have voluntarily restricted themselves in that way. In stark contrast, a covenant is a voluntary contractual agreement made by the affected property owners for their benefit made probably for the purposes of keeping property values high. So there IS coercion in zoning, whereas there is NONE in covenants.

Finally,

“Can I bind you in perpetuity not to give ownership of property to people of color? Are such clauses valid or not? If they are, I am involving third parties in the transaction – a contract is between the two parties – Smith and Jones can’t bind Brown with their contract. If it is not legitimate to prevent sale by basis of race, why is it on the basis on use? I can’t sell to a black v.s. I can’t sell to a chemical producer. What is the difference?”

I know it sounds cold, but as you imply, there really is no ethical difference between a covenant against minorities vs chemical producers moving in. And in both cases, such a covenant is entirely ethical. With property is included the right to enter into contracts and a right to exclude. As for what would keep Jones from selling to Brown without binding Brown to the contract is that Jones is bound by the contract to do so. Jones is not going to subject himself to penalty, just because Brown didn’t want to enter into the contract. He will sell to someone who is ok with the contract.

You mention cars up on blocks. As a matter of fact, the covenant in place in my neighborhood forbids such a thing. Its attached to the value of the property.

Residential properties in neighborhoods with covenants designed to keep people from putting up strip clubs would be attactive to buyers, hence raising the value.

If that is something that you want, buy a home in a neighborhood w/ a covenatn that restricts such activity.

The reasons there aren’t as many covenants today is because gov’t regulation has crowded out private regulation like covenants.

In such a circumstance, I am merely trading away PART of my property rights in exchange for something else: Peace of mind that, in this case, a chemical plant is not built next door. I voluntarily traded those rights away.

Property rights are never absolute. My property rights do not extend from the earth’s core to infinity; I cannot sue XM Radio for allowing a satellite to pass over my property.

1. The strip club factor. Ok, so we all live in our nice $250K homes in a community, and all of a sudden someone sells his property and the buyer builds a strip joint on it. I do not have time to go around and make my own convenants with 80 people in my area, so how is this sort of thing avoided sans commercial development restrictions? The way it works now is that the developer has the deed in place before a property is sold. We knew moving in to our house that the property came with restrictions and accepted them.

2. Homeowners assns are a restrictive covenant, made imo mostly for the sake of making residents of a community (instead of the city) pay for green space. Now, without going down a rathole of discussing HOAs, how do you avoid someone moving in next door and putting a car up on blocks in the front yard or having a lawn that resembles a prairie? The things that our neighbors do DO impact property values, so I guess it’s hard for me – in the interest of protecting the property values of all residents – to say that restrictive covenants are a bad idea.

“Can I bind you in perpetuity not to give ownership of property to people of color? ”

There are two sides to every transaction, often refered to as bid/offer. The property owner can offer anything they want (covenants, deed, slice of cheese, etc). Just remember that someone has to actually agree to those terms. In that case it is nobody else’s business but the two people involved in the transaction. If you don’t like the covenant offer more money or negotiate, we are human beings after all.

You can’t transfer only half the ownership in something (i.e. you cannot alienate your right to own property). Lets say there is a disagreement between you and the person who you contracted with for use/ownership of the property, because you or one of your family members has a home-based business.

In order to resolve the question, a judge will have to determine who OWNs the property. Saying I own the property and then saying I can’t do something with it is a CONTRADICTION. Even if I voluntarily don’t do something with the property, I have no ability to bind anyone else or force a court to honor it, and since I will die one day, what happens if the successor doesn’t volunteer?

There will be a contract. It is either a bill of sale, in which case every restriction on what I can do with the property is nullified as it is contradictory to the idea of ownership, or it is a perpetual lease, in which case I don’t own the property, I’ve merely paid for the right to use it in limited ways. It must be one or the other.

As I’ve noted, rights can’t disappear, they can only be abriged (the usual description for this is usurpation or tyranny). So in the cases where people voluntarily agree, where did the right go? Can they attach the loss of rights to unborn generations? Can it be recovered? How?

Other cases might include bankruptcy. Lets say you are part of the voluntary restrictive covenant group, but default on a loan and I get your property (can you even use it as collateral if you don’t own it? Or assume the court holds it as an asset). I never agreed to the covenant, so I should be free to build a chemical plant. No contract can destroy or abridge that right. Of course your property might be in a trust which you have a share in that only grants certain uses, but the trust might go bankrupt since it is now the owner of all the properties and has joint liability.

You could buy private nusiance insurance so that the company would buy your house at the original value, or find a replacement of equivalent value, if a chemical plant was built next door. That would be a true market solution that did not reduce rights.

If property rights (in “ownership”) doesn’t include the right to build either a residence or business or anything else on a property, then it is not a violation of property rights when zoning restricts it. It is either a violation in both cases or neither. No one is forced to buy property in areas where zoning applies, so there is no coercion there either by the very same standard – if you don’t like zoning, merely live in the ex-ex-burbs.

My point is if I own something, zoning is a usurpation as it abridges my property rights. However I can’t myself abridge them and bind you, even as a condition of sale (as opposed to lease), to the abridgement. Too many libertarians love tyranny as long as it is private tyranny. But is the objection to the destruction of liberty only that it is the state that is doing it? That somehow suicide is proper because murder is worse?

You cannot voluntarily agree to inferior property rights and still say you own something. Only the entity with plenary rights has ownership. You can call it what you will, but voluntary slavery is still slavery. Condo owners under such a system are perpetual leasees, not owners. The distinction might be invisible for most purposes, just as zoning is if you never care to violate those laws.

John Stossel and James Bovard have noted that homeowner’s associations are basically tiny tyrannies and governments (do they have the right to use force or not). Holcombe may like his particular tyranny and find its forms of oppression useful, but that does not make their nature any different from zoning laws. A majority of the association can impose something far worse than any zoning law and he will have no recourse except to move. Being able to leave from some tyrannies doesn’t make them non-tyrannical.

One of those covenants (there was one in my parent’s house) was about race. Can I bind you in perpetuity not to give ownership of property to people of color? Are such clauses valid or not? If they are, I am involving third parties in the transaction – a contract is between the two parties – Smith and Jones can’t bind Brown with their contract. If it is not legitimate to prevent sale by basis of race, why is it on the basis on use? I can’t sell to a black v.s. I can’t sell to a chemical producer. What is the difference?

“who wants to buy a home where there could be a chemical plant built next door?”

The rebuttal to that argument is as follows:

In the absence of zoning laws, it is a CONSUMER’S CHOICE whether or not to acquire the legal protection that would prevent a chemical plant being built next door to your property.

So, how do you acquire such legal protection? By entering into a voluntary restrictive covenant agreement with surrounding property owners. As we all know, there are trade-offs in any economic transaction. In this case, you are barting a portion of your property rights in exchange for insurance against somebody building, for example, a chemical plant next door.

There you go — No zoning laws needed!

You are free to define property as necessarily not subject to any covenant. However, that is not the usual view. And it’s not the libertarian view.

There is something about how the words “voluntary” and “coercive” come into play here, that I don’t think we’re seeing eye-to-eye on. You don’t have to buy property that is subject to a covenant, and no one is violating your rights by not selling to you unless you accept the conditions of the covenant. The covenant was created voluntarily in the first place to benefit the property owners who agreed to it. I don’t think that qualifies as evil or as any form of destruction of liberty.

I will just add here a few quotes from Walter Block in “PROPERTY AND FREEDOM: THE STORY OF HOW THROUGH THE CENTURIES PRIVATE OWNERSHIP HAS PROMOTED LIBERTY AND THE RULE OF LAW.” at http://mises.org/journals/qjae/pdf/qjae5_1_6.pdf

“The core fallacy is that ownership of property under such restrictive covenants is somehow coercive, as if people are forced against their will into making [such things as] condominium purchases…

“As long as I consent to be bound by such rules, there is nothing amiss, as far as private property is concerned….

“all such contracts must necessarily be mutually beneficial in the ex ante sense. Were they not expected to generate benefits, they would hardly be entered into in the first place.”
————-
In an interview with Randall G. Holcombe at http://mises.org/journals/aen/aen18_2_1.asp

“HOLCOMBE: A restrictive covenant is a contract among owners which allows them to guarantee that property will be used in a certain way. When I bought my house, along with it came a long list of regulations drawn up by the homeowners association. They aren’t government regulations; they are private and designed to keep property values high. These covenants are increasingly common and very efficient market means of insuring the quality of life. The key is that they are entered into voluntarily.”

If “owning” property means something other than that I can do with it anything with it (that isn’t actionably harmful to others), what does it mean.

If liberty is precious, then giving it away or selling it to other private parties is not that much less evil than giving it away to the state, or being coerced in some way to give it away (economically or by threat of violence).

My point is that both are evil, yet some libertarians will argue approvingly for the private destruction of liberty. And this is a case in point.

And if you don’t transfer me plenary rights to property, I don’t “own” it as I don’t have liberty to do things any owner can legally do. You still own the property, whatever you want to call the transfer paper. It is not a deed or good title, it is a lease agreement.

Private contract law cannot change 2+2=4 although you can write something that says you are purchasing two items at two dollars but paying a total of five dollars. That is blatant nonsense.

You can also write a contract transferring ownership and yet attempt to transfer only some rights. But then my question attaches. You can either build a residence or a business. You contract with me such that I can only build a residence. Who now has the right to build a business? Has that right disappeared, or do you retain it? Either you’ve kept something back, or 2+2 now equals 3 in this contract, but how could we contract to destroy a fundamental right or liberty?

Tz,

The difference is those who enter a covenant do so voluntarily on an individual basis as they explicitly enter a contract with others to restrict themselves in a certain mutually beneficial way.

Those who get zoned get it against their will, coercively by a violent aggressor who steals from them and initiates force to enforce its arbitrary and unjust decrees.

Do those two situations really seem the same to you? I’m not completely sure where you’re going with your argument. Is your ultimate point that zoning is OK, because it is no worse than voluntary covenants, or is it that voluntary covenants are NOT ok because they are just as bad as coercive zoning bylaws?

It seems to me you are more likely to be in the camp of the former, arguing that zoning is fine and that states can zone us more judiciously than we can govern ourselves via voluntary covenants. Or are you for anarchy without benefit of private contract law?

Zoning is a taking, but isn’t private taking just as bad?.

Lets say a farmer owns a large tract which a developer wants. The developer may have to get a zoning variance, but then might sell a lot to me. In the absence of zoning, he won’t actually sell me the lot. I will get something more like a perpetual rental, since the contract will tell me I can’t build a business or do other things. If I don’t agree to the restrictions, he won’t sell it to me.

But if I can’t dispose of or use the property in any way I choose, in what way can I be said to own it? Where did the right to build a business on the property disappear to? How can it be reclaimed? What if the times change and my house sits on a lot that would be more valuable as something else.

I suppose I’m more the libertarian here since I don’t say you can trade your rights away. You can sign a perpetual, one-time-fee, limited use, transferable contract for a property, but if you don’t have the right to do anything the original owner did (the first recognized owner at the time it went from the public domain to be claimed), you don’t own the property in the proper sense of the word. (Note that in case of a tort, liability can be transferred, but if the current leasee can’t pay, the actual owner might still be liable, so the distinction isn’t trivial or semantic).

That is as much an attack on liberty and property as what the state does. Which is why things like Molyneaux’s private DRO Big-Brother, you can’t ride a bus without an ID card world is as much an evil as the Britian in V. My only confusion is why there have been so few that have denounced private, market, far more efficient tyranny.

I suspect you didn’t read many of the comments before your own, Anthony, which cited real-world examples of places that thrive for their lack of zoning.

In my city, where there is no zoning, no one lives next to sewage facilities or porn shacks. There are, however, two bars on every block — thriving mom-and-pop operations with well-mannered, respectable clientele, instead of seedy joints relegated to downtown ghettos because of license and zoning requirements.

People and businesses tend to like living and locating where they’re wanted, and where they can form communities. The entire premise of zoning is to prevent this from occurring — to prevent people and businesses from locating where they otherwise would prefer to.