Rogers v Hosegood [1900] 2 Ch 388
Property law – Restrictive covenant running with the land
Facts
The owners of land conveyed a plot to a purchaser on the basis that no more than one dwelling should be erected at any one time. Further to this, it was agreed that the dwelling that stood should be for private residence only. The covenant was in place to bind the purchaser as well as future owners of the land. Shortly after the conveyance of the property, the mortgagor conveyed a different plot of land to another purchaser who had no knowledge of the covenant on the first plot of land. The second purchaser built a house upon the land. The defendant purchased the land from the second purchaser’s trustees after death and began building work to build a block of residential flats on the land. The plaintiff’s trustees, by power provided from the plaintiff’s will, brought an action to enforce the restrictive covenant.
Issue
There were two important issues for the court to consider in this case. The first was whether the covenant could run with the land, after the death of the original parties who had agreed on the covenants on the properties. If this could be established, the second issue to consider was whether the construction of a block of residential flats could breach the covenant that the plaintiffs were trying to enforce.
Decision/Outcome
The court found that the plaintiff trustee could enforce the restrictive covenant on the basis that the benefit of the covenant had transferred with the land. The court subsequently found that the construction of a large block of flats would have breached the restrictive covenant in question.
Updated 21 March 2026
This article accurately summarises the facts, issues, and outcome of Rogers v Hosegood [1900] 2 Ch 388, a foundational case on the running of the benefit of restrictive covenants with land in equity. The core principles established in this case — particularly that the benefit of a restrictive covenant passes automatically with the land when it is intended to benefit that land and is not a mere personal covenant — remain good law and continue to be cited and applied in English property law.
Readers should be aware, however, that the broader law of restrictive covenants has been subject to ongoing reform debate. The Law Commission has recommended significant changes to the law of covenants in its reports, most recently in its 2011 report Making Land Work: Easements, Covenants and Profits à Prendre (Law Com No 327), which proposed replacing freehold covenants with a new statutory regime of “land obligations.” As of the date of this note, those reforms have not been implemented. The law as described in this article therefore remains the applicable law, but students should be aware that legislative reform in this area remains a possibility.
