Burden on Land Law and Legal Definition
A burden on land may be imposed through covenants and easements. Covenants are basically promises and they can be negative (restrictive covenants) or positive (affirmative covenants). A restrictive covenant requires the landowner to not act in a certain way, whereas an affirmative covenant requires an act to be taken, such as repair or upkeep of a fence. In the case of a restrictive covenant, the benefit of the covenant may be passed to a new purchaser of the land, and is said to "run with the land". With an affirmative covenant, the burden of the covenant doesn't run with the land, and isn't passed onto the purchaser of land.
