March 1, 2017 – From parking lots to driveways, utility lines to water mains, easements and restrictive covenants turn up in almost every real estate transaction.

Written by veteran Wisconsin attorneys Jesse Ishikawa and Dean Richards, Wisconsin Law of Easements and Restrictive Covenants from State Bar of Wisconsin PINNACLE^® helps you make sense of it all.

Avoid Future Litigation with Model Drafting Agreements

Easements are common but many easement agreements are drafted in a manner that invites litigation. With that in mind, an entire chapter of this book is devoted to drafting techniques, including checklists and suggested model forms.

Learn how to deal with accidental or incidental easements that come into existence without express intention by the parties, through the doctrines of prescriptive right, implication, or necessity.

Other chapters deal with such issues as administration of easements, allocation of the costs of maintenance and repair, amendment and termination of easements, and special problems that can arise with easements serving condominiums and planned unit developments.

The Key to Covenants: Avoid Ambiguity

Effective restrictive covenants must be clearly expressed, in peremptory terms, to avoid ambiguity as to the scope of a restriction. But not every activity prohibited by a covenant must be specifically set forth in the restrictive language.

For example, a covenant that prohibited doing anything that would “adversely affect the vegetation and natural beauty” of a common area has been held enforceable by Wisconsin courts, because the clear intent of the covenant could be ascertained from the language of the restriction itself.

There are also the matters of standing to enforce a restrictive covenant, the need to ensure all necessary parties are included, and whether assertions of waiver or acquiescence exist that may undercut an otherwise valid restrictive covenant.

Not to mention how and when a restrictive covenant may be terminated or modified – although Wisconsin statutes provide a mechanism for removing stale restrictive covenants and provide a way to handle a covenant that is deemed unenforceable, those statutes are often arcane and difficult to interpret, subject to many exceptions, and require reference to earlier versions of the statute.

Wisconsin Law of Easements and Restrictive Covenants gives you detailed analysis and discussion of these issues and many more.

How to Order

Wisconsin Law of Easements and Restrictive Covenants is available both in print and online via Books UnBound, the State Bar’s interactive online library. The print book costs $129 for members and $159 for nonmembers.

Subscribers to the State Bar’s automatic supplementation service will receive future updates at a discount off the regular price. Annual subscriptions to Books UnBound start at $159 per title (single-user price, call for full-library and law-firm pricing).

For more information, or to place an order, visit the WisBar Marketplace or call the State Bar at (800) 728-7788 or (608) 257-3838.