There are three types of caveats that can be filed based upon restrictive covenants:
- Traditional restrictive covenants
- Building schemes / development schemes
- Restrictive covenants contained in development agreements
Traditional restrictive covenants
Traditional restrictive covenant caveats give notice of an agreement entered into between a vendor and a purchaser of land wherein certain restrictions are imposed upon the uses that the purchaser can make of the subject lands, which restrictions are for the benefit of lands retained by the vendor.
These caveats must contain the legal description of both the dominant and servient lands.
Building schemes / development schemes
The second sort of restrictive covenant that can be protected by a caveat is one imposed by a developer where that developer has subdivided a large piece of land into numerous lots and is selling off those lots.
In these situations, the developer will enter into separate agreements with each purchaser and, when taken as a whole, the numerous separate agreements act together to control the entire development.
In these cases, the restrictions in each separate agreement are intended to benefit all of the lots in the subdivision and not any specific land retained by the developer. In the end, in this type of situation the developer ultimately would own no lands, having sold all of the lots. This related group of caveats creates a private building scheme or development scheme.
In addition to the lands that are being restricted by the agreement, building scheme caveats must set forth all of the lands benefiting from the overall scheme. Typically, this would be all of the land in the development. When referring to these lands, it is sufficient to use some form of short hand, for example: All lots and blocks in Plan no. 45678 WLTO or Lots nos. 1-100 Plan 45678 WLTO. Despite the fact that all the benefited lands must be shown in these caveats, each separate caveat will only be registered on the title to the land that is restricted by the particular agreement.
Section 76 of The Real Property Act allows building/development schemes to be created by the registration of a single document, either an agreement or a declaration. Provided that the legislation is strictly complied with, the registration of this document will create a development scheme all on its own. See Development schemes for a more complete explanation.
Restrictive covenants contained in development agreements
By operation of The City of Winnipeg Charter and The Planning Act, both the City of Winnipeg and municipal governments outside of the City have the right to register caveats giving notice of development agreements containing restrictive covenants (and other terms).
See Development agreements for a more complete discussion.