A Minnesota lawyer asked to opine on a 1962 subdivision covenant usually reaches for Minn. Stat. § 500.20, subd. 2a and reports that the covenant died at 30 years. That answer is right often enough to be dangerous. The 30-year rule is real, but it applies to a shrinking residue of Minnesota land, and it has a history that determines whether a given covenant is alive, dead, or dead-and-unrevivable — three different outcomes that depend on decades, not on the covenant’s text.
Here is the structure the statute actually has. Subdivision 2a states a 30-year expiration. It then lists eight categories to which the expiration does not apply, and those eight categories cover condominiums, cooperatives, common interest communities under chapter 515B, shared-structure buildings, government-required affordable housing instruments, and anything a claimant has preserved by recording a sworn notice in a narrow two-year window. Subtract all of that and what remains is the ordinary platted subdivision with covenants in the deeds or on the plat — the exact fact pattern of the mid-century Minnesota lake development and the postwar suburban addition.
And even for those, there is a further wrinkle that catches people: the 30-year statute was repealed in 1982 and re-enacted in a different form in 1988. Covenants that ran out their 30 years during the window when the old statute was in force are void forever. Covenants that had not yet run out when the repeal hit were released from the clock entirely, then recaptured by the 1988 version. The Minnesota Supreme Court and the Court of Appeals each decided one of those cases, and they came out opposite ways on facts that differed only by which side of 1982 the thirtieth anniversary fell on.
What does Minn. Stat. § 500.20, subd. 2a actually say?
The operative sentence is short:
Except for any right to reenter or to repossess as provided in subdivision 3, all private covenants, conditions, or restrictions created by which the title or use of real property is affected, cease to be valid and operative 30 years after the date of the deed, or other instrument, or the date of the probate of the will, creating them, and may be disregarded.
Minn. Stat. § 500.20, subd. 2a (2025).
Three things in that sentence do work. First, the clock runs from the instrument, not from the plat, not from the first sale, and not from the last amendment. Second, it reaches “private” covenants — a restriction imposed by a governmental entity as a condition of approval is not obviously within it, and clause (8) confirms the legislature thought at least some government-required instruments needed express exclusion. Third, the covenant does not become unenforceable in equity; it “cease[s] to be valid and operative.” That is a status change in the title, not a defense.
The excluded category — rights of reentry and repossession — is governed by subdivision 3, which is a much shorter fuse:
Hereafter any right to reenter or to repossess land on account of breach made in a condition subsequent shall be barred unless such right is asserted by entry or action within six years after the happening of the breach upon which such right is predicated.
Minn. Stat. § 500.20, subd. 3 (2025). A grantor who reserved a forfeiture clause and sat on a known breach for seven years has nothing. That six-year limit is independent of the 30-year rule and it is easy to miss because it lives two subdivisions away from the provision everyone reads.
Which covenants escape the 30-year rule?
Subdivision 2a says the expiration “does not apply to covenants, conditions, or restrictions” in eight enumerated categories. Stated in order:
- Pre-August 1, 1959 covenants preserved by a sworn notice recorded on or before March 30, 1989.
- Covenants created by the declaration, bylaws, floor plans, or condominium plat of a condominium created before August 1, 1980 under chapter 515, or on or after August 1, 1980 under chapter 515A or 515B, and amendments to those instruments.
- Covenants created by the articles, bylaws, or proprietary leases of a cooperative association formed under chapter 308A.
- Covenants created by an instrument empowering a corporation whose membership qualification is ownership of certain parcels to hold title to common real estate for the benefit of those parcels.
- Covenants created by an instrument under which portions of a building, connected or adjacent buildings, or a complex of related buildings share support, structural components, ingress and egress, or utility access.
- Post-July 31, 1959 covenants preserved by a sworn notice recorded during the window that begins on the 28th anniversary of the creating instrument and ends on the 30th anniversary.
- Covenants created by a declaration or bylaws of a common interest community created under or governed by chapter 515B, and amendments.
- Covenants created by “a declaration or other instrument required by a government entity related to affordable housing.”
Minn. Stat. § 500.20, subd. 2a, cls. (1)–(8) (2025). Clause (8) is the newest: it was added by Laws 2023, ch. 37, art. 6, § 10, which converted the semicolon and period at the end of clauses (6) and (7) and appended the affordable-housing clause. Chapter 37 was the 2023 housing finance act and carried appropriation items, so absent a specified date it took effect July 1, 2023 under Minn. Stat. § 645.02, which provides that “[a]n appropriation act or an act having appropriation items enacted finally at any session of the legislature takes effect at the beginning of the first day of July next following its final enactment, unless a different date is specified in the act.”
Read together, clauses (2), (3), (4), (5), and (7) mean that essentially no association-governed housing in Minnesota is subject to the 30-year rule. The condominium declaration does not expire. The co-op’s proprietary lease restrictions do not expire. The CIC declaration under chapter 515B does not expire. A townhouse row sharing a party wall and a common driveway is caught by clause (5) even if nobody ever filed a declaration. For those communities the mechanism for change is amendment, not expiration: chapter 515B allows a declaration to be amended “by vote or written consent of unit owners of units to which at least 67 percent of the votes in the association are allocated, or any greater or other requirement the declaration specifies,” Minn. Stat. § 515B.2-118(a), and no action challenging an amendment may be brought more than two years after it is recorded, id. § 515B.2-118(b). (Section 515B.2-118 was amended in the 2026 regular session by Laws 2026, ch. 61, § 12, but the change to subsection (a) was a citation-format correction; the 67 percent threshold is unchanged.) The rights of owners inside those communities are a separate subject, covered in our guide to owner rights under MCIOA.
Can an expiring covenant be renewed?
Yes — by clause (6), and the window is two years wide.
(6) that were created after July 31, 1959, under which a person who owns or has an interest in real estate against which covenants, conditions, or restrictions have been filed claims a benefit of the covenants, conditions, or restrictions if the person records in the office of the county recorder or files in the office of the registrar of titles in the county in which the real estate affected is located during the period commencing on the 28th anniversary of the date of the deed or instrument, or the date of the probate of the will, creating them and ending on the 30th anniversary, a notice as described in clause (1);
Minn. Stat. § 500.20, subd. 2a, cl. (6) (2025). The notice content comes from clause (1): sworn by the claimant or the claimant’s agent or attorney, setting forth the claimant’s name, describing the real estate affected, describing the deed, instrument, or will creating the restriction, and “stating that the covenant, condition, or restriction is not nominal and may not be disregarded under subdivision 1.”
The effect of a timely notice is not permanent revival. The statute is precise:
A notice filed in accordance with clause (1) or (6) delays application of this subdivision to the covenants, conditions, or restrictions for a period ending on the later of seven years after the date of filing of the notice, or until final judgment is entered in an action to determine the validity of the covenants, conditions, or restrictions, provided in the case of an action the summons and complaint must be served and a notice of lis pendens must be recorded in the office of the county recorder or filed in the office of the registrar of titles in each county in which the real estate affected is located within seven years after the date of recording or filing of the notice under clause (1) or (6).
Minn. Stat. § 500.20, subd. 2a (2025). So the filing buys seven years, or longer if litigation over validity is commenced and lis pendens recorded inside the seven years. County recorders and registrars must accept the notice at a fee corresponding to a lis pendens of similar length, and the notice can be discharged the same way a lis pendens is discharged — after which it “ceases to constitute either actual or constructive notice.” Id.
The practical consequence for anyone advising a neighborhood association without CIC status: the calendar is the whole case. A homeowners’ group that wants its 1998 covenants to survive must record between 2026 and 2028. Miss it and there is no cure; the statute contains no late-filing relief and no equitable extension.
What happened between 1982 and 1988, and why does it still matter?
The 30-year rule originally lived in subdivision 2, enacted in 1937. The legislature repealed it in 1982 and enacted the current subdivision 2a in 1988. Two appellate decisions govern the gap, and they are not in tension once you see the operative fact.
In Haugen v. Peterson, 400 N.W.2d 723 (Minn. 1987), covenants created in 1949 hit their thirtieth year in 1979 — before the 1982 repeal. Neighbors argued the repeal revived them. The court refused. Reading the statutory language that covenants “shall cease to be valid and operative” after 30 years, the court said: “These words denote termination, not suspension.” Id. at 726. And its conclusion was categorical: “These covenants became void in 1979 and remain void and cannot be resurrected.” Id. The court also took the unusual step of telling the legislature it had made a mess — “Why the legislature repealed the statute, we do not know, but it certainly should address itself to the many problems that will be created by its repeal.” Id. Subdivision 2a followed the next year.
In Andrews v. Benson, 476 N.W.2d 194 (Minn. Ct. App. 1991), review denied (Minn. Dec. 23, 1991), covenants signed in 1957 would have expired in 1987 — after the repeal. The district court held the owners’ right to be free of the covenants had vested when the covenants were created. The Court of Appeals reversed, and its correction of the underlying property concept is worth keeping: “A restrictive covenant, however, is a servitude or negative easement. It is not an ‘estate,’ which is or may become possessory.” Id. at 196. Because no right had vested, the 1982 repeal lifted the term the statute had imposed and “restored the agreement of the parties.” Id. at 197. The covenants survived the gap — and then had to be tested against the 1988 statute, which the court remanded for.
The takeaway for title work is a date, not a doctrine. If a private covenant’s thirtieth anniversary fell before the 1982 repeal, it is void and stays void. If it fell after, the covenant lived through the gap and its fate turns on subdivision 2a and on whether anybody recorded a notice.
Who can enforce a covenant that has not expired?
The person named in the deed can, obviously. The harder and more common question is whether a neighbor down the block can, when the neighbor is not a party to the instrument containing the restriction and has no contractual privity with the violator. Minnesota answers that through the general plan of development doctrine.
The rule statement comes from Cantieny v. Boze, 209 Minn. 407, 296 N.W. 491 (1941), a suit to stop a tourist camp on Detroit Lake:
Whenever land is developed under a general plan, reasonably restrictive covenants which appear in deeds to all lots sold are enforceable alike by the vendor and by the vendees and by their successors in title.
Id. at 409. On the facts there, the restriction “was available to any of the lot owners as against their neighbors in the event of its breach.” Id. at 409–10.
Whether such a plan exists is a fact question, and the burden is on the party asserting it. Rose v. Kenneseth Israel Congregation, 228 Minn. 240, 36 N.W.2d 791 (1949), held that “[t]he burden of proving a general plan of improvement was upon plaintiffs. The existence of such a general plan is a question of fact to be determined by looking to the conditions of the platting and the sale of the lots and all surrounding circumstances as indicated verbally or in writing.” Id. at 252. Rose is also the case that shows a general plan can exist for part of a plat and not the rest: the court sustained a finding that Homewood Addition in Minneapolis was generally planned as a single-family district, but held the common grantors never intended to include the Plymouth Avenue frontage, where the defendant congregation’s own deed expressly permitted a building “to be used exclusively for religious purposes.” Id. at 255–56.
LaValle v. Kulkay, 277 N.W.2d 400 (Minn. 1979), restated the test with the element that decides most cases:
The existence of a general plan of development is a question of fact to be determined by looking to the intention of the original owners in platting the development, the conditions of the platting, the sale of the lots, and all surrounding circumstances as indicated verbally or in writing. . . . The grantor’s intention is the most important factor to consider in determining whether there exists a general plan.
Id. at 402 (citation omitted). In LaValle, the developers of a Lake Waconia subdivision had put the single-family restriction in most deeds but not all — 29 of 84 lots went out unrestricted, five of them to strangers. The supreme court affirmed enforcement anyway, on the original grantor’s testimony about her intent. That is the practical lesson: gaps in the deeds do not defeat a general plan. A defendant whose survey of the plat turns up unrestricted lots has found a fact, not a defense.
The construction rule, once a plan is established, cuts toward the covenant’s plain words. Rose quoted Klapproth v. Grininger: “While covenants imposing restrictions upon the use of property will not be enlarged by construction, they will be given the full force and effect intended by the parties who created them, and where the language used is clear and unambiguous it will be given its obvious meaning.” 228 Minn. at 253. And a restriction on the kind of building reaches the use of it — LaValle applied a “single private dwelling” covenant to bar renting two basement units, 277 N.W.2d at 403, following Strauss v. Ginzberg.
Is there a changed-conditions defense in Minnesota?
Mostly, yes — but it is statutory, and it lives in subdivision 1 rather than in the case law where a practitioner from another state would look for it.
When any covenants, conditions, restrictions or extensions thereof annexed to a grant, devise or conveyance of land are, or shall become, merely nominal, and of no actual and substantial benefit to the party or parties to whom or in whose favor they are to be performed, they may be wholly disregarded; and a failure to perform the same shall in no case operate as a basis of forfeiture of the lands subject thereto.
Minn. Stat. § 500.20, subd. 1 (2025). That is the Minnesota changed-conditions doctrine: a covenant that has become nominal and confers no actual and substantial benefit may be disregarded, and its breach cannot forfeit the land. The legislature treated it as a distinct mechanism from the 30-year clock — the supreme court in Wichelman v. Messner, 250 Minn. 88, 83 N.W.2d 800 (1957), explained that “Section 500.20(1) merely applies to conditions that have become nominal. Subd. 2 limits the duration of conditions ‘hereafter created’ to 30 years,” and that the Marketable Title Act “assists the operation of § 500.20 by requiring notice filed thereunder to state affirmatively why such conditions have not become nominal.” Id. at 118. Section 541.023, subd. 1 still contains that requirement today.
What Minnesota does not have is a thick body of published appellate decisions applying the “merely nominal” standard to a modern subdivision covenant. Andrews is the closest: the Court of Appeals remanded “for trial on the effect of the July 1988 filing, on whether the covenants were of actual and substantial benefit, and thus, on the appropriateness of giving the covenants continued effect.” 476 N.W.2d at 199. A litigant arguing that a 1965 setback covenant is now nominal is arguing from the statute and from facts, not from a controlling precedent.
The common-law defenses are better developed and often more useful:
- Abandonment of the plan. LaValle held the evidence of other violations “would be significant if it demonstrated abandonment of the general plan and illustrated that the purpose of the restrictive covenant had become obsolete because a significant amount of property in the area had changed to other uses, but there is no evidence of a significant amount of contrary use of property in the development.” 277 N.W.2d at 403. The defense exists; it requires volume.
- Laches and acquiescence. Cantieny denied an injunction on a two-year delay: “It appears to us that the violation of a restriction of the kind contained in these deeds was one that called for immediate action on the part of the person entitled to enforce the restriction.” 209 Minn. at 411. The court adopted the treatise rule that “equity requires the utmost diligence in this class of cases upon the part of him who invokes its preventive aid, and a slight degree of acquiescence is sufficient to defeat the application.” Id. at 413 (quoting Orne v. Fridenberg). A covenant plaintiff who watches a foundation get poured is in trouble.
- Estoppel. LaValle itself dismissed a counterclaim because the counterclaimants swam in the offending pool and said nothing for a year. 277 N.W.2d at 403.
How does this interact with the Marketable Title Act?
Cleanly, and in a way that surprises people: the covenants that escape § 500.20 also escape § 541.023. The Marketable Title Act — the 40-year rule of Minn. Stat. § 541.023 — says so in terms:
This section does not apply to actions to enforce rights, claims, interests, encumbrances, or liens arising out of private covenants, conditions, or restrictions to which section 500.20, subdivision 2a, or successor statutes do not apply.
Minn. Stat. § 541.023, subd. 2(c) (2025). So a chapter 515B declaration is exempt from the 30-year rule by clause (7) and exempt from the 40-year rule by subdivision 2(c). There is no outer time limit on it at all. Our separate treatment of what the Act does and does not sweep away is here.
What changes on registered (Torrens) land?
Two things, in opposite directions.
The 30-year rule does apply to Torrens land. Clauses (1) and (6) both direct the claimant to “file[] in the office of the registrar of titles” — the statute contemplates registered property throughout, and the general Torrens rule is that “[r]egistered land shall be subject to the same burdens and incidents which attach by law to unregistered land.” Minn. Stat. § 508.02.
The Marketable Title Act does not apply to Torrens land. Minn. Stat. § 541.023, subd. 2a(a) excepts real property “while it remains registered according to chapter 508 or 508A,” subject to a narrow 2001–2002 transition in paragraph (b). The result is that on registered land the 30-year covenant statute is doing all the work; there is no 40-year backstop underneath it.
The memorial mechanics matter too. A purchaser of registered land takes free of encumbrances “excepting only the estates, mortgages, liens, charges, and interests as may be noted in the last certificate of title in the office of the registrar” plus seven statutory exceptions. Minn. Stat. § 508.25. A covenant that is memorialized binds; one that is not, generally does not. But Andrews teaches that the memorial’s contents are not a source of substantive rights: a registrar’s notation that the restrictions “expire on September 20, 1987” did not entitle the owners to that outcome once the legislature changed the underlying law. 476 N.W.2d at 198–99. The certificate told them the covenants existed; that was the part with legal effect. See our fuller treatment of what a Minnesota certificate of title does and does not cut off.
Discriminatory covenants are a separate track entirely
None of the timing analysis above is needed for a racial, religious, or national-origin restriction. Minn. Stat. § 507.18, subd. 2 voids those provisions “regardless of the year the written instrument was executed,” and the balance of the instrument stands. The statutory discharge form in subdivisions 5 and 6 is a title-record remedy, recorded at no cost — and by its own terms subdivision 5 “does not apply to real property registered under chapters 508 and 508A.” We covered the mechanics, and the reason the form is worth recording even though the covenant is already void, in a separate article.
A working checklist
For a covenant you find in a chain of title:
- Date the creating instrument. Everything runs from the deed, other instrument, or probate of the will — not from the plat and not from the closing.
- Ask whether it is in one of the eight exceptions. If it is a condominium, co-op, chapter 515B CIC, shared-structure, corporation-holds-common-ground, or government affordable-housing instrument, stop: there is no expiration, and the Marketable Title Act does not reach it either.
- If it is an ordinary private covenant, find the thirtieth anniversary. Before the 1982 repeal? Haugen says it is void and unrevivable. After? It survived the gap and you go to step 4.
- Search the recorder and registrar for a preservation notice — pre-1959 covenants required a filing on or before March 30, 1989; post-July-31-1959 covenants require one in the 28th-to-30th year window. A notice buys seven years, or longer if a validity action was commenced with lis pendens inside that period.
- If it is alive, ask who can enforce it. Deed party, yes. Neighbor, only through a general plan proved as a fact under Cantieny, Rose, and LaValle — and gaps in the deeds do not sink the plan.
- Then ask whether equity will help the enforcer. Nominal-benefit under subdivision 1, abandonment, laches, acquiescence, estoppel. On the record, the covenant may be perfectly valid and still unenforceable by this plaintiff on these facts.
- On Torrens land, check the memorials — and do not rely on what a memorial says about expiration.
One more practical note for anyone whose real problem is access rather than use: a covenant restricting building is a different instrument from an easement granting passage, and they are governed by different rules. If the dispute is about getting to the property rather than what can be built on it, start with easements and access.
Madgett Law, LLC
Madgett Law, LLC handles Minnesota real property disputes — restrictive covenant enforcement and defense, quiet title and title-clearing actions, boundary and easement litigation, Torrens proceedings subsequent, and disputes between owners and associations. If a covenant in your chain of title is blocking a sale, a subdivision, or a building permit, or if a neighbor is asserting a restriction you believe expired decades ago, we can tell you which of the seven steps above your problem actually sits on. Call 612-470-6529 or send us a message.
Sources: Minn. Stat. § 500.20 (2025) — subd. 1 (nominal covenants of no actual and substantial benefit may be disregarded; no forfeiture), subd. 2a (30-year expiration; clauses (1)–(8) exceptions; clause (1) notice contents; clause (6) 28th-to-30th-anniversary renewal window; seven-year delay and lis pendens paragraph; recorder/registrar fee and discharge paragraph), subd. 3 (six-year limit on reentry/repossession for breach of condition subsequent), and History line (2023 c 37 art 6 s 10). Laws 2023, ch. 37, art. 6, § 10 (adding subd. 2a, cl. (8), affordable housing). Minn. Stat. § 645.02 (2025) (July 1 effective date for acts having appropriation items). Minn. Stat. § 507.18 (2025) — subd. 2 (prohibited restriction void regardless of year executed), subds. 5–6 (no-cost discharge form; inapplicable to ch. 508/508A registered land). Minn. Stat. § 508.02 (2025) (registered land subject to same burdens and incidents as unregistered). Minn. Stat. § 508.25 (2025) (certificate holder takes free of encumbrances except those noted on the last certificate, plus seven enumerated exceptions). Minn. Stat. § 508.48 (2025) (filing with registrar is notice). Minn. Stat. § 541.023 (2025) — subd. 1 (40-year notice; notice as to a condition subsequent or restriction must show why it is not nominal under § 500.20, subd. 1), subd. 2(c) (Act inapplicable to covenants to which § 500.20, subd. 2a does not apply), subd. 2a (registered property not affected). Minn. Stat. § 515B.2-118 (2025), subsections (a) (67 percent amendment threshold) and (b) (two-year limit on challenges); Laws 2026, ch. 61, § 12 (2026 amendment; citation-format changes to subsection (a)). Minn. Stat. § 515B.1-102 (2025) (applicability of chapter 515B). Cantieny v. Boze, 209 Minn. 407, 296 N.W. 491 (1941) — 209 Minn. at 409 (general plan; enforceable by vendor, vendees, and successors), 409–10 (restriction available to any lot owner against neighbors), 411 (violation called for immediate action), 413 (utmost diligence; slight acquiescence defeats the application). Rose v. Kenneseth Israel Congregation, 228 Minn. 240, 36 N.W.2d 791 (1949) — 228 Minn. at 249 (quoting Cantieny), 252 (burden and fact question), 253 (quoting Klapproth v. Grininger on construction), 255–56 (no general plan as to the Plymouth Avenue frontage). LaValle v. Kulkay, 277 N.W.2d 400 (Minn. 1979) — at 402 (general plan factors; grantor’s intention most important), 403 (abandonment/obsolescence framing; construction; restriction on building reaches use; estoppel on the pool counterclaim). Haugen v. Peterson, 400 N.W.2d 723 (Minn. 1987) — at 726 (“termination, not suspension”; covenants void in 1979 “cannot be resurrected”; legislature should address the problems created by the repeal). Andrews v. Benson, 476 N.W.2d 194 (Minn. Ct. App. 1991), review denied (Minn. Dec. 23, 1991) — at 196 (restrictive covenant is a servitude or negative easement, not an estate), 197 (repeal restored the parties’ agreement), 198–99 (Torrens memorial; § 508.02), 199 (remand on actual and substantial benefit). Wichelman v. Messner, 250 Minn. 88, 83 N.W.2d 800 (1957) — 250 Minn. at 118 (relationship of § 500.20 subds. 1 and 2 to § 541.023). This article is general legal information about Minnesota law. It is not legal advice, it does not create an attorney–client relationship, and no outcome is promised or implied.