Also known as: warranty deeds · general warranty deed
Written by attorneys · grounded in primary & secondary sources — see below
A deed conveying an interest in real property that incorporates covenants of seisin, right to convey, against encumbrances, quiet enjoyment, and warranty.
Valley Realty conveyed an apartment complex to View Properties by general warranty deed. Years later a tenant established that part of the land lay outside the chain of title. View Properties sued Valley Realty for damages under the covenants. The covenants remained enforceable because they ran with the land to the original grantee.
Fitzgerald executed a warranty deed transferring a parcel to the Shelleys. The deed contained no reference to a prior racial covenant recorded against the property. After the Shelleys took possession, neighboring owners sued to enforce the covenant. The warranty deed transferred full legal title subject only to the covenant's later invalidation.
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Pond and Bobe conveyed surface rights to Short by warranty deed while reserving the mineral estate. The deed was recorded. After twenty years of nonuse the mineral interest lapsed under the dormant-mineral statute. The warranty covenants did not prevent the statutory lapse of the reserved interest.
A party executed a warranty deed transferring property while simultaneously pursuing frivolous litigation over the same parcel. The court imposed sanctions for bad-faith conduct in the suit. The warranty deed itself remained a valid conveyance unaffected by the sanctions order.
Yes. The covenants bind the grantor and remain enforceable by the grantee and its successors so long as the underlying breach continues to cause harm.
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The covenant is breached at the moment of conveyance if any encumbrance exists, regardless of recordation or the grantee's constructive notice.
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Yes under the merger doctrine. Contractual promises not embodied in the deed are discharged unless they involve fraud, mutual mistake, or collateral undertakings.
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Yes. When a grantor executes a warranty deed purporting to convey land the grantor does not yet own, after-acquired title passes automatically to the grantee by estoppel.
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…pursuant to a contract of sale, petitioners Shelley, who are Negroes, for valuable consideration received from one Fitzgerald a warranty deed to the parcel in question.[^maj-1] The trial court found that petitioners had no actual knowledge of the restrictive agreement at the time of the purchase. On October 9, 1945, respondents,…