Covenant

Covenant, in English Law, an agreement by Deed (q.v.) in writing, signed, sealed and delivered. A special action of covenant lay where a party claimed damages for breach of a covenant; but since the passing of the Judicature Act, 1875, this is no longer a technical expression. A covenant may also be implied. 'Covenant running with the land,' is a covenant affecting the land into whose-soever hands it comes. In the United States, the term covenant is used with the same sense as it has in England. The action of covenant is not there in use, a covenant being enforced by an ordinary civil action. The covenant running with the land is almost universally replaced in the United States by a covenant of warranty, by which the grantor of the deed, and not the land itself, is bound.