Just found out the origin of “grandfathered in”.
What else has a problematic history you didn’t realize until later?
Racial discrimination is illegal, so if you abide by these policies, you’d actually be breaking the law. These conditions (easements, I think is the term) are very hard to remove.
They originate in British law and mainly delt with land access. They protected the right of non-owners during land sales. For example, if you’re a farmer and someone else’s land is between your farm and the river, you could negotiate access through their land then get that codified as an easement. If they sell the land, it comes with the obligation to uphold your right and to pass those terms on to the next owner.
Landowners can’t strike them out because they’re the ones bound by these terms. The people who put them in place are all dead, so they can’t do it. A judge could get it removed from the deed if they think it effectively nullifys the owner’s property rights. However, they have no effect, so this almost never gets done.
I hadn’t thought about it that way. That makes sense that, as hereditary conditions imposed on future landowners, the conditions can’t be removed by those landowners to whom they apply.
I guess I just figured lawyers or whoever writes the deeds would have the ability (even the order) to remove clearly illegal clauses from legal documents. But I guess that’s just too much to ask, fucking weird country
