Detroit REAL Professionals Member Phil Seaver stated the 40 year Marketable Title Act has been revised. The Act states that unless easements and/or building and use restrictions are referenced in the chain of title during the last 40 years, they no longer apply. Previous interpretations stated that if the documents in the chain of title stated that the conveyance was “Subject to easements and restrictions of record,” the easements and restrictions were preserved. The revision requires that the Liber and Page of the easement/restriction must be in the chain of title to preserve them.

Steve Sallen says, “The question that I didn’t understand, if you have a development where 2 to 100 properties are covered by these deed restrictions and covenants, and one property sells, and it sites in Liber and Page, that preserves it for one lot, but what impact does that have to the other properties in that group? Will it eventually look like a “measles” looking development where some properties have deed restrictions surviving and others don’t?” He thinks that’s when it is really going to get difficult.