The most common question about a racial covenant found in an abstract is whether it still binds the land. It does not, and it has not for a long time. The Minnesota Legislature answered that question in a single clause of Minn. Stat. § 507.18, subd. 2:
Every provision referred to in subdivision 1 shall be void, regardless of the year the written instrument was executed, but the instrument shall have full force in all other respects and shall be construed as if no such provision were contained therein.
Nothing in that sentence is conditioned on recording anything. Subdivision 5 says so a second time, in case the point was missed: a restrictive covenant affecting a protected class “is void regardless of whether a statutory form as provided for in this section has been recorded in the office of the county recorder in the county where the real property affected by the restrictive covenant is located.”
So the discharge form does not make the covenant void. The covenant was already void. What the form does is put that answer into the county’s index, where a title examiner, a lender, an underwriter, and the next buyer will find it without having to reason their way there. That is a real function and it is worth doing. It is not a legal change, and anyone describing it as one is describing it wrong.
The mechanics below are what actually matter — including one carve-out that sends a substantial share of Minnesota property owners somewhere else entirely.
What does subdivision 1 actually prohibit, and when does it apply?
Subdivision 1 is prospective; subdivision 2 is retroactive. That split is the whole architecture of the section.
Subdivision 1 reaches instruments made after its enactment: “No written instrument hereafter made, relating to or affecting real estate, shall contain any provision against conveying, mortgaging, encumbering, or leasing any real estate to any person of a specified religious faith, creed, national origin, race, or color, nor shall any such written instrument contain any provision of any kind or character discriminating against any class of persons because of their religious faith, creed, national origin, race, or color.” It closes with an anti-evasion rule: any “form of expression or description which is commonly understood as designating or describing” one of those characteristics has the same effect as the ordinary name.
Subdivision 2 then takes the class of provisions described in subdivision 1 and voids them without regard to date. So the 1926 covenant is void by subdivision 2 even though subdivision 1 could not have prohibited its creation.
Subdivision 3 supplies the reach. “Written instruments relating to or affecting real estate” embraces “every writing relating to or affecting any right, title, or interest in real estate, and includes, among other things, plats and wills,” and “provision” embraces “all clauses, stipulations, restrictions, covenants, and conditions of the kind or character referred to in subdivision 1.” Plats are named expressly, which matters — a good deal of this language sits in recorded plat dedications rather than in individual deeds.
Who is a “protected class” for purposes of this section?
Five characteristics, and the list is narrower than the Minnesota Human Rights Act’s. Subdivision 3 defines the term for this section only:
As used in this section, the term “protected class” means any class of persons identified by their race, color, creed, national origin, or religious beliefs.
That is race, color, creed, national origin, and religious beliefs — five.
Compare Minn. Stat. § 363A.09, subd. 1, the Human Rights Act’s real-property provision, which prohibits an owner, lessee, sublessee, assignee, managing agent, or other person with the right to sell, rent, or lease from refusing or withholding real property “because of race, color, creed, religion, national origin, sex, gender identity, marital status, status with regard to public assistance, disability, sexual orientation, or familial status.” That is twelve.
The practical consequence: a recorded restriction aimed at a characteristic on the longer list but not the shorter one — sex, disability, or familial status, for instance — is not within § 507.18, subd. 2’s voidness rule and is not within the subdivision 5–6 discharge form. It may well be unlawful to enforce under the Human Rights Act, under the federal Fair Housing Act, or under general public-policy principles, but the analysis is a different one and the free form is not the tool. For the discrimination framework itself, see Housing Discrimination Under Minn. Stat. § 363A.09.
What does the recorded form legally accomplish?
Subdivision 5 gives it a defined operative effect and then immediately limits it:
The discharge of the restrictive covenant is valid and enforceable under the law of Minnesota when the statutory form provided in subdivision 6 is properly recorded, but the instrument containing such restrictive covenants shall have full force in all other respects and shall be construed as if no such restrictive covenant were contained therein.
Two things follow. First, a properly recorded form is itself an enforceable discharge — it is not a mere memorandum of opinion. Second, the underlying instrument survives. The deed, the plat, the declaration all keep operating on every other term they contain. Recording the form does not delete the covenant language from the historical record, does not alter the recorded original, and does not disturb any legitimate covenant sitting beside the offensive one.
The right to record belongs to “[t]he owner of any interest in real property” — not only the fee owner — and it runs to “the office of the county recorder of any county where the real property is located.”
It is free. Subdivision 5 says the owner may record “at no cost.” Subdivision 6(b) adds that “[t]he commissioner of commerce must provide electronic copies of the statutory form in this subdivision to the public at no cost.”
What must the form contain before the recorder has to accept it?
Four requirements, all four in subdivision 6(a), which says the county recorder “must accept” the form when it:
- “has been executed before a notary”;
- “contains the legal description of the real property affected by the restrictive covenant related to a protected class”;
- “contains the date of recording of the instrument containing the restrictive covenant, and the volume and page number or document number of the instrument”; and
- “complies with all other recording requirements.”
Requirement 3 is where these fail. The form is not a general statement that the neighborhood once had covenants — it is an instrument-specific discharge, and it needs the recording date plus either the book-and-page or the document number of the instrument that contains the covenant. That means pulling the abstract or ordering the document, not working from a plat map or a neighborhood history project. Requirement 4 pulls in the ordinary recording rules, so the usual formatting and legibility standards still apply.
The statutory form set out in subdivision 6(d) is an affidavit. The owner swears to being 18 or older and under no legal incapacity, and swears — “based on the information available and based on reasonable information and belief” — to the six recitals the form contains, including the identification of the instrument.
Does recording the form extend or revive anything?
No, and the Legislature said so directly in subdivision 6(c):
The recording of this form does not alter or affect the duration or expiration of covenants, conditions, or restrictions under section 500.20 and may not be used to extend the effect of a covenant, condition, or restriction.
That is a guardrail against an unintended side effect: a filing that names a covenant and describes the land could otherwise look like an act of preservation. It is not. Minn. Stat. § 500.20, subd. 2a’s thirty-year cutoff for private covenants runs on its own clock, unaffected either way; that provision and its interaction with the Marketable Title Act are covered in The Minnesota Marketable Title Act.
Is there money in this?
Very little, and it is aimed at a narrow target. Subdivision 4 reads in full:
Every person who violates subdivision 1, or aids or incites another to do so, shall be liable in a civil action to the person aggrieved in damages not exceeding $500.
Read the trigger carefully. Liability attaches to violating subdivision 1, and subdivision 1 by its terms governs instruments “hereafter made.” The $500 ceiling is a deterrent against drafting a new discriminatory instrument — or aiding or inciting someone else to — not a damages remedy against a present-day owner whose chain of title happens to contain a 1937 covenant nobody has tried to enforce. It is capped, it runs to “the person aggrieved,” and $500 is the maximum, not a floor.
Where an actual present-day refusal to sell, rent, lease, or finance has occurred, the remedy is not this subdivision. It is the Human Rights Act or the federal Fair Housing Act, with their own procedures, deadlines, and damages.
What if the property is registered under the Torrens system?
The discharge form is not available. Subdivision 5 carves it out in one sentence: “This subdivision does not apply to real property registered under chapters 508 and 508A.”
That is a meaningful exclusion, and it cannot be assumed away. Whether a given parcel is Torrens-registered has nothing to do with whether its chain of title carries a mid-century covenant — the two are independent facts about the same property — so an owner has to check registration status before assuming the free form is on the table at all.
Be precise about what the carve-out removes and what it does not. Subdivision 2 has no Torrens exception. A covenant of the described kind on registered land is void the same way it is void on abstract land. What subdivision 5 withholds is the free self-help recording mechanism — and structurally that is unsurprising, because subdivision 6 directs the county recorder to accept the form, while the register of titles is maintained by the registrar of titles under a different chapter.
Section 507.18 does not supply a replacement route for registered land. It says nothing at all about what a Torrens owner should do instead. The general Torrens machinery does contain a mechanism that reaches this subject matter, and it is not the recorder. Chapter 508 starts from a prohibition — Minn. Stat. § 508.71, subd. 1: “No erasure, alteration, or amendment shall be made upon the register of titles after the entry of a certificate of title or of any memorial on it, and the attestation of the same by the registrar, except by order of the court or as otherwise provided in this chapter.” Subdivision 3 of the same section is one of the “otherwise provided” exceptions, and it names this problem:
At the request of a registered owner or other person in interest, the examiner of titles by a written directive may order (1) the amendment or cancellation of a memorial relating to racial restrictions, rights which are barred by a statute or rights which have expired by the terms of the instrument creating the rights, (2) upon the submission of evidence satisfactory to the examiner, the correction of the name or designation of a party who is a registered owner or who has an interest registered on a certificate of title, or (3) the deletion of easements or other nonfee interests which are terminated by their own terms or by written instrument satisfactory to the examiner.
Note the differences from subdivision 5’s abstract-land route. This is a request to the examiner of titles, not a filing the registrar must accept. The verb is “may order,” not “must accept.” It operates on a memorial on a certificate of title — so it presupposes that the restriction was carried forward as a memorial, which is a question to answer by reading the certificate. And nothing in § 508.71 makes it free. For how registered land differs generally, see Torrens Registered Land in Minnesota.
What to do
- Determine abstract or Torrens before anything else. The answer decides whether the subdivision 5–6 form is even on the table.
- Find the instrument, not the story. Subdivision 6(a)(3) requires the recording date and the volume and page or document number. Order the document.
- Read the whole instrument. Subdivision 2 preserves everything else in it, and there may be easements, setbacks, or party-wall terms in the same document that are still operative and still matter at closing. Related disclosure obligations on a sale are discussed in Disclosure Duties in a Minnesota Purchase Agreement.
- Check the characteristic against subdivision 3’s five-item list. If the restriction targets something outside it, this is not the right instrument and the analysis moves to the Human Rights Act.
- Do not treat the recording as a prerequisite to anything. A buyer, a lender, or a title company that conditions a closing on the covenant being “removed” is asking for a record cleanup, not a cure of an enforceability defect. Subdivision 5’s final sentence is the answer to that request.
- If the land is registered, plan on the examiner of titles. Budget for it as a title matter rather than a form filing.
Madgett Law, LLC
Madgett Law, LLC handles Minnesota real property title work, including chain-of-title review, discharge and cancellation of recorded restrictions, Torrens proceedings and examiner directives, and housing discrimination claims under state and federal law. If a title search has turned up a restriction you need addressed before a closing, send us a message or call 612-470-6529.
Sources: Minn. Stat. § 507.18 (Minnesota Office of the Revisor of Statutes), specifically subd. 1 (prohibition on instruments “hereafter made”; the five characteristics; the anti-evasion rule for descriptions commonly understood as designating them); subd. 2 (every provision referred to in subdivision 1 is void “regardless of the year the written instrument was executed,” with the balance of the instrument in full force); subd. 3 (definition of “written instruments relating to or affecting real estate,” expressly including plats and wills; definition of “provision”; definition of “protected class” as race, color, creed, national origin, or religious beliefs); subd. 4 (civil damages not exceeding $500 against a person who violates subdivision 1 or aids or incites another to do so); subd. 5 (right of the owner of any interest to record the subdivision 6 form at no cost with the county recorder; the exclusion of property registered under chapters 508 and 508A; the recorded discharge is valid and enforceable while the underlying instrument retains full force in all other respects; the covenant is void whether or not the form is recorded); subd. 6(a)(1)–(4) (the four conditions on which the county recorder must accept the form); subd. 6(b) (commissioner of commerce to supply electronic copies at no cost); subd. 6(c) (recording does not alter or affect duration or expiration under § 500.20 and may not be used to extend a covenant); subd. 6(d) (the statutory form, its affidavit structure, and its six recitals). Minn. Stat. § 363A.09, subd. 1 (Human Rights Act real-property provision; the twelve enumerated characteristics), relied on only for the comparison of protected characteristics. Minn. Stat. § 500.20, subd. 2a (thirty-year cutoff for private covenants, conditions, and restrictions), referenced only as the provision § 507.18, subd. 6(c) says the form does not affect. Minn. Stat. § 508.71, subd. 1 (no alteration of the register of titles except by court order or as otherwise provided in chapter 508) and subd. 3 (written directive of the examiner of titles may order amendment or cancellation of a memorial relating to racial restrictions). Whether a particular instrument contains a provision “of the kind or character referred to in subdivision 1,” whether particular property is registered, and whether a restriction was carried forward as a memorial on a certificate of title are fact questions this article does not resolve.
This article is general legal information about Minnesota law. It is not legal advice, it does not create an attorney–client relationship, and no particular outcome is promised or implied. Statutes and case law change; verify the current authority before relying on anything discussed here.