Massachusetts General Laws

Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 184, § 23 (2026)

Conditions or restrictions; term of years; applicability

✓ current as of July 2026

Find cases: SyfertCases citing this section MAmalegislature.gov (official) JustiaChapter on Justia CornellLII Search CasesGoogle Scholar

Section 23. Conditions or restrictions, unlimited as to time, by which the title or use of real property is affected, shall be limited to the term of thirty years after the date of the deed or other instrument or the date of the probate of the will creating them, except in cases of gifts or devises for public, charitable or religious purposes. This section shall not apply to conditions or restrictions existing on July sixteenth, eighteen hundred and eighty-seven, to those contained in a deed, grant or gift of the commonwealth, or to those having the benefit of section thirty-two.

Notes of Decisions

Cited in 28 cases (1 in the last 5 years), 1925–2024 · leading case: Patterson v. Paul, 448 Mass. 658 (Mass. 2007).

Sort: Relevance Newest Treatment

Patterson v. Paul, 448 Mass. 658 (Mass. 2007). · cites it 9× “More specifically, the plaintiffs sought a judgment (1) declaring that the view easements benefiting the defendants were valid only for a thirty-year period pursuant to the limitation on the duration of certain restrictions on land set forth in G. L. c. 184, § 23; (2) enjoining…”

Myers v. Salin, 431 N.E.2d 233 (Mass. App. Ct. 1982). · cites it 5× “The judge ruled that the covenants, unlimited in time, contained in the three Whittington deeds (1915, 1916, and 1919) created at most negative easements and thus were restrictions on the retained land of the grantors which by lapse of time had expired after thirty years,…”

Boston Waterfront Dev. Corp. v. Commonwealth, 393 N.E.2d 356 (Mass. 1979). · cites it 4× “, G.L.c. 184, § 23, and G.L.c. 184A, §§ 3, 5, and the study of a body of legislative history concerning these statutes.”

Bortolotti v. Hayden, 449 Mass. 193 (Mass. 2007). · cites it 2× “We reject the defendant’s argument that a right of first refusal is the type of restrictive covenant covered by G. L. c. 184, § 23, providing, in relevant part, that “[cjonditions or restrictions, unlimited as to time, by which the title or use of real property is affected,…”

City of Boston v. Roxbury Action Prog., Inc., 862 N.E.2d 763 (Mass. App. Ct. 2007). · cites it 5× “moved for summary judgment on the ground that the thirty-year statute of limitations contained in G. L. c. 184, § 23, bars the city’s claims.”

Murphy v. Plan. Bd., 874 N.E.2d 455 (Mass. App. Ct. 2007). · cites it 3× “Presumably, the Legislature acted out of concern that important public rights *395 might be lost through inadvertence, and that monitoring compliance with such requirements would pose too cumbersome a burden on governmental bodies.”

Stop & Shop Supermarket Co. v. Urstadt Biddle Props., Inc., 740 N.E.2d 1286 (Mass. 2001). “Stop & Shop asserts that the thirty-year limitation imposed by G. L. c. 184, § 23, set forth below, 1 on restrictive covenants that do not have a time limitation applies, and, as a result, the thirty-year period commenced on the date the fifty-year restriction was created,…”

Brear v. Fagan, 447 Mass. 68 (Mass. 2006). “However, restrictions that are “unlimited as to time” are “limited to the term of thirty years” by operation of G. L. c. 184, § 23, and they may not be extended beyond that thirty-year term by filing a notice of restriction under § 27 (b).”

Killorin v. Zoning Bd. of Appeals, 955 N.E.2d 315 (Mass. App. Ct. 2011). · cites it 3× “The trustees principally contend that the restrictions are no longer in effect by operation of G. L. c. 184, § 23. 5 We conclude that the provisions of the statute do not apply to conditions or restrictions imposed incident to zoning relief granted by special permit under G.”

Burke v. Metro. Dist. Comm'n, 159 N.E. 739 (Mass. 1928). “These restrictions were not limited in their duration to an exact interval of time, and if they did not expire when the city of Cambridge ceased to maintain the way, they must have expired by virtue of G. L. c. 184, § 23, on March 19, 1927, thirty years after the date of the…”

Jones v. Murphy, 799 N.E.2d 595 (Mass. App. Ct. 2003). · cites it 3× “On motion of the defendants, the Land Court judge granted summary judgment for the defendants, holding that “the Restriction [was] not for a specified period of time and ha[d], therefore, expired pursuant to G. L. c. 184, § 23, because more than thirty years ha[d] passed since…”

Burritt v. Lilly, 661 N.E.2d 102 (Mass. App. Ct. 1996). “See G. L. c. 184, § 23. Finally, we observe that the right to an injunction against the obstruction of an easement “is not an absolute one.”

Show all 28 citing cases →

Annotations are extracted automatically from the opinions in the Syfert caselaw corpus and ranked by authority, recency, and treatment. Dots show Syfertize treatment of the citing case itself.