## Facts

- Trustees who developed a 37-lot subdivision conveyed 16 lots by 13 deeds to various purchasers.
- Many of the deeds, together with referenced subdivision plans, included restrictions limiting lots to single-family residential use as part of a residential development plan.
- The trustees retained the remaining lots, including a lot later targeted for new construction.
- Years after selling restricted lots, the trustees obtained a permit and began constructing a multifamily apartment building on a retained lot within the subdivision.
- Eight owners of previously conveyed lots sued in equity to enforce the single-family restriction against the trustees’ retained land and to stop the apartment project.
- The Superior Court entered a final decree for the plaintiffs enforcing the restrictions.
- On appeal, the record primarily consisted of stipulated facts, the trial judge’s findings and rulings, and the documentary exhibits (deeds and plans); no full transcript was before the appellate court.

## Issues

1. Whether the deed and plan restrictions reflected an intended general scheme of development creating equitable servitudes enforceable by lot owners against the developer’s retained lots.
2. Whether, on the stipulated facts and documentary record, the plaintiffs were entitled as a matter of law to enjoin construction of a multifamily building inconsistent with the single-family restriction.
3. How an appellate court should review a decree enforcing restrictions when the record lacks a full trial transcript but includes findings, stipulations, and the relevant instruments.

## Decision

- The Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts affirmed the decree enforcing the restrictions.
- The Court held that the deeds and subdivision plans, read with the agreed circumstances, established enforceable equitable restrictions benefiting the subdivision lot owners.
- The restrictions were applicable to the trustees’ retained lot, barring the proposed multifamily apartment building.
- Given the documentary record, the plaintiffs were entitled as a matter of law to enforcement.

## Legal Principles

- Subdivision use restrictions may be enforced in equity by lot owners when the instruments and circumstances show an intended general plan of development for the mutual benefit of the lots, even if deed restrictions are not identical in every conveyance.
- A developer who sells lots under a common scheme of restrictions may be bound, as to retained land within the development, by reciprocal equitable servitudes when the recorded documents and pattern of conveyances show that intent.
- When the appellate record consists mainly of stipulations, a judge’s findings, and the relevant deeds and plans, review centers on legal interpretation of the instruments; a voluntary statement of findings functions as a report of material facts only to the extent it states the facts on which the decree rests.

## Conclusion

Because the subdivision deeds and plans showed a common residential scheme limiting lots to single-family use, the lot owners could enforce the restriction as an equitable servitude against the developers’ retained lot, and the decree preventing the multifamily construction was properly affirmed.


Houghton v. Rizzo, 281 N.E.2d 577 (Mass. 1972)