## Facts

- A Seattle residential subdivision (Sand Point Country Club district) was created in 1928 with platted lots and designated strips intended for access and related uses.
- A maintenance corporation (Sand Point Maintenance Commission) was formed, and the developer conveyed access and utility easements to it in trust for the benefit of defined beneficiaries, including lot owners brought under its governing documents.
- Recorded restrictive covenants and related instruments imposed on lot owners a proportional obligation to pay costs the Commission levied for street maintenance and improvements.
- The plaintiffs purchased lots in 1942 with record notice of the covenants and the Commission’s assessment authority.
- In 1953, the area was annexed by the City of Seattle; the city improved East 75th Street and assessed costs to the Commission, which then assessed its members to fund those charges.
- The plaintiffs refused to pay and sued, challenging the validity of the covenants and the Commission’s power to levy the assessments (including after a corporate reorganization).

## Issues

1. Whether the recorded covenants and trust arrangement created enforceable obligations running with the land requiring lot owners to pay proportionate assessments for street maintenance and improvement.
2. Whether the maintenance corporation had authority, under its governing instruments and the recorded covenants, to levy assessments to pay street improvement costs assessed after municipal annexation.
3. Whether the assessment scheme was unenforceable as against public policy, including as an unlawful delegation of governmental taxing power.

## Decision

- The Washington Supreme Court affirmed judgments against the plaintiffs.
- The court held the covenants created obligations running with the land (enforceable as equitable servitudes) binding subsequent purchasers with notice.
- The court held the Commission had authority to levy the assessments at issue, including those related to the East 75th Street improvement costs assessed to the Commission.
- The court rejected arguments that the scheme constituted an unlawful exercise or delegation of governmental taxing power or was otherwise invalid on public-policy grounds.
- The court held annexation did not extinguish the private covenant obligations.

## Legal Principles

- Recorded subdivision covenants imposing proportionate payment obligations for maintenance or improvement of common facilities may run with the land and bind later purchasers who take with notice.
- A private assessment obligation arising from recorded covenants is enforced as a contractual/property-based burden, not as a governmental tax.
- Annexation and municipal involvement in street improvement do not, by themselves, terminate private covenants allocating costs among benefited property owners when the governing instruments authorize the assessments.

## Conclusion

The court enforced subdivision covenants requiring lot owners to pay proportional assessments for street maintenance and improvements, upheld the maintenance commission’s authority to levy assessments to cover municipal improvement charges after annexation, and treated the obligation as a private covenant rather than a delegated taxing power.


Rodruck v. Sand Point Maint. Comm’n, 48 Wn.2d 565, 295 P.2d 714 (Wash. 1956)