## Facts

- H.N. Warren and Vera S. Warren, doing business as Warren Construction Company, developed an El Dorado, Arkansas residential project consisting of three adjoining units marketed as one neighborhood.
- The Warrens sold lots by warranty deed; many deeds contained covenants limiting use to “residential purposes only” and imposing minimum size or cost requirements, but some deeds in each unit contained no covenants.
- Deed language frequently referred to “the dwelling,” “the residence,” or “the residence dwelling,” and used singular terms such as “carport.”
- Homeowners testified that, in selling lots and homes, the Warrens represented the development would consist of single-family homes and that apartments or duplexes would not be built.
- After sales to homeowners, the Warrens proposed building two duplexes on lots in Unit Three.
- Homeowners, including Mike Detlefsen, sought an injunction to stop the duplex construction, alleging a subdivision-wide common plan restricting lots to single-family residential use.

## Issues

1. Whether the pattern of deed restrictions, viewed with the developer’s representations and marketing, established a general plan restricting the subdivision to single-family residential use.
2. Whether that plan was enforceable in equity against the developer to enjoin duplex construction on the developer’s remaining lots, despite nonuniform deed restrictions and some deeds without covenants.

## Decision

- The Arkansas Supreme Court affirmed the chancery court’s injunction against constructing the duplexes.
- The court upheld the finding that an enforceable general scheme for single-family residential development existed across the project.
- The court accepted the chancellor’s reliance on both recorded deed restrictions and the developer’s representations to purchasers in determining the nature of the plan.
- The court agreed that singular phrasing in the restrictions supported the inference that only one residence per lot was intended.
- The court found no reversible error in the chancellor’s fact-based equitable determination.

## Legal Principles

- A general scheme or plan of development may be established from the overall pattern of restrictions used in conveyances together with the developer’s conduct and representations in selling the property.
- Where a common plan for single-family residential use is proven, purchasers may enforce it in equity against the developer’s retained lots, including by injunction.
- Differences in wording among deeds, and the absence of restrictions in some deeds, do not necessarily defeat a common plan when the development was marketed as a unified neighborhood and buyers relied on the plan.
- Restrictive language referring to a single “dwelling” or “residence,” and other singular structural terms, may support construing “residential” restrictions as limiting lots to a single-family home rather than multi-family structures.

## Conclusion

The court held that the Warrens’ subdivision-wide development plan, shown by the pattern of residential deed restrictions and corroborated by the Warrens’ assurances to buyers, restricted lots to single-family use and justified enjoining the Warrens from building duplexes on their remaining property.


Warren v. Detlefsen, 281 Ark. 196 (Ark. 1984)