As of today, property owners in Johnson County can review their legal ownership documents to identify and release historic covenants that discriminated against race, religion and national origin. In April, Kansas Governor Laura Kelly signed House Bill 2562 into law, effective July 1. The law authorizes the release of discriminatory covenants from land records. Existing state and federal law already prohibited these restrictions as unlawful and unenforceable, yet the discriminatory wording remained as part of the official documents.
The new law provides an avenue for property owners to determine whether their land records contain discriminatory language. If the documents do, owners can record a Certificate of Release of Prohibited Covenants to formally acknowledge the unlawfulness of the covenants and release the property from those historic restrictions. It also requires homeowner associations to remove discriminatory restrictive covenants from their governing documents within 60 days after July 1, 2024.
Source: Johnson County Kansas |
