good fences make good neighbors

Easements, restrictive covenants and equitable servitudes swim in my brain today. I'm fine with each one independently but there seems to be significant overlap between them all. One could say that an easement is the right of nonpossessory use of the land of another-until you get to negative easements. A negative easement looks an awful lot like a restrictive covenant.

And a restrictive covenant and equitable servitude seem to have only privity and possibly the form of remedy as their distinctions. If I make an agreement to maintain and repair a bridge that provides access to our properties, it is a covenant which burdens my land and benefits yours. We have privity at inception so there is horizontal privity. If I convey my land, but not the same estate, then the subsequent owner is not in vertical privity. So are they not required to maintain the bridge? But if this is an equitable servitude, privity is not required. However, equitable servitudes are generally negative-an agreement not to do something.

What is the difference between an easement implied by plat vs implied reciprocal negative easement (technically an equitable servitude?)

I can promise to cut your grass (covenant). I can agree to let you pick the fruit from my orchard (profit). We may agree together not to allow mobile homes on our properties (equitable servitude). You may give me deeded access to the lake which your property abuts but mine does not (easement). I may say that as long as we are neighbors, I am fine with you using the badminton court when your kids come home (license). You may agree not to plant trees on the side of the property so that I don't lose the morning sun (negative easement or restrictive covenant).

If you own a large parcel of land and subdivide it, but reserve for yourself an easement over the lot you sell to me, that is an express easement by reservation. If instead I have the landlocked parcel and you grant me an easement for access that is an express easement by grant. If you do not grant me an easement but the prior occupant of my lot used a road through your land, and there is no other legal access to my property, I may be able to obtain an easement by necessity. Or if that driveway has been in use, and the other way out is not reasonably usable, I may be able to get an easement by implication by prior use. In that case, the easement is permanent, whereas the easement by necessity would only exist as long as I do not have other access. The difference is between strict necessity and reasonable necessity.

There are many ways to say I will, or I will not. And even if unsaid, your actions may imply such an agreement. Being neighborly may cost you.