Final answer:
The deed providing the grantee the most protection is the general warranty deed, offering full guarantees against prior claims.
Restrictive covenants in deeds limit property use and were historically used for discrimination but now aim to maintain neighborhood character.
Step-by-step explanation:
The deed that offers the grantee the most protection is known as a general warranty deed. This type of deed entails a series of covenants or legally binding guarantees given by the grantor to the grantee.
These covenants ensure that the grantee is protected against any prior claims on the property by any party. It is in contrast to a special warranty deed which only covers the period during which the grantor held the title, a quitclaim deed that makes no guarantees about title at all, and a trustee deed which may be used in specific situations like a sale by a trust.
Restrictive covenants are provisions in a deed that limit the use of the property and can protect the value and character of a neighborhood.
However, these have historically been used in discriminatory ways to segregate neighborhoods by ethnicity, religion, or race, as seen in the infamous cases during the post-Civil War era and the Jim Crow South. Nevertheless, in modern real estate practice, these covenants are more focused on preserving the aesthetic and structure of a development, such as limiting the type of structures built or enforcing certain landscaping standards.