To ask what funny covenants you've got on your house

[IanHislopForPm]

I can't sleep (can you tell) and I'm going through the deeds of the house and one of the
(Many) covenants is that we're not allowed to sell fish on a Friday 😂 I read once about a landlord who instead of charging peppercorn rent insisted on 100 red roses 🌹 😂 I'm so excited that we're finally getting there now and we move in on Friday.

Not allowed to manufacture or sell bricks I'm a bit gutted

But I can make tripe so I'm golden

Ours is the bit where back in the fifties the builders (who are also the leaseholders) seem to have built the wrong house. The land is covenanted for the "construction of a spacious villa".

They have in fact built a rather spacious pair of semis. Company is still in existence, so I suppose I could insist on my spacious villa, but the solicitor wouldn't let me go and ask about it. Spoilsport.

He's probably right and a page of deeds from across the road got accidentally copied into ours, but damn. A villa would be lovely!

What is night soil

Previous house - our staff my not arrive by motor vehicle or on horse back but a bicycle was acceptable. Tradesmen maybjot arrive by motor vehicle, but horse and cart and bicycle was acceptable. Was an early 1920s semi built in (a very small part!) of a Victorian villa’s garden.

Current house - may not be sold to X Y fishermen. House is in a seaside town and was built by their rival, Z. We may process fresh fish, but not whales. We may pot shrimp, but not some fish.

*not smoke fish

Ours is boring. We're not allowed to cut down any trees. Which was damn annoying when I asked the neighbour to chop down his 50ft Leylandii. We also have a Chantry tax, I think it's called, where the local church can charge is a yearly fee for repairs. I think theres also one about keeping livestock too.
1950's house.

@puds11

The contents of your cess pit. (From when mains sewers weren't a thing - someone came round with a cart and took it away)

I can't mine clay for tiles in the garden. Gutted.

I don't remember the exact wording, but we have something along the lines of not being allowed to do anything smelly on our property. Dh has had to give up pickled eggs

@wOOdlander - trying not to be alarmist, but you need to be very careful about covenants mentioning repairs to an adjacent church, they are enforcable and can often be very expensive. I hope your solicitor pointed this out to you.

Our new house (new build) we aren't allowed to change the front door colour (which I might do in protest seeing as they still haven't fixed the bloody chip in it!) and no conservatories. Also have to apply to the developer to get an extension approved. Oh and no caravans etc. We do actually have a caravan which would fit in our drive but at 8 metres I'd have nowhere to put my cars!! Safer locked in at a farm!

My old house was an ex council house and you still had to apply to the housing association provider who manages the area to make changes but none ever did which always caused issues with moving. We had to pay a fee for our porch when we moved out even though it was there when we bought it?!

Can't paint the front door a different colour, can't add a fence or a wall, no boats on the drive and no non-domestic animals!

Just to add to the above - there is a reason why the church of England is so rich!

In my first house, I was required "not to allow the general public to sing and dance in the house while charging admission".

It was a tiny terraced house, about the size of a postage stamp, so heaven only knows why the covenant was deemed necessary.

My solicitor, in-between gusts of laughter, told me how to dodge around the covenant. "Just don't charge admission", he said.

We aren’t allowed to imply in any way that the vicar lives here. That’s it, although as it’s Grade 2 listed there are restrictions on its appearance from that point of view.

Looked at another house where we couldn’t keep rabbits or poultry or run a business from it.

We are not allowed to practice any professions at home except Medicine or Law. (Edwardian street that fancied itself rather when it was built!)

We are not allowed to build any additional houses in our garden. Nor are our neighbours. Suits me.

I can’t give piano lessons or keep racing pigeons
I also have to keep the drainage ditch at the end of my garden clear

In my old house I was not allowed to burn pigs. Something to ponder when cooking a full English.

In my current place, my neighbours and I have been discussing our mutual covenants that require us to maintain a (very ugly and very substantial) wall between our properties. According to an elderly neighbour they were put up by two brothers who fell out and the wall was the only way to keep the peace between them.

We are only allowed to keep one pig, ‘for the use of the household’ .

I can't run a tannery.

@Thecazelets same here, I am also not allowed to carry on any business or profession from home unless it is that of a "doctor or solicitor". (Not even barristers, but presumably they were intended to stay in the Inns anyway.)

I shan't tell them about DH, who is self-isolating! Not that we know who has the benefit of the covenant now, anyway. It's about 100-150 years old and not traceable.

We also can't have our house front come nearer than 30 feet from the roadside.

I’m allowed to set up one or two shops (but no more than two), but no ‘hut caravan house-on-wheels’ or booth show swing or roundabout! Can’t make bricks or dig for gravel. So a mixed bag!

@wOOdlander another one saying be careful about this, as the Church has previously taken people to court and won the right to enforce the liability; the costs can run into hundreds of thousands of pounds.

Google 'chancel repair liability' and check if you have an insurance policy to cover you - it should have been in place when you bought the house. If you don't have a policy then you need to seek legal advice ASAP.