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.

Our house is about 100 years old. Remember the solicitor gleefully telling me he had mixed news - unfortunately we cannot dwell in a caravan on the property but a tent is fine!!

We also have to allow a particular farmer and his descendants to let their sheep or cattle drink from our never discovered well!

We are not allowed to keep lions or bears. We're not allowed to change the colour or position of the front door (loads of people have moved their doors from the side so I assume it's not enforced).

We're also not allowed to change the name of the house, which means it now no longer makes sense. It's along the lines of the three original houses being First, Middle and End House, but there now being 10 houses between Middle and End so "Middle House" doesn't make sense at all. Thankfully the Post Office gave us a number to use

@ClientQueen

Well Ollie and Paws can have a birdie and fishie friend but they'd better be good and not bring the place into disrepute!

Lucky it does not specify 'one cat'; crazy cat ladies need not apply.

As far as I can work out from ours we are not allowed to keep a flock of sheep or anything more than enough chickens for suitable consumption for the household. Also if I have the urge to knockdown the house it must be rebuilt exactly as it was before it was knocked down. Or cause it to burn down.

Cant use it as a hotel,public house or beerhouse or for the purpose of manufacture or sale of ales, beers, wines or spirits. Nor can I sell the earth or clay from the garden.

No you can run a business or work from the house. Ha ha 1934 people we are all ignoring you

cannot bloody autocorrect

We're not allowed to run a business (unless doctor or midwife!) and no greenhouses/ sheds without approval from the original builder - estate built in 1960s on half an old nursery. I think they were worried about competition!

Not allowed to bake my own bricks

@YetAnotherSpartacus no cats are allowed

Old house, we can’t mine for bricks which was a genuine problem at the time the house was built as lots of unauthorised clay mines which still cause problems today. We also have one saying we have to be cordial and respectful of the neighbours and we are very lucky that mostly everyone is friendly and nice to each other.

My house was built on what was the staff car park of a particularly dubious pub, but was built before the pub was demolished. I'm not permitted to.....

Operate a licensed premises from my house
Have fowl or swine in my garden
Operate a tannery, brick works or builders yard from my premises
I must maintain a solid garden fence at a height of at least 6 foot and may not dry washing above 6 foot (as the pub is long gone and everyone else has tall washing lines I do as well)

We are also in a chancel repair liability area so paid for the insurance.

Not allowed to change the external appearance of the house (built in the 70's). None of the neighbours have taken any notice with all their extensions or changes they've made!

Client Queen!!! No!!!! Still Ollie is human really.

I must not do anything to endanger the local colony of great crested newts.

Can't have a camper van or caravan on the drive. Which I'm glad about.

Our last house had an area of the garden marked on plans specifically to inform us that we were not allowed to 'mine' that area. I often wondered what could be down there as we lived in a little village with no miming activity.
We were also only allowed wooden fencing, the garden had stone walls. And we were not allowed to keep swine or fowl. We inherited ducks when we moved in.

Not allowed to make or sell alcohol. Land was bought off big brewery family so obviously wanted to maintain business. Also the shopping precinct on estate stares no cooperative society store may trade in the area. Apparently it was to maintain 'standards' in the estate. No mention of aldi or lidl but this was 1936.

We're not allowed to hang laundry in our back garden on Sundays, keep pigs or turn our home into a public house. Shame. So we had to take it all indoors.

Not allowed to mine one small area? I'd have hired a digger and had a look

Our last house had an area of the garden marked on plans specifically to inform us that we were not allowed to 'mine' that area

Who was murdered and buried there I wonder?

On that score - how do you get a covenant to preclude the digging up of Mumsnetter laid patios?

From memory- no keeping of rabbits, no commercial vehicles, no caravans, limited numbers of dogs, can't have a tallow works, no wall or fence higher than one foot at the front.

There may be others. And some have expired as we delayed building our small extension by a few months to avoid extra paper work.

Our house, in fact the whole street, is only 21 years old.

The only businesses that can be run from our property are solicitors, architect, physician, Barrister or Apothecary
We considered it fate as both DH & I are on that list
We also have to pay £10 to the original landowner for each other house built on the plot - it's a huge so potential for lots more houses but I'm not sure £10 would be much of a hardship these days
We have the original indenture (deeds document) hung on our wall in a frame as it's a huge almost A1 sized beautiful document, hand written with decorative writing and seals. I got it framed because it looks like a work of art and thought it shouldn't be hidden away in an envelope.
Technically they are no longer needed now the records are online so I think some of these amazing documents are just going to get lost or thrown away.

Our house is one of 7 original cottages that were built by the family that had the farm locally - all for siblings. The cottages were sized dependant on the siblings interests and family so we are all similar but different!! Ours is the largest plt (2 really) but then when things were built around us things changed - the front and back were flipped when they built on the land that used to be the main farmhouse area, so we have a redundant right of way that runs down our flowerbed on the righthand side to the back of the garage of one of our neighbours behind. Then what is now the front of our house is ugly because of extensions and we have an unmade up lane to our main drive and a hedge to block off the other estate the other side. The drive land is ours - part of our front garden if you like, but 2 neighbours have access over it. No other covenants though

.My house is 22 years old and I am only allowed 1 aerial or satellite tv receivers on the house and it is to be less than 6 feet above the ground. We have all ignored.