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.

Are solicitors supposed to make you aware of any covenants? We’ve been told by the previous owner of our house that there’s a covenant saying our front door has to be brown (it isn’t, and wasn’t when we bought it from him either!) but we’ve never seen anything official about this, and don’t have a copy of our deeds... I’m not too worried about anyone trying to enforce it, just wondering if there are any other weird rules that we don’t know about!

Mid terrace house in a busy town centre with tiny back yard and front door straight on to the main road. (There is a pavement!)
Not allowed anything other than wood framed windows - but we do have the right to pass and repass over the neighbours land with man servants, maid servants, cattle and kine (but not fowl) ! Wonder how “Jean next door “ would feel if we all trooped across her tiny front room! We certainly wouldn’t fit a cow into any of our yards!!!!

My sisters deeds say they can’t have any kind of band stand on the premises. It’s a tiny 1960’s plot so no idea why the deeds state that!

We’re not allowed to play musical instruments and we also have to redecorate internally every 7 years. We’ve been here for 6 years so better get a move on!

We have to have an apple tree in the garden!

Love these. I wonder how the very specific ones come about.

Our last house in the UK stipulated no cloven hoofed animals or boiling of bones! I just knew we should not have brought that house 😝

These are brilliant! I'm going to look at mine when I get a chance. Love the alpaca one.

1960s house built on land owned by large manorial estate. I thought our covenants were quite weird!

• No washing to be put out on a Sunday. Washing can be put out on others days but not in sight of neighbours.
• Cannot hold religious meetings
• Cannot keep fowl, or animals which are not considered a normal pet

Most people might think these are weird quirks but when we moved in our elderly neighbour made sure we knew them. Made me wonder whether previous owner had tried pushing their luck ... they didn’t get on at all according to other neighbours.

Some of these are brilliant! Ours just has we can't keep chickens.

@MusicianTom ewww thank you!

Ours is something about not repairing motorbikes, it doesn’t say anything about mopeds or cars though.

A lot make perfect sense.

Raising pigs and chickens for household consumption was unusual. Neighbours could agree on such covenants to avoid the very specific stink of pig sties or noise of chickens. Tanneries also stink. Laundry everywhere can also make a place look scruffy. It's neighbours trying to ensure their own properties do not lose value.

No chickens to be kept in the garden

This thread has really cheered up my morning. I want to hunt out our deeds now, although I don't think there is anything very exciting in them

There is A Man quite high up in society who is allowed to mine our driveway for tin and minerals if he wishes. House built in the 1950s.

Good luck to him.

No fires/flames/candles inside the house or within 5m outside (I assumed the gas cooker was ok though? Rented house, fitted cooker!)
Not allowed to change fuel /telephone line suppliers
Lawn must be mown every weekend (including winter)
Many others, will add as I remember them.
Glad we moved from there.

Ours are all boring

Not allowed to change the colour of my front door

Not allowed to park sign written vans, caravans or motor homes on the drive

Not allowed to place or plant anything along the front boundary - we have a very narrow road

Not allowed Sky dishes on the front of the house - we all ignore this one though, you can’t get a signal if they’re on the back.

I wonder how many are actually enforceable?

I’m not allowed to “drive cattle furiously” on my land on Christmas Day, so it’s ok the rest of the year I presume.

I’m not allowed to keep birds in an aviary or mine for silver.

Looks like my retirement plan of keeping pigeons is scuppered along with funding said retirement with the profits from my silver mine!

drive cattle furiously

I assume you can drive them in a slow and mellow fashion though?

Mine is a new build so nothing too weird, but I'm not allowed to grow vegetables in the front garden...

Not allowed to keep chickens.

Everything else is fine. Cattle? Yes. Ducks? Sure. Geese? Go for it. Chickens? Get out.

The ones with not keeping chickens or rabbits and no vegetable plots are not enforceable

Section 12 of the allotments act 1950 renders them null (landlords also cant stop their tenants either) all people are entitled to keep rabbits and chickens amd grow their own produce

I wonder how one goes about setting up a covenant? What would you add to your deeds if you could?

I would add not allowed to have excessive amounts of rubbish in your front garden.