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 first house had one where it couldn't be replaced with a structure with a value of less than £80. Even in 1981 that raised a giggle.

Bringringbring12, I'm guessing, but maybe before a certain point in history there wasn't a universal licensing law and certain individual premises WOULD have been able to sell alcohol? So covenants would have had to spell out who could and who couldn't.

Like I say, that's a guess. I'd be interested to hear the facts, if there's anyone on here who knows about the history of alcohol/retail.

The prohibitions on selling alcohol are unlikely to be related to licensing. If the landowner disapproved of alcohol, they could put in a covenant to prevent alcohol sales on the land they were selling. For example, there are a lot of areas of former Salvation Army owned land in Hadleigh, Essex, which have covenants prohibiting alcohol sale.

We have to have a fruit tree and a pine tree in the garden.

Some of those make sense, to protect the neighbours. Like the not burning soil one, where soil = poo.
My ILs live in a terraced house in a London Borough, surrounded by miles of similar at the end of the underground. Built 1930s. Disreputable people weren’t supposed to live there. Defined to include actors, tinkers, carnival and circus people.

I'm not allowed to divert the stream on the other side of the garden fence. I'm yet to find said stream.

Our house is ex council and I'm meant to ask for permission to paint the front of the house.

I read once about a landlord who instead of charging peppercorn rent insisted on 100 red roses
I was reading yesterday about medieval landlords who used to decide to charge impossible rents, like a snowball, so that they could kick tenants out.

I wonder how many are actually enforceable?

There was a lovely program a while ago about the planning department of a local council. It was about the people who make the decisions, people putting in planning applications and people objecting to planning.

There was one chap who lived on a 70s estate where all front gardens were open plan, so there were no fences or walls between the, just paths leading to the front door.
One person had put a low fence around their bit as the were fed upon with people stomping all over their garden. The program focussed on the chap who didn't like this and had nothing better to do all day but to complain about it and take it to the council. The council took it seriously and went round and told the man off!

I'm not allowed to manufacture or sell tiles from the property.

There goes my second income 😂

I lived in an Edwardian house where we were not allowed to burn bricks.

I wouldn't even have known where to start!

We aren't allowed to use our back door as our front door. Which I think is pretty random!

I'm guessing, but maybe before a certain point in history there wasn't a universal licensing law and certain individual premises WOULD have been able to sell alcohol? So covenants would have had to spell out who could and who couldn't.

Often alcohol ban covenants are on properties that were built on land previously belonging to a religious group (CofE, Sal Army, Methodists are all ones I've come across)

The other big two are land that was owned by big employers - all of the houses built on a coal owner's estate have that covenant when I was doing my family tree. Either they wanted to keep their tenants/workers from booze or, most likely, they wanted to ensure any sold was from their store. Also brewing companies added it to most land they sold to prevent any new rivals.

Thanks, lyralalala and user1495884620, that's really interesting.

FlamingoAndJohn, do you know what the programme was called or what channel it was? I love those behind-the-scenes shows.

No pigs as used to be brewery land

Oh, and not supposed to brew either

I love this thread!

My mums old house had a strange one about no pigs, sheep and various other farm animals allowed to be kept and no stable/coach houses were allowed to be erected on the land. Sounds like a big farm house but when it was built in the 1930’s it was a 3 bed! 🤣

Ours is mainly boring stuff about caravans, businesses and commercial vehicles, but there is a clause that you are not allowed to cut down any of the trees and if you do, you have to replant with another one. That is a good idea because it is really nice to look out and see greenery.

Another one is that we aren't allowed TV ariels on the roof. Which is pretty pointless because we all have satellite dishes as the signal is so bad (not allowed those either oops).

I once owned a home that was part of a row of terraced houses probably build in the mid-to-late 1920s. The land had been sold for development by a local brewery (now long gone). But there was still a covenant that said the premises could not be used for brewing or selling alcohol.

Sell alcohol from the premise, keep pigs, grind bones for glue making!

We cant have an alligator/crocodile in the garden 😂

We weren't allowed to boil tripe in our first house. It wasn't a deal breaker...

We can’t make bricks
(original landowner had the town’s brick factory and blocked any competition )

Mine look really dull compared to these! I have right of access to a pump that no longer exists and right of egress (but not ingress) with a horse and cart (through an alley that's about 2 foot wide)

We live on a row of Edwardian terraced houses in South West London. Apparently if a farmer turns up wanting to graze 20 head of sheep in our garden, it's common land (well, a 6ft wide strip of it is), so we can't say no.

Cant sell fish.
Cant have caravans on our land (this is from 1912 so I imagine they mean travellers caravans rather than the modern leisure ones )
Cant have a fair. Not sure where we could put one anyway!!