To think home covenants are beyond ridiculous!

[Inconvenientcovenant29]

I know I am being unreasonable and I only think they are ridiculous because the covenant is stopping me putting any kind of boundary line up at the front of my house!

I would really like an ankle height fence around both sides of my drive way and grass area but the covenant says no! I would prefer it to be higher if I could to stop postman just walking straight across the drive even if they don’t have anything for my house and to stop my neighbour cycling down the middle of my drive because he doesn’t want to scratch his precious car by just walking the bike to the end of the drive and then riding off (it makes me so angry)

We did put plants down as a tester to stop them reversing off from our drive.. but the plants have died as I’m rubbish at keeping plants alive and I am reluctant to move them as it will start up again.

Is there any kind of breaking a covenant or just creating something which works as a loop hole. I like the sound of those chain link fencing with the poles but I guess they would complain about them.

Generally covenents aren’t enforced. It is normally only the developer who can enforce them. So there’s an estate near me which said no vans allowed and for years people parked their vans on a nearby street and walked home. You can imagine nobody was happy! Ten years on everyone parks their vans in the estate and nobody cares.

my friend though is not allowed bird feeders and her next door neighbour is the developer of the little estate. He enforced that when she put a bird feeder up and made her take it down!

I can't sell cider or run a bawdy house 😭

That's my retirement plan in pieces...🤣🤣🤣

We had a no smoking fish on the premises!

I knew someone who found coal when digging foundations for a conservatory. The coal all belonged to British Coal.

We weren't allowed to put any structure on the roof, along with all of our neighbours we had solar panels installed. When it came to selling the property the extremely fussy, solicitor for the purchaser kept going on and on about the panels and the covenant
In the end, in a fit of temper, I told our solicitor that we would either buy indemnity insurance or get the panels removed. We bought indemnity insurance for about a fiver!
The whole thing was stupid, row upon row of houses with solar panels and one pedantic solicitor.

I live in a late Victorian house, there are actually former stables in many of the back gardens /yards in every street nearby. That would explain the rule, lots of people did still have a horse and carriage. A lot of the buildings are now rather nice homes. I' m limited in what professions I can carry on here. I can't be a scrap dealer, which is a relief.

The covenant on my 1930s house states no laundry should be dried and no vegetables grown in the front garden (why you would dry your laundry out the front when there is a perfectly good back garden I don't know!) and no businesses to be run. Both business and vegetable growing definitely do happen on our street with no issues.

That said, I do have a friend who lives in a new development and they are not allowed to dry laundry in their garden! When she first moved there she tried to and had a visit from the management to tell her that it had been reported to them & she was not allowed to which I think is bonkers.

That would be totally unacceptable to me .

I can’t keep pigs on my land, and if I have cows they have to graze in my neighbours garden He’s lovely and we do laugh about it but I suppose if he ever does annoy us, he could wake up one day with a herd of highlands munching on his roses!

Mine is a Victorian house and one of our fields were sold off to build the neighbours house and garden a few years after so that clearly has something to do with it! Oh and I can use farming equipment in his garden too!

A lot of the covenants here are quite nice and obviously designed to keep the neighbourhood a nice place to live. Open plan, mainly laid to grass front gardens which should have a tree. No caravans to be parked overnight. No wind chimes, outdoor music. No farm animals or fowl. (Laundry and TV stuff are fine)

Three quarters of the cul-de-sac have paved the front, we are the only ones still with a tree. We have a nice cool house because it shades the sunny side, and don't pay extortionate amounts to pressure wash the weedy, block paved/concrete jungle.

Roll out one of those spiky mats the cops use in tv car chases. Thst will soon stop them and adhere to the covenant!

On a more serious note, I am sure you can add a fence. My house had a covenant of no walls out the front and there is a low wall that had clearly been there for many years by the time I moved in. The neighbours either side have hedges instead. We have some odd covenants about not quarrying or exporting clay or sand, despite being small suburban gardens that would be highly unlikely to contain these anyway.

@NEmama
And once it's been there for seven years they can't make you take it down again
have you a source for this? I really don't think it's true.

@Inconvenientcovenant29 copy of your lease is clear isn't it ?
No fence over 18 " high. So you can have a small fence.
Though b honestly I wouldn't worry.
And this .>>> I'd go for the post and chain type 'fence'. Then if you get any comeback, it's easy to remove.
sounds the way to go.

Our covenants were written in 1934 there is all sorts of weirdness in there. Not supposed to run a business from home - everyone on my street works from home.

You’re supposed to have a 3ft fence all the way to the road between the houses. Everyone has taken them out for safety reasons, as the road outside our house is really busy and turning in, in a modern wide car means you’d either hit it all the time, or have to come in so slow you’d get rear ended.

No one is ever going to enforce it, but I do wonder when we go to sell next how much of a pain it will be.

😂😂😂😂

@Shesaysso

Does it specify the type of bone?

that would limit the meal planning of the MN 12 meal chicken!!

What about giant landscaping stones slog the edge? A family member who lives very close to the seaside has some beautiful ones to deter people from half parking in her front garden

Having looked it up I believe they are called traffic barrier rocks

In China we were forbidden from playing mahjong outside- noisy I guess and keeping chickens- bird flu?

We were not allowed to keep more than one pig but there were no restrictions on any other type of animal. Well other than the obvious restriction that it was a city centre flat with a tiny patio garden.

We aren't allowed to keep chickens in our garden due to a covenant. It's odd as it's an ex council house so you'd think way back when it was built, 1935 ish, people would have had them in their gardens, which are not small by any means.

@rileynexttime our old home had a front fence which according to convenant shouldn't have been there. Council asked us to prove it had been there longer than seven years and I had pictures from when we bought the house so (our new replacement) fence could stay

Thanks@NEmama that's interesting.

@NEmama @rileynexttime
The 7yrs thing is a planning issue not a restrictive covenant thing and so is a separate issue.
It really depends on who placed the covenant on the property title as to whether they enforce it and there is no time limit on enforcement. However due to time and logistics (original landowners don't exist etc) many are not enforced
Unless your council placed the covenant (ie were the original landowner) on the land what they are ruling on is a planning breach which is something different. If they were the original title owners who placed the covenant on the deed then this is an internal policy to them and as such only applies in this case.

We bought a house in 1978 with a covenant on it. I asked the solcitor who policed it and what the pealties were for breaking it? I am still awaiting his reply.