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.

PENALTIES!

@NoCoincidence

I couldn't care less about the vans or motor homes but I wish they would ticket the person who parks his long wheel base van on double yellows most weekends (everyone knows there's no parking enforcement on weekends!)

@wonkylegs , thank you for posting.

Do you know whether deeds / leases commonly indicate who placed the covenant or who it would benefit.
Hope I've made sense.

I can not believe no one has asked for a diagram yet!!
Isn't it a mumsnet covenant to supply one on applicable threads?

Please @Inconvenientcovenant29 as I can't see what you mean!!!

I think we have a similar covenant on our road. Most of the houses have ignored it and there are hedges galore.

We are not allowed to run a business from our house, the house that was part of a giant garden nursery business and had been since it was built 80 years ago.

We’re allowed pigs but not sheep. No pigs out front though, only out back.

Can’t put a washing line up in the front garden either.

No swimming pool out back either but we can have a reflecting pool.

@rileynexttime
It should be in your deeds however this is not guaranteed but that also means if it's not it's harder to enforce.
It can also depend on how good the transfer was from handwritten, to typed, to digital - often details can be lost - this can depend on who drew it up.
I mean for example the original deeds for my house are 2 sides of almost A1 paper handwritten with a hand drawn site plan... see attached and the copies on the land registry have been condensed down to 3 a4 typed sheets with bullet points and a bad photocopy of the handdrawn plan, a lot is missing between the originals and the current LRegistry copies.
That said the deeds would always be the place to look as that the legal records for your property and for a covenant to be enforced it would need to be written somewhere.

Thanks !

Fascinating. Interesting that land registry record doesn't necessarily reflect original accurately.

I believe hawthorn, also known as quick hedge was popular after the enclosure act for creating quick natural fences.

I'm not allowed to sell perambulators, eggs or hay from mine. I haven't sold and eggs or hay, but I did sell an old pushchair 🙊

My house is only a year old and there are plenty of properties here breaking the covenants already. Unless you have a local busybody you'll be fine to put a small fence up I'm sure

I have covenant that says I can’t kill a Belgian on the property on the third or fourth Tuesday of any month unless I use a longbow.

Our house is in conservation area but also a specific area of a small village privately owned by an aristocratic family from the time their ancestors used to live in the manor there and is not entirely part of the Duchy which the remainder of the village and rest of the county belongs to 😂.

I’m only allowed to mow half of my lawn in September. I can get on board with that though 😂
Houses we’re built in the 90s, developer not even local and long defunct so getting anyone to care would be a stretch I imagine.

We had a similar covenant and post an issue. We planted a moisture of pyracantha ( lovely dark blue flowers(, the odd lavender and some spiky roses! Solved the issue.

I'm not allowed to keep bees or rabbits

We planted a moisture of pyracantha ( lovely dark blue flowers(, You're not trying to imply pyracantha has lovely dark blue flowers, are you? Do you mean Ceanothus?

I live on a new build development (house 7 years old) and I got a letter from our management company saying they'd had a complaint because we keep our wheelie bins at the front of the house and the deeds say they're supposed to be kept in the rear garden. Our house is mid terrace and a long way round to our garden so we don't bother (rightly or wrongly I don't really care). we live in a cul de sac so not even a house that people drive past on the development, so guessing it's a neighbour who has complained.
But the other clauses on the deeds state that people can't have a satellite dish on the front and also cant have commercial vehicles in the drive, many of the residents do have both of these (which I don't give a toss about).

Opinions?! What happens if I ignore the letter?

Yes - thanks, oops! I meant ceanothus!
previous house had hedging with pyracantha! Lovely berries.

Write to the council traffic enforcement people - it's easy cash for them - . Email address should be on your council website.

if that doesn't work complain to a local councillor about it being a hazard and lack of enforcement. Details can be found https://www.theyworkforyou.com/