Restrictive Covenants

[loveka]

I have just downloaded the deeds of a house we have put an offer in on.

It says the property is subject to a restrictive covenent. But it doesn't say what it is.

We had a property fall through because of the same issue recently. In that case we were at exchange before the nature of the covenent came to light, on the original conveyance.

How can I find out what this covenent is without goung through the whole survey/conveyance process? We lost lots of money last time! Thanks.

Get insurance

And don’t investigate further - might invalidate your insurance

Should be listed on the land register website. As PP says you can get insurance for most of them

Just ring a title insurer to ask for a quote. You might need your solicitor to do this for you.

Ask the vendor or estate agent? Sometimes it is to cover the look of a group of properties such as fencing for front gardens, not parking caravans or camper vans on the drive and so on. Even so it may not be enforceable as the other party may no longer be around.

Your solicitor should be able to find this out for you (before you get to exchange). Most can be dealt with by insurance.
Why did the previous covenant cause your sale to fall through? (I’m not really understanding why it would be a good thing not to know what the covenant concerns).

Download the deed that the covenant is in. It should say in the register which deed that is and be listed as a referred document on HMLR website. Then ask your conveyancer to advise you regarding the covenants in the deed.

I want to find out what it is before I instruct a solicitor. I don't want to have to pay for the valuation and upfront solicitor fees and find out that the mortgage lender wont lend.

Last time it was a covenent that stopped the house being used as a holiday property.

We are looking for a house with an annexe to use as a holiday let, so the covenent was a deal breaker. Despite the fact the annexe was already being used as a holiday let! We lost a lot of money.

Some properties are subject to unknown covenants.

What happens is that when the property was unregistered one of the old deeds refers to covenants contained in am earlier conveyance but then a copy of that conveyance isn't submitted at first registration, in all likelihood it is lost.

You can get insurance for the loss in value but it doesn't get rid of the unknown covenant.

If you have the deeds it should say on it!
If it doesn’t say then it’ll be unknown and you’ll need insurance

Could the vendors tell you?

In my experience of last time the vendor didn't know. We couldn't get insurance because she stupidly approached the ancestor of the beneficiary.

I eant to know where the solicitor found out what this covenent was. On the deeds it was just 'subject to a restrictive covenent' bit then another document appeared 8 weeks later.

I thought there might be anotjer register I could look at.

I can't face shelling out AGAIN for legal advice/conveyancing that just ends up with me writing a big cheque and still ending up with no house! This would be the 4th house we have tried and failed to buy.

Thanks for the replies.

There’s no other register
This is why if it’s not on the title deeds - don’t dig or ask questions ! It will invalidate insurance as you have already found out.

We have restrictive covenants ,one known ,and others unknown .

What I don't understand - stupidly I guess - is who and how covenants are enforced .

A covenant is enforced by them(the beneficiary) getting an injunction. But they have to prove that what you are doing impacts them or the land negatively. I think!

The house we lost recently had been breaking the covenent for many years. But because the owner contacted the beneficiary any insurance became invalid. The beneficiary refused to remove the covenent.

What confuses me is that the covenent was not on the deeds of that house. It was on tge origional conveyance. So where did the solicitor get that from? Definitely not from the owner.