Breach of covenant

[zarah21]

Hi folks

My mum recieved an upsetting letter this morning from a solicitor, she is being asked to pay at least £4000 within 2 weeks or go to court for breaching a conventant. It stipulates you cannot have an outhouse, shed, hut etc on the land. Only thing is, it was there when she bought it!! She actually hasn't built anything. Does anyone know where she stands in this situation? Any help greatly appreciated.

Many Thanks x

I say at least because they have asked for £4500 to accept the breach, a further £4000 to give her the convenant. (And a discount if she does both, so £7500) this is all for a garage that already existed on the land, prior to her ownership. I'm at a loss what to do really. She goes in for spinal surgery next week and I dont want this aggravating her.

First thing to do is download a copy of her title deeds from the Land Registry as these will state what the covenants are (if there is a document called “Transfer” you may need a copy of that too. They usually apply to the original owner and the successor in title so your mum may be liable as the current owner.

Covenants are separate to building regulations (planning permission and building regulation compliance) and it may be that any work done on the property need permission from the original transferor (may have been the developer if a new(er) build property).

Does the letter say who is requesting the money or how they’ve calculated it?

There are many if, buts, maybes and probablys involved and it’s nigh on impossible to give you an answer, but it is possible that she is liable. She’ll need a conveyancing solicitor to help (they’ll need to see the title deeds anyway so it will help if you have them).

I would go back to the solicitor that helped her with the purchase as they should have checked about covenants when she bought it

Who is the covenant between and who is enforcing it? She might be able to pass it to the solicitor who handled her purchase.

Oh and can she remember an indemnity policy being mentioned when she purchased the property? Many policies cover breach of covenant in the policy. Her purchasing solicitor may have raised the garage as an enquiry and been offered an indemnity policy to cover the missing consent.

When she purchased the house was there any mention of the covenant?

It should have come up in the searches. It's possible there is some form of indemnity insurance if so.

The garage presumably was in the description on the EA details.
Suggest find a copy (Zoopla might show photos perhaps?) Or contact the EA from when she bought, to prove it was already there and get in touch with her solicitor. However the solicitor that dealt with the conveyance in the first place should have discovered the covenant in the deeds of the property and pointed this out to her.
Could also be a scam of course!

Who has sent this letter!

It sounds like a scam to me.

How long has the garage been there? How long ago did your Mum buy the house?

I would either take the letter to the solicitor that did the conveyancing (because if it is legit they should have picked this up, and their insurance may cover it) or to the CAB.

No offer to demolish the garage? Just a demand for money?

Sounds like a scam to me too

From what I understand for the restrictive covenant to be enforceable the person who is seeking to enforce the covenant need to prove that their land or property benefits from the covenant. They need to prove that your shed has cost them 4k in damages.

See link www.harrison-drury.com/business-law/dispute-resolution/challenging-and-enforcing-restrictive-covenants/

Definitely speak to a solicitor as it sounds like the onus will be on the person trying to enforce the covenant. Perhaps they are hoping your mum will just pay up.

www.harrison-drury.com/business-law/dispute-resolution/challenging-and-enforcing-restrictive-covenants/

My first thought was who is trying to get this money from your mum? Also how long has that garage stood on the land without anyone challenging it?

The EA pictures etc show a garage on the land when she bought it. We have the paperwork. She bought it 15 years ago, not sure how long the garage stood before that time.

The letter is from a legit solicitor, they exist online and numbers match. It states convenant is between a man who we guess owed it before (not the one before my mum, as names don't match, so earlier I guess) and the Yorkshire land and property company limited. It's the yorkshire land and property company that is the client of the solicitors trying to obtain the money.

Or yes, she removes the garage. They dont stipulate that she has a garage, just that she has breached the convenant and that has lesd us to believe it's the garage there is no other thing it could be.

Shes been there 15 years, garage has stood far longer. It's the Yorkshire land and property company that's after her.

It's a 1960s house, the Yorkshire land and property company are the ones after her for money. Doesnt say how its calculated. She will have relied heavily on her solicitor to go through paperwork etc, she's very dyslexic and doesnt understand a lot tbh.

She has her deeds and it seems this convenant is from the 60s and the charge to erect garage hut etc was 10 shillings.

Shes lived there 15 years, so this has come completely out of the blue.

I've just told her that he has retired but the solicitors exists still. She rather confused and is worried. She moved solicitors after she realised he took the michael on her divorce fees. She's got learning difficulties.

Hmmm.
I wonder what is going on.

In 2013 and 4 the co had assets of £3m+ , then between 2014 and 2016 transferred the assets to another company. Andrew Hillas Ltd and some other companies. Everyone called Hillas resigned as Directors in Oct 2017, and now the company seems to be run by one director, Andrew Kitchen. With assets of less than £1.5k.
Why is he chasing down ancient covenants and demanding money?

OP, can you see that 10 shillings was paid to the Yorkshire Land Co for agreement to build the garage?

If so they can take a running jump.

This must be very frightening for your Mum. In view of her vulnerability you might get help from the CAB. Otherwise I suspect one assertive solicitors letter will see off this preposterous claim,

Is there any way in which the garage disadvantages neighbours or makes the adjoining land less usable or desirable?

Yorkshire Land and Property Company Limited (company no. 00392627 has been around since 1945 but what is interesting is that at the back end of 2017 the ownership changed. So my guess is that the new owner has trawled through all the historic covenant documentation to see if there are any breaches he can make money from.

I'd take a further guess that if you have a covenant like "no garages or outhouses" then Google Earth would be a very easy tool to search your portfolio of covenants for such breaches.

It's also interesting that they file micro-company accounts showing assets & liabilities of under £1,000. So if you eventually have to or choose to pay up, you could report them to the tax authorities to ensure that they are paying taxes on their ill-gotten gains.

OP get a good property solicitor. If you are in Yorkshire and would like an excellent and reasonably priced one I can make a recommendation. You need this to go away.

It also sounds like some sort of scam to me.

I don't know how relevant it is to your situation with a garage, but we have a covenant on our roof that says no skylight or change to the roof. This & other work was done before we bought the property over 20 years ago. According to the solicitor & surveyor we had here over other works, as it was more than 12 years since the work was done & we could prove it, we couldn't be forced to change it etc. Hoping it's the same for your mum, but it sounds quite likely given that the garage can be proven to have been there so long

The new company owners who are chasing after your mum sound like chancers, I'd also be checking out what other business interests they have

scam - look up law society search for solicitor in your area & see if you can get half an hour for either free or low cost who specialises in this area of law- however good old Guardian
www.theguardian.com/money/2016/jul/09/restrictive-covenants-homebuyers-out-of-pocket
Sounds like she can prove that this is a very old building& predates her moving in

This sounds dodgy AF. You should report the solicitor to the SRA first thing Monday morning.

Covenants are there to,protect and prevent nuisance usually, not to make money from. As per others posters this sounds like a scam from the new owner. Always worth trying I guess

I was told when we bought our house that covenants were rarely enforceable unless it caused a nuisance or in particular in was a new estate still being built in particular old covenants

The Director of Yorkshire Land seems to be the recent director of this and two other tiny companies. One, a consultancy.

He is on Linked In with his first name and just the initial of his surname. A career in the property business as RICS Surveyor, that sort of thing.