Have you ever heard of this?!?

[5614blocked]

Went in to discuss contracts with sol today. He's reading out all the normal stuff etc. then gets to the part where he mentions who built the house in 1972, states that in their original conveyancing(??) that the house is to be used as residential blah blah, and then... you cannot keep any poultry or rabbits, and no washing is to be hung out on a sunday, except for infants clothing but in a confined space.

Has anyone heard of this? Who is going to be checking that no washing is out on a Sunday? I'm a bit stumped, both me and partner was not expecting to hear it, all seemed very random.

Yes it's a covenant lots of houses have them.

We aren't allowed to keep pigs.

There are some tiles like that on some of the houses surrounding our house. In our case our house used to be a farm house with fields around it. Over the years various fields were sold off and houses built on them. When the land was sold the previous owners of our house put certain restrictions on the new houses - things like no extensions to be allowed to be built higher than the current roof line so that our view isn’t impacted, no trees to be more than 2m tall for same reason etc.

I’ve heard of no poultry rules before in built up areas not heard of no rabbits though. As to whether anyone actually cares about these rules I guess it depends on who set them in the first place and if they’re still bothered about it.

*rules not tiles

Things like that seem to be the norm. My brothers state they're not allowed a coloured front door

I'm not sure anyone cares about most of them anymore, no one will check about the washing surely.

We have just been through ours and they were pretty standard though no caravans allowed on drives apparently. The house is on a council estate and there are quite a few caravans dotted around on drives and I'm sure that particular covenant was for the whole estate, so that's being ignored (older house).

Only reason I asked is that we have 2 rabbits and are meant to be exchanging tomorrow. Sort of put a bit of a stop to it right now.

I expect it was referring to commercially kept rabbits for food I don't suppose anyone would object to a pet bunny. We are not allowed to keep chickens or any livestock. The washing thing would be a pain although I have heard of it in the past. In practice, I expect it would depend on whether any neighbours complained.

I had a purchase like that. No pigs, and something about the village square that was really odd.

My house (victorian terrace) has a couple of odd covenants like this too, no swine or poultry keeping, no extending upwards and more that I can't remember now. No one has been round checking I don't have any chickens lately though! Maybe they should, someone nearby has a bloody cockerel...

I looked at some deeds at the weekend and they specify no manufacture or selling of intoxicating liquor, not allowed to operate a music hall, no gambling.

Pretty normal to have stuff like that. The washing thing will have been someone religious enforcing no work on Sundays.

Ours states we can only keep domestic animals and there is no lopping permitted !!

We can’t have caravans in the Drive or a front wall taller than 18’’ not sure who’d enforce it though

I have to give any soil dug up to the local landed gentry

Ours says no market gardening, but that doesn't stop us growing our own vegetables as a hobby - i don't think they will have had 2 pet bunnies in mind when they came up with your clause.

I'm not allowed to concrete the front garden (no hard standing to be laid to the front if property) or change the colour of the house.

We are not allowed goats

Glad to see there are plenty of interesting clauses around! Well I need to make a decision now, perhaps telling my male bunny that he needs to stop his random 3am thumping, no one would appreciate him being the nieghbourhood watch

No fairgrounds nor goats here - imagine the outrage if I build a fairground for goats in my back garden

We're not allowed chickens. Shame, as I'm sure our cats, our idiot dog and the resident fox would enjoy them.

The covenant may still be enforceable - you need to tell your solicitor that you will be breaching it and ask for his advice.

We aren't allowed to have our own steam engine on our property.
(Houses originally built for workers on the new railway).

No chickens or running a business from home.

8by8 do you know who covenants are enforcable by? It seems they were set out by the builders of the house, who have since gone into liquidation. Does that make a difference?

So covenants are written for the benefit of other properties - the people who wrote them tonight that your neighbours wouldn’t like it if you had rabbits, or poultry etc so wrote rules that you’re not allowed to.

So the neighbours would “have the benefit of the covenants”, and presumably they’re quite likely to notice rabbits, and laundry in the garden etc.

The covenants may no longer be enforceable - there’s a lot of rules about the criteria that would have to be fulfilled.

But they may still be enforceable, or your neighbours may think they are, so they could cause problems.

It’s usually easy (and cheap) to take out insurance against the risk of somebody enforcing a covenant against your property.

If you might want to insure, you must not mention the covenants to the neighbours because that would be bringing the covenants to their attention and it would become uninsurable.

So you need to talk to your lawyer - does he think these covenants are still enforceable? If so can he get an insurance quote?

Tbh I wouldn’t exchange until this was resolved, but then I’m a pretty cautious person.

If you would be ok with getting rid of the rabbits and complying with the other covenants if you need to then you can feel relaxed and go ahead!

Sorry that should be - the people who wrote them thought, not tonight.