Covenant advice

[Thekindyoufindinasecondhand]

We have received covenant details for a home we plan to buy.
There is 2 covenants that I am slightly concerned about, and wondering if I should be?
One is that there should be no building alterations to the building, we plan on converting (but not altering footprint) our garage into a useable room.
The other is it says no buisness should be operated at the home. I'm a beautician working part time (probably do around 7/8 clients a week) planning to work over the course of 2 afternoons a week, clients could easily park on our drive and latest client I would ever do is around 6pm, and earliest 11am.

So I know strictly I would be running a business but it would not impact on my surrounding neighbor's, and I wont be enlarging the footprint of my home. Does anyone foresee this being a huge problem?

Sounds like two big problems :( You might be OK on the garage if you argue its not the main building but the operating a business one you need advice on

When I studied Land Law, the example of running a business from your home is used repeatedly. If a neighbour took a disliking to you, they could easily report that you work from home and that would seriously scupper things for you.

I personally would reconsider buying that property. The fact that there are multiple covenants seems a bit of a concern in the first place. What happens if the building starts leaking and you need to 'alter' the building to fix them?

You would be running a business.

I think it is a bit naive to say it won’t affect neighbours in terms of extra comings and goings, reversing, turning round, and the regular arrival and departure will alert them.

They might report you, not because it wrecks their lives (it clearly doesn’t) or they are malign, but they might be concerned about the precedent of a covenant being ignored and falling into dis use: what if another neighbour starts a more troublesome business?

Also, it may be a non issue but I would double check you own insurances and liabilities for providing a service to clients in a premises where a covenant prevents it.

Unfortunately there is no other option than to buy the house at this stage for various reasons (we are actually currently homeless and about to have a baby!!)
Will have to purchase and seek further advice it seems,

There are always other options surely - renting or other houses in the area? Even with expecting a baby.
It seems quite crazy to my mind to buy a house which has covenants on it that will affect the basic things that you are planning on doing in it.

I was never considering not purchasing the house, I was considering not doing the alterations or not working from home, which isn't a huge problem!

Don’t panic! How old is the covenant OP? My old house was Victorian and had a covenant from the 1930s that prohibited any changes to the exterior of the property. We knew we wanted to convert the loft, which would have been in breach of the covenant. Our solicitor said it would be unenforceable as it was so old, but we were anxious. We got the Office of the Public Trustee (which is responsible in cases where there is no surviving beneficiary of the covenant) to put in writing that so long as we adhered to local authority planning regulations, there would be no issue.

I’m now buying another house with a covenant, this time from 1910, which also forbids extensions (I want to do one). This time I’m a bit more relaxed and assume that as long as I get planning permission it’ll be fine (it’s in a terrace where lots of houses have had extensions).

If the covenant is over 100 years old it is highly unlikely to be enforceable. If it’s fairly recent, can you (or your solicitor) contact the beneficiary to find out if they would still enforce it?

I agree with @ypsilanti find out how old they are and if they are enforceable, we've a few on our current house they are all really old, some have indemnities against them, none of them are worth the paper they are written on.
Ask you solicitor they will really be able to help you with them.

Your solicitor needs to advise you on this.

You need to consider that if you are converting the garage for the business side you may be liable for business rates. It did genuinely used to break my heart when I had to tell people that their little earner that they ran from a room in their house was now chargeable and it can be a lot of money.

You need to look into the legalities of sole use of the room for the business. It would be a difficult one to tell a valuation officer that you use that room for entertaining when it is set up as a beauty therapy suite.

So get legal advice. It isn't just about the impact of more cars and the times clients come and go. You are specifically going against the convenants with the added issue of running a business from the address. Sorry.

Have managed to speak to our solicitor. He has advised the covenants seem to not even be enforceable as the builder who set them went into liquidation in the early 90s.
Fingers crossed!!

@enidscrochetcorner no, the garage is being converted into a dining room/playroom type area. I would actually use the box bedroom for work, if it is clear I can do so. If not I will carry on renting a room as I do so already so not a huge problem

@Thekindyoufindinasecondhand that is excellent, the main thing is to remember that the business room is multi-purpose and is therefore used by other members of your family in a regular capacity for something.

Also go onto the local council planning pages and see if you can map view all planning applications, there should be a way to search this rather than find a property. Zoom into the area you are buying in (map is usually massive) and then it should have the houses marked with a red border if they have applied for planning.

You are looking to see how many people on the estate have altered their home breaking the covenant. My council allows you to hover over the house and it shows what they applied for so rear extension or two storey side extension, if there are garage conversions etc it will show but also it confirms that a lot of houses will have broken the covenants meaning you are not alone and cannot be singled out.

Or google map the area on satellite and see if you can see any obvious extensions or alterations. These types of covenants were put on "new build" properties to stop someone doing something so hideous to the outside of the property that it would put off potential buyers for the rest of the unsold estate.

Brilliant, will do all that, thank you for the positive advice

You're welcome.

Check out the Practice Guides issued by HM Land Registry (gov.uk).
The removal of restrictive covenants can be a complex process. The covenants will not automatically fall, just because the beneficiary has gone into liquidation.