Restrictive Covenant?

[SteerKarma]

WE are in the process of selling our house, turns out there is a restrictive covenant on our house requiring consent for any alterations. We built an extension about 12 years ago and had no idea there was this restriction in place (just did all the normal planning process with local council, building regs etc) Our solicitor has suggested we offer to purchase indemnity isuracne for the buyers for the lack of covenant consent. Price is around £245 + £50 for the solicitors. Wondering if anyone knows how easy it would be to apply for retrospective consent and whether that is a cheaper option?
Has anyone has this kind of thing before?

The chances are it would be near impossible to get consent now if the house is a fair few years old. It depends if the company is still in business.
It is common practice to get the indemnity. My whole road has covenants on saying similar to yours and all have extensions/alterations. The houses are 60-70 years old!
If you go looking for the consent, what would you do if they said no? Or made you pay a high fine? I'd leave it and get the indemnity. Although mine were never that much I don't think.

Wondering if anyone knows how easy it would be to apply for retrospective consent and whether that is a cheaper option?

We have similar covenants. Do you know who the original builder was, if so look them up on companies house and if they are still trading there should be an address. Contact them and ask!
We paid £50 for consent in writing. They needed to see the planning permission and building regs numbers.

@SteerKarma
Please be aware that if you make any efforts to contact the party who has the benefit of the covenant (ie the person who can give you permission) you can't then get an indemnity .

The indemnity policy states that they haven't been alerted to the breach.

So don't contact them unless you're absolutely prepared to follow through with an application regardless of the cost, and deal with the outcome if they say no.

(And you were told about the covenant when you bought the property, it's on the title )

Thanks all, sounds like we have to suck up the indemnity policy then.
And yes @DameCelia our solicitor made that pretty clear that we had to be absolutely sure we were unaware of the clause It may well have been on the title when we bought 20 years ago...I can't remember what I had for lunch yesterday so there's no hope I'd remember that lol
Thanks again for the helping

hi, i have a similar issue.
we are purchasing a house (FTB) our solicitor has requested retrospective consent for an extension built 21. the house was sold as freehold by council in 95 with Restrictive covenants.
The sellers have contacted local housing association (who now own all council properties) they don't believe they own any rights to the Restrictive covenants.
contacted the council who no longer deal with housing and they are currently looking into it.
has anyone any advice on timescales with retrospective consent with councils?

we need to complete before 10th dec with mortgage offer expiring and this is only thing we are waiting on.

Thanks

Can you ask the sellers to pay for an indemnity as per the PP above? Or if they refuse and you're pushed for time, how about just paying for the indemnity yourself?

We bought a house earlier this year very similar - ex-council property where an extension had been built with no covenant permission. We paid for an indemnity policy - about £120 - to make sure we were covered.

We've since obtained planning permission for a new extension and the LA has said that it covers covenant permission too, so we won't need the policy. But it was still a smart move because at the time of purchase we just didn't know.