Restrictive Covenant

[Papillon33]

Hello,
We're in the process of selling our house, and buying closer to where my family are. The house we're in the process of purchasing isn't in our ideal location, but it seems we've probably been priced out there. We need a three bedroom place, with a space for working from home. The house has a garage that's been converted into an office, so it seemed to be ideal, but our solicitor has noted that the house is subject to a Restrictive Covenant which states that the garage must remain a garage. Just wondering if anyone has experience of this situation from either side, if the Restrictive Covenant is ever likely to be enforced, or if a similar covenant has caused problems when selling on in the future?

@TheTeenageYears I had completely forgotten, two months ago when we were shown round the house the estate agent said he was in the process of selling the next door property, which is pretty much identical except for the garage conversion. At the time it was sold subject to terms and conditions. I've just looked again and it's back on the market.

I had a look for another similar property, there's one from a couple of months ago that seems to have sold for 12k under our accepted offer. It's similar in size, but has a garage, car port and driveway, so three parking spaces compared to our one (or two). Also, it's a normal house rather than a town house like the one we've offered on, if that makes a difference.

There didn't seem to be any restrictions on road parking. When we viewed it was a time you'd expect it to be busy but we were the only ones parked on the road. It's quite a narrow, winding road so I can see why they would want to avoid people parking on the street.

We'll see what the seller comes back with after our solicitor speaks to theirs today. I have a feeling they might not want to budge on the price. They had already dropped it before we looked at it because they wanted to sell quickly, but they can't say that that takes into account this issue with the garage

@NewHouseNewMe they were conveniently not there when the surveyor visited the house, and didn't leave keys to the office / garage. The fact there was an "office" was the main reason we decided to settle for a townhouse rather than keep looking for a normal two storey house. In the Property Information Form the seller has said building approvals weren't required for the garage conversion to an office, "due to it being a self contained office within the garage which can be converted back to a garage at any time." Which doesn't address the covenant issue and also makes me question the quality of the world carried out on the conversion.. The seller seems to be being dishonest about the situation

@Seeline our surveyor said that the sellers couldn't prove when the conversion was carried out, so they would be providing proof of that separately. It looks pretty new to me, I think it was probably done for working from home during lockdown. I might see if I can have a dig in old planning docs to see if parking was a condition of the development