Growing a hedge ignore restrictive convent

[Gilmoregirly]

Hi, we are hoping to purchase a property with restrictive convent on having fences, walls and hedges in front garden. This restrictive convent is from the company who originally built the house but no longer in business. I want to grow a hedge around the front garden. Do you know who will impose restrictive convent on this case? No planning permission required to grow a hedge. Please help.

Has anyone else on the same street/development done the same and ignored the covenant? Is there other evidence of any other restrictive covenant being ignored? E.g. parking work vans on drives is quite a common one. The person to ask about this is your conveyancer - you are paying them to advise you so ask for their advice.

Thats a common restriction. As PP said, i would look to see who else has broken it, in my experience if the whole road has remained open plan as per covenant it looks really odd when one house breaks it. Suppose it also depends on height on hedge, small below waist height woulf probably look good, a really high 6 ft one will look like you don't want anything to do with neighbours

The person to ask about this is your conveyancer - you are paying them to advise you so ask for their advice

They're unlikely to advise as to anything definitive. They'll just say 'it depends' and also what the current level of compliance is and whether any of the neighbours takes it on themselves to enforce the covenant. If there are already hedges and everyone is fine with it, you'll almost certainly be able to have a hedge without anyone objecting.

But if no-one has a hedge, you plant one and one of the neighbours has too much time on their hands and complains about something that doesn't really affect them, they could have you removing the hedge and making good any damage and you'll have just wasted money and time planting it.

I agree it depends what others have done. If nothing, you could start by doing it increments.

Ie start off with say logs at intervals, if no objections, more logs etc, then start growing a hedge along side the logs.

Thank you so much for lot of good advice. There are couple of houses with hedges. Also if there are neighbours with too much time to check and impose, what can they do to force us remove the hedge as our solicitor confirmed the original building company who can impose the covenant is out of business?

Do they define what a hedge is? You could grow a shrub boarder along the front of your garden with a few different types of shrub. I think that's technically not a hedge even if they join up together because they are different plants.

@BlackAmericanoNoSugar no they haven’t define what a hedge is. Very good idea, thanks. I guess if someone with too much time doesn’t have anyway of getting the original company imposing the covenant then we can go ahead…

We had one about not removing any shrubs from our front garden and our conveyancer advised that she couldn’t foresee any instance in which the developer would enforce it (houses built in the 90s), as it’s more about them keeping control of how them development looks while it’s all being signed off and until all the properties have sold.

@VerbenaGirl the house built in late 60s

I'm pretty sure my DH's old house had something like this. There wasn't supposed to be a fence around the front area. A couple of properties had them, including his (done by previous owner). No-one made a fuss and it hasn't caused any issues for the new owners.

If anyone does complain just say there are birds nesting so it can't be moved. Maybe some bats also...

Would it actually affect any of your neighbours in a negative way?

@JonSnowedUnder it shouldn’t effect any of the neighbours at all as the front gardens are long and wide. The front gardens are bigger than the back garden.Hence we want to have a hedge and a small gate ( gate not sure without planning) so that we can let our children and dogs out to play.

Also there was an old planning application to which few of the neighbours objected to an electric gate with concrete. We don’t need a gate like that but just a small one for our dogs to understand the boundary. For now we are going to start with the hedge.

I believe covenants are usually part of the original planning permission for the development, so the local authority can enforce, but in my (albeit limited experience) they seldom do. If others have done similar already, I wouldn't lose any sleep over it.

... and a newt.

No, covenants are completely separate from planning permission.
The Council will have no involvement with covenants (unless involving Council property).
Sometimes the original planning permission for estates can include conditions which include restrictions which also appear in covenants, but these legally are completely different. The Council can and will enforce these. They can include things like no fences, or restricting the type of development that can be carried out without the need for planning permission etc.
OP - it may be worth checking the conditions on the original planning permission.

I had a relative who went against the covenant. All fine until they came to sell and they had to put it all back as it should be costing ££££

I would think you can pay for an indemnity to cover breach of covenant, especially when there's a very remote possibility anyone will seek to enforce it?