Restrictive covenants a red line

[Singlemid40s]

Hello,

I'm in the process of buying a property with restrictive covenants on them - because it isn't clear who owns the covenant, my solicitor is suggesting I walk away from the purchase. There are also some other issues that have come up from the survey. I'm not sure if the solicitor is being overly cautious here - is it something you'd avoid? I've feeling very overwhelmed by it all.

Thanks

Obviously the solicitor will be a way better advisor than me, but it sounds fairly ignorable to me. If no-one knows who is enforcing the covenants, then wouldn't the answer just be that no-one is and everyone just ignores them?
As I understand it it's very common for developers to stick covenants on newbuilds that are really just there to protect the site while the area is being marketed and they just end up being forgotten about in the long run. I believe covenants are fairly impossible to implement anyway. If someone DID catch a previous poster riding around with pigs in a hovercraft or whatever, what would they do? Send a snippy letter probably and that's about it.

🤣

Is it one of these bog standard 1980s housing estate covenant documents?

• No extensions or conservatories without permission
• No caravans on the drive
• Maintain your boundaries
• Preserve the trees that were a condition of the development getting PP in the first place
• etc.

You solicitor isn't by any chance an online conveyancer that came through the mortgage company?

It really doesn’t sound that bad. If the company is no longer in existence who is going to enforce the covenants? Could you take out an Indemnity Policy to cover for this?

I agree. In my town a lot of the property, including mine, is leasehold (but not of the time limited kind) usually to companies that are forgotten in the mists of time. My own property is leasehold to an organisation that ceased to exist decades ago. It just wasn't a big deal. The solicitor just arranged a one off insurance policy (which wasn't expensive) covering the possibility that the leaseholder might mysteriously reappear to claim their £5 a year or whatever. In my last house, which was 1930s built, there were covenants on the whole road of the no livestock/brewing/debauchery type. My solicitor didn't raise it as a concern. My parents home, new built in the 70s had covenants regarding not enclosing the front gardens but that has never been enforced. In most areas mature trees have protection orders on them from the local authority anyway.

Unless it's some really unusual covenant it makes me wonder if your solicitor just doesn't have much experience of this type of thing? Millions of people are living in homes with covenants laid down by organisations that no longer exist.

If you really like the property, I'd say get a second opinion from a different solicitor.

It sounds like your solicitor isn't confident advising on the covenants so is taking the easy way out. Restrictions covenants are extremely common and it is possible to insure against unexpected enforcement.

I suggest you get a second opinion before walking away.

Would agree with HolidayHappy, these are fairly straightforward covenants and it sounds as though your conveyancer is inexperienced and doesn’t like the uncertainty. Have you asked to push your file to a senior or partner? Generally, to enforce a restrictive covenant, the individual or entity named in the covenant must have a direct interest in the property that is subject to the covenant’s restriction. A covenant which says you can’t remove a tree or build an extension would almost certainly not be enforceable unless the individual entity or their successors could demonstrate direct interest and impact - and this is usually only applicable e.g. in areas of natural beauty, conservation areas, special zones etc, which would have been picked up in permitted development and planning permission requirements by the local authority in any case.

A lot of land covenants on older properties precede the entire concepts of planning permission, conservation areas, environmental health, community safety etc and were intended to prevent people doing things with and around their properties which could lower the value of the land, cause nuisance to their neighbours, or threaten safety - that’s why they were included. Now they’re mostly largely redundant because few of us love pigs enough to want them in our back gardens, and the council will usually step in to stop us from merrily opening The Sly Fox and serving pints to passers by.

They sound pretty basic. I would ask the solicitor to sort indemnity insurance.