Covenants on modern estates

[Tupster]

Can I get the experience of those of you who live on relatively modern estates of the type with freehold houses, but communal areas of land and a management company. Where you have a load of covenants on the property that were obviously put in place for the builders when they were originally selling the estate and it tells you to ask the management company for permission for all kinds of things, what do you do when the builders have long since exited the site. Do you actually ask permission to change the colour of your front door (for instance) or do you just do it and pretend the covenants never existed?

I lived on a new estate with covenants. Once the builders had gone no one cared about them. People had caravans on their drives, changed their door colour, tarmaced front gardens for more drive space etc. possibly if they were ever reported then maybe the management company would have stepped in but there were never any issues like that and it was a huge estate and I was there for 10 years. I think once the houses have all been sold, no one cares

Everyone ignores the covenants, shame because the parking ones would actually be helpful.

If I was building an extension and it required permission (I think ours did for the first 4 years only though) I’d do that just in case. But that’s all.

I've read cases where there has very much been litigation over breach of these covenants, but it's usually when there has been some real inconvenience/harm caused to neighbours.

So minor tweaks that don't have a negative impact are likely to be harm but if you really piss of your neighbours in a way that breaches a covenant you could be at risk. It could also make the house harder to sell

I'm not planning on doing something wild - just paint the doors and make minor alterations inside the house, maybe a pergola in the garden. Just the sort of thing that other people have already done and I just thought life's too short to bother contact the management company about if I don't really have to.

The covenants on our new build applied for the first 5 yrs only.

I think there’s a time limit on many covenants, such as not having a For Sale board for five years, changing front gardens etc.

The ones that are more sensible are the ones that affect neighbours, like parking and vehicles over a certain weight, or structures in the garden that might block light.