Freehold property no pets rules

[Afolnerd]

We have found a house we love and had our offer accepted. 4 bed townhouse, semi detached. Freehold, completely enclosed garden.
It is in an estate build in the 90’s 30ish houses and 4 small blocks of flats/maisonettes. The grounds are maintained by a company and we have to pay a small fee towards it, (less than £200 a year)

Everything seemed to be going along fine until I got the searches back today and there seems to be a complete ban on pets.

We have a tortoise who lives outside in the summer months. I have emailed our solicitor and told him that this is a deal breaker for us. If he can’t come then we won’t be continuing with the purchase, he replied immediately stating he would get on to the other side and try and get permission.
But typically I got this information at 4.30 on a Friday and I’m not going to get any information for days.

Is this actually enforceable, can they dictate if we have pets or not? I understand in the flats but in a self contained house?

We don’t want to lose the house but if we have to choose we will pick him as he is part of the family.

Who is the party that would enforce the ban?

Who owns the company?

We live on a private road, we all own a share in the management company. Our house has a limit of 2 domestic pets. We have more than that. Our neighbours are aware and no one has ever said anything. It would be incredibly costly for anyone to take legal action over our excess of pets.

We have various other restrictions. I think we're not allowed a work van on the drive or a caravan. No one breaks those rules, but they are far more visible.

This is highly unusual but it may be put in as a restrictive covenant

I think you will get permission. They're probably trying to avoid having dogs and possibly cats on the estate.

I'd happily live on a pet free estate but that's only because of dogs barking and also to avoid irresponsible dog owners. I actually really like dogs!

When I moved into my old flats, there was a no pets rule and it got revoked. I think that was something to do with human rights. It bothered me, again because of dogs barking, which is a real pain in flats - and frankly, some of the dogs weren't happy either!

i'm going to assume your tortoise doesn't bark so I am totally guessing, but my guess is that you will get permission.

Usually these sort of clauses are only enforced for noise/smell creating pets (dogs, cats, chickens, parrots etc). A tortoise should easily get an exemption.

It is run by a management company and I believe we would be shareholders, I only got the information today so still trying to figure it all out,

This is a direct quote from what I got sent. Which seems to be the only mention of pets anywhere.

Pets: A decision was made by the Board of Directors and circulated to all property owners in January 1996 that, in future, no permission would be given for the keeping of pets on the estate. This matter has been reviewed on several occasions since then and there has been no change to this decision.

I think you might need to ask your solicitor whether a decision by the board of directors is actually enforceable. Our pet restriction is some sort of restrictive covenant in our deeds (I think), which is different to a board decision.

Presumably the board can't just impose decisions on all of the home owners, like suddenly deciding that everyone has to paint their house turquoise.

Regardless of whether you welcome or accept the rules, you need to factor that in to the value proposition of the property, i.e. what is it worth should you wish to sell in future, and how difficult/prolonged that sale may be. Make sure that you price the property accordingly.

Personally, I would be one of those who wouldn't touch it with a barge-pole, and I serve as an indicator of how limited your onward market may be.

Most people are staying away from what is called fleeceholds, ie they're freeholds but with this sort of nonsense attached

I wouldnt buy something like that personally.

I would be so incensed that this restriction wasn't disclosed upfront.

Lovely to see you sticking up for your tortoise 🐢

But even if you were (oh so graciously) given permission for her, where does that leave you in future?

I wouldn't buy a house with this kind of restriction. What about if you want to sell it one day? You're probably halving your potential buyers.

This would be a dealbreaker for me even if I had no pets.

As your tortoise will not bark or climb the fence to shit in neighbours’ gardens who will even know?

Could be hard to sell in future to dog or cat owners. But for me it would be a plus point that the estate was cat and dog free.

This is what would put me off too (apart from the fact I have a dog!). So many people have pets and wouldn't be able to buy this house.

How do they enforce, or even know, about - for example - a tropical fish tank or pet spider?
Dogs and outdoor cats potentially being a nuisance I can understand though.

check if it's estate or shared gardens.

near me pet free is only applicable to those as they would otherwise end up dog toilets.

I don't believe that no-one living on estate of 30 plus households has had a pet since 1996! Surely it will be a rule on paper but not enforced in practice?!

I’d never buy anywhere with a fee to be paid to a management company. I don’t have pets and don’t want them, but to me this would be a sign of an interfering and overbearing company to deal with. A limit on larger pets is reasonable - no one wants to live next door to 15 dogs in a standard semi, for example. But no permission for any pets? They need to get their heads out of their arses.

Regardless of whether you get special permission for your tortoise, the house is worth about 15% less than what you thought it was worth because when you come to sell, all the families who feel the same way about their cat or dog and who would have no hope of such special permission would be excluded from the pool of buyers and such a massive drop in the number of potential buyers always reduces the price dramatically. I would walk away, and tell the vendors/estate agents that they are being cruelly dishonest to market the property without being upfront about this obviously massive dealbreaker - forcing each potential buyer to waste hundreds of £££ on legal fees before they find out why the house is no good. If they advertise clearly that the house is part of a development with a no-pet policy they may attract a buyer for whom this is a massive bonus - there are people who just hate having animals near their home or garden and it's ok for developments that cater to this preference to exist, but the development is not suitable for the 62% of households that own a pet so must be marketed clearly.

The Board of Directors sound like they have the ability to be an absolute pita.
You can imagine the type who would be attracted to this.
Imagine your phone constantly beeping with whatsapp messages. I've had to put mine on silent - block of flats scenario and residents' association aka a vanity project set up by bored, self important, patronising a-holes.
Edited to say: And it's worse in this case as the Board with have power, whereas my RA is really only a talking/moaning/lookatme shop

And, this:
Lovely to see you sticking up for your tortoise 🐢

It's a tortoise! I wouldn't even have mentioned it.

We have a few of these restrictions on our house - very similar to a pp. No work van or caravan and we are only able to paint our house white/cream (this is due to being adjacent to a listed building, I believe - there are obvious, positive for us, planning restrictions in how our house was designed). In terms of pets, it states that other than cats and dogs only 2 pets are allowed - I assume this means things like chickens in the garden, because who is going to know about animals living in tanks/cages inside the house?

All of that said, what you describe above would be a dealbreaker for me.

It will be difficult to sell on even if you get an exemption for your tortoise. We have a dog and two cats and there's no way we'd buy a property that wouldn't allow them.

Im assuming your tortoise lives in a fenced off part of the garden to stop it straying so it would be doubtful that any of your potentially snitching neighbours knew it was there. Tortoises spend half of the year hibernating, are not noisy, dont intimidte people, kill local wlldlife or have to be taken for walks. They are ideal pets. As they say, its easier to ask for forgiveness than permission.

I once lived somewhere with a no pets rule but then someone on the estate got a dog anyway and no one could enforce the rule even though a few people tried. In the end some of the other neighbours got dogs over the years, so that was that. Legally i don’t know if the rule even still exists, but I don’t live there anymore. As for a tortoise, it’s likely no one would even notice it in your garden.

I wouldn't buy it, even if the tortoise gets permission, unless you can get the rules revoked and have it documented.

We had vaguely, similar wording regarding board of directors rules but it was in connection to never removing an oil tank in the garden. This was only noticed when we re-mortgaged a house we'd already owned 15yrs and there was no oil tank! The board members had long since died and the company dissolved. I think we paid a small insurance fee in the end but it was stressful and months or back and forth.

I would pay a premium for that