Restrictive covenants - aaarrrgghhh!!

[KatyMac]

My own fault, I know some housing estates locally have reatrictive covenants

But I asked the estate agent to check with the owners and they told me "no, there were none" not for caravans not for working from home

Got the paperwork through and was signing everything tonight to go back tomorrow and there are covenants

Bugger, no idea if we can buy it now

& if it falls through it'll be our 2nd house to fall through

You are paying a solicitor or conveyancer. You need advice from them on this, not a bunch of unqualified posters on the internet.

As a general point for anyone interested in buying a house and concerned about covenants, you can download a copy of the title register from the gov.uk Land Registry website for £14. If you cannot proceed with this purchase, you can at least do this for any other houses you are interested in buying.

I've left messages for both the estate agent and the solicitor this morning

But last night that wasn't an option and you are allowed to whinge on MN

Does it say you can do those things if you get permission from the council? I’m trying to read the section at the top

For example being a childminder would come under that

It would yes

Covenants are normally held by the builder or sometimes the original owners of the land

So.etimes the builder no longer exists (but they do in my case) & sometimes its just during the build or immediately after

Im just fruatrated as i asked and was told no

Check to see whether the company that enforces the covenants is still operating.

There is a covenant on the nice leafy estate I live in (dates from 1980s) that fences are not allowed along the fronts of houses and they have to be open. Many houses are still like this with flat lawns down to the street. However when I moved in there was already a fence here and several other houses have fences. I also espy a couple of trade vans from my gate and one black cab. That's just from my street. Obviously no one is bothered. I would not report a neighbour for a caravan but then I have little contact with neighbours. I doubt very much if anyone here knows my name and even less that I run a business from home.

Lesson learned OP. Don't ask the estate agent legal questions.

@MinnieMountain when do you ask the solicitor before you pay for searches and aurvey or after you get the deeds of the house sent through?

I have a covenant that says I am not allowed to change the colour of the window frames. But it does not say what colour they should be. Nobody actually cares. Other houses have brown, silver, white, sage.

My previous house said I was not allowed to set up a funfair or keep pigs.

You can buy copies of the "deeds" and plan from the Land registry for any house, and its neighbours, any time you want. For example before making an offer.

Be sure to buy them from the official gov.uk site, not the scammers who populate goggle ad listings.

www.gov.uk/government/organisations/land-registry

That's completely ridiculous- how can you be expected not to have a funfair or any pigs? Amazed anyone was prepared to buy it tbh 😂

It meant I wasn't able to have family to stay.

As soon as you instruct the solicitor, you say "this thing is a dealbreaker for me, please check it before you do anything else". It probably takes 10 minutes to look once the other side has sent them the contract papers.

Don't try to check it by getting a copy of the title yourself.

If you look at it yourself before making an offer, you have the advantage. It won't prevent you asking your solicitor or conveyancer later.

Ask yourself if you would have preferred to know the truth earlier.

covenants are 100% about who has the right to enforce them

• the original builder from the 1990s? Probably either gine bust or really does not care

• a neighbour who has nothing else to do in life but "take offence"?

We have the same covenant and rub a business from home but things have moved on since the house was built 96 years ago.

We aren’t running a tailors or a dentist from the front room. Everything is virtual and nobody ever comes to the house.

I’m absolutely sure it doesn’t mean working from home in the current sense.

There's a covenant on my estate that says no caravans and no taxis on driveways. Several of my neighbours are taxi drivers and keep their taxis on their driveways. No one's ever complained that I know of. For about five years one of the neighbours had a caravan. No one cared.

When in the process do the contract papers come?

I reckon we'd have moved on to another house rather than deal with more crap

My business isnt virtual and people do come to the house, not often but enough

When you have viewed the house, if you decide to put in an offer, once the offer is accepted and before instructing a conveyancer and thus incurring costs, download the title deeds from the land registry and check for covenants. It's very easy. It costs less than £20 but make sure you use the .gov.uk website. Or you could check before making the offer. It's less hassle to check yourself.

It's £14. I posted about this up thread.

You can ask your searches to be put on hold until you get the legal report. You don’t have to do the survey either until you’ve had sight of the title documents. You can discuss this when instructing your solicitor.
Agree with previous posters, EAs know nothing and will just say no.

It depends what documents you need. Houses like the one OP is buying will typically have the covenants in a transfer rather than listed straight off but there can be multiple transfers registered on a title.

This will be upheld my the management company though once the developer hands over

Management companies really only started being a thing during the last 15-20 years. Housing estates built before then would usually have the roads etc adopted by the local authority.

I believe that the OP mentioned that the house was built in the 1990s so it is very unlikely that there will be a management company.

Everything will turn on the exact wording of the covenant. Some covenants allow any homeowner on the estate to enforce specific rules.

It would then be down to the neighbour to take steps to enforce the covenant.

Our estate forbids removing the hedges and painting the front door and different colour to the original.
All it took was one house to drag out the beetle infested hedge and paint the door pale blue rather than dark green, and lots of people almost immediately followed suit