Restrictive covenant question
Discussion
If there is a restrictive covenant on three houses (e.g caravans and similar not to be parked / stored on the properties) and the covenant is removed, do the house owners have grounds for successful action on the basis that they bought their house because they didn’t want to live next to a house with a caravan on the drive?
Peter911 said:
Action against who? Not you.
Action against the remover of the covenant. Let’s say two houses are delighted and park their caravans on the drive. The third doesn’t like it and says she bought the house partly because of that covenant, but now she is surrounded by caravans!So, the estate I live on was 100% leasehold when built in the late 60's. We purchased as leasehold knowing that we would purchase the freehold.
In the deeds there are all kinds of covenant including the above mentioned caravan/trailer/boat/motorhome one plus others including "must not cast or fire building materials" - housebricks basically
Some of ours also list stuff like keeping the garage door painted and keeping the guttering in "good repair".
Our solicitor was/is really good, and when he saw our deeds and my question on the covenant he said that the costs to try and get the original land owner to allow them to be amended as part of the purchase would be eye wateringly expensive. He explained that the main reason they're there was to "protect the local area" so neighbours couldn't annoy others and also to keep some uniformity. Obviously that was in the 60's in my case and he summed up as land owner flexing muscles back in the day.
I asked about what happens if we broke that, and he said it had been decades since he'd seen any action taken against things "parked" on the drive, but he had seen two where someone had built a wall with gates on the boundary line where the original land owner had taken action. They were served a kind of summons to make good and return to previous.
I'm not from the law industry, but from what I was told it's not worth the costs to try and change and as long as you don't do crazy things like build 7ft high walls then it's unlikely that action will be taken. Best to get legal advice before parking a 30ft motorhome there permanently.
In the deeds there are all kinds of covenant including the above mentioned caravan/trailer/boat/motorhome one plus others including "must not cast or fire building materials" - housebricks basically
Some of ours also list stuff like keeping the garage door painted and keeping the guttering in "good repair".
Our solicitor was/is really good, and when he saw our deeds and my question on the covenant he said that the costs to try and get the original land owner to allow them to be amended as part of the purchase would be eye wateringly expensive. He explained that the main reason they're there was to "protect the local area" so neighbours couldn't annoy others and also to keep some uniformity. Obviously that was in the 60's in my case and he summed up as land owner flexing muscles back in the day.
I asked about what happens if we broke that, and he said it had been decades since he'd seen any action taken against things "parked" on the drive, but he had seen two where someone had built a wall with gates on the boundary line where the original land owner had taken action. They were served a kind of summons to make good and return to previous.
I'm not from the law industry, but from what I was told it's not worth the costs to try and change and as long as you don't do crazy things like build 7ft high walls then it's unlikely that action will be taken. Best to get legal advice before parking a 30ft motorhome there permanently.
JPJPJP said:
Action against the remover of the covenant. Let’s say two houses are delighted and park their caravans on the drive. The third doesn’t like it and says she bought the house partly because of that covenant, but now she is surrounded by caravans!
Doubt it...If you buy a house that looks out over fields and then they get planning permission to build on those fields - they won't be coming round to you with a wheelbarrow of cash and saying sorry...
In buying your house you don't fix the surrounding environment and then get compensated whenever it changes...
the covenant bod could argue that they have just increased the value of your house by removing the covenant for you...
unless the covenant is in your favour I would be very surprised if you ever had any influence over what happens with it... you might be able to argue that you don't want it removed from your property, but I don't think you can stop it being removed elsewhere...
JPJPJP said:
If there is a restrictive covenant on three houses (e.g caravans and similar not to be parked / stored on the properties) and the covenant is removed, do the house owners have grounds for successful action on the basis that they bought their house because they didn’t want to live next to a house with a caravan on the drive?
As usual in cases like this it's impossible to say without reading the relevant title documents. Whether a claim could be made would depend on whether the covenantee (the person with the benefit of the restrictive covenants) owed the aggrieved owner any legal obligation to enforce the restrictive covenants, and / or whether the aggrieved owner had a legal right to enforce the covenants themselves. If they did, then a claim might exist.But quite often in this type of development there is a specific provision in the deeds to say that the developer has the right to vary, modify or release covenants on neighbouring properties, in which case it would probably not be possible to make a claim.
You'd therefore need to go to a lawyer specialising in property litigation to be sure.
JPJPJP said:
If there is a restrictive covenant on three houses (e.g caravans and similar not to be parked / stored on the properties) and the covenant is removed, do the house owners have grounds for successful action on the basis that they bought their house because they didn’t want to live next to a house with a caravan on the drive?
How was the covenant removed and how do you know it's been removed?Gassing Station | Speed, Plod & the Law | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff