Housing covenant

dylly

you might also need a licence from the local environmental health department, I know our local one issues licences for kennels, home boarding establishments and catteries. it does vary between councils though so worth checking with them.

Jenno365

i have looked in to running a cattery and yes a licence will be required. I have consulted with a solicitor and he seems to think i could run the business from the house as it is not noisy or noxious however he said that it was down to interpretion and it was a grey area?

DVardysShadow

Jenno365 wrote: »

i have looked in to running a cattery and yes a licence will be required. I have consulted with a solicitor and he seems to think i could run the business from the house as it is not noisy or noxious however he said that it was down to interpretion and it was a grey area?

Yes it is grey. Despite others thinking it is clear cut that you cannot use the place for any purpose other than a single dwelling house, as long as you actually live there, you are using it as a single dwelling house.

And arguably the cattery is something you do while you use the place as a single dwelling house - much in the same way if you were to grow garden produce and sell it, as long as you lived there, it would just be something that you do.

So, put another way, as long as you do use the place as a single dwelling house, the argument would have to be about whether the cattery was a noxious, noisome or offensive trade or business.

I'm taking a contraire position here, primarily because it is a grey area

G_M

What is grey about "The purchaser shall not use the property hereby conveyed .....for any purpose other than a single private dwellinghouse.

A cattery is not a single private dwellinghouse.

poppysarah

Jenno365 wrote: »

or for any purpose other than a single private dwellinghouse.

You can't.
You need a licence off the council for this and your neighbours will complain like mad.

DVardysShadow

G_M wrote: »

What is grey about "The purchaser shall not use the property hereby conveyed .....for any purpose other than a single private dwellinghouse.

A cattery is not a single private dwellinghouse.

It is grey in precisely the terms I described. If the OP lives there and has only one household on the premises and does not operate as a guest house, it is being used as a single private dwelling house.

It really does become a question of degree, because no one would complain if OP sold vegetables from the garden and probably would not complain if pigeons were kept nor if a variety of small businesses were run from the premises

puddy

if they were her own cats then i doubt people would complain about it being noisesome (which actually means smelly in old speak), therefore i would think the grey area is based on whether the fact that she lives there means that it is a dwelling house rather than 'just' a business

poppysarah

DVardysShadow wrote: »

OP sold vegetables from the garden and probably would not complain if pigeons were kept nor if a variety of small businesses were run from the premises

I think anything that people couldn't see, hear or smell is probably not going to be complained about.

Pigeons cause tons of complaints to Env. Health.
Selling veggies might not annoy the neighbours if they got a discount thought.

G_M

DVardysShadow wrote: »

It is grey in precisely the terms I described. If the OP lives there and has only one household on the premises and does not operate as a guest house, it is being used as a single private dwelling house.

Yes, it is being used as a single private dwelling house. It is also being used as a cattery!

The covenant apparantly says: " ..any purpose other than a single private ..."

Living there is fine. Guest house is not. Cattery is not. A business is not.

Black and white.

Whether the covenant would or would not be enforced is another question.

princeofpounds

I'm pretty sure any kind of business would technically fall foul of the covenant.

Having said that, what is critical is who the beneficiary of the convenant is. Covenants can be enforced only by the beneficiaries, so if they are gone, uninterested or unidentifiable then the covenant can be meaningless.