Restrictive covenants

Ruby2011

Hi, this is my first time posting on here but I am so worried and hope someone can give me some advice.
We are in the process of building a conservatory and it is almost finished. Before we started work we checked it fitted the criteria for permitted development and asked our solicitor to check there were no reasons on the deeds for us not to proceed. All seemed fine. We spoke to both sets of neighbours about the build and gave them copies of the plans. They seemed fine.

Now we have received a horrible letter from the local council who say a complaint has been made about the conservatory (don't know who made the complaint yet) and they want us to stop work on it. They have discovered a clause (which hasn't showed up on our deeds) which states no one in our development (11 houses built in 2001) is allowed to build a conservatory, shed or have decking. Two other houses have conservatories, all have sheds and two have decking therefore everyone is in breach of this clause. However it looks like we're going to take the brunt of it if we are forced to demolish and lose the £15k it has cost us to build the conservatory - seems so unfair and is utterly heartbreaking.

Is there a way we can get this clause removed? I would really appreciate any advice on this! Haven't slept for 2 days

fluffymuffy

That sounds like a Planning Condition on the original permission for the development. Not a Restrictive Covenant - it's called "PD Rights Removed" (i.e. no Permitted Development rights) and in our local authority area most new developments are subject to this. The reason being (round here) that the houses are already so crammed on any further developments needs careful consideration with regards to the privacy (and fire safety) of others.

If it's PD Rights Removed then you need to submit a Planning Application. There is no fee needed, unless planning permission would have been required even if PD rights were intact.

In our area a lot of new developments are built on land-fill, often with toxic ground gasses. These need special foundations and so retrospective permissions are not really possible.

keystone

I agree with Fluff. Much more likely to be a planning constraint than a restrictive covenant. In that case you are lucky as it's easier to address the former than the latter although that doesn't mean you'll be successful in getting it overturned but it seems that you may have precedent on your side. You've still got a bureaucratic cliff to climb.

Cheers

macman

In which case you should have a case against the solicitor who handled your conveyance for failing to uncover this in the local searches?