Purchaser convenants and trade vehicles

ghandi.manning

I am currently in the process of purchasing a house as a first time buyer and there are lots of things making me nervous, which is to be expected.

In the Conveyance for the property, under purchaser covenants, it says:

"Not to use the Property for the parking of trade vehicles"

My partner drives a small florists van which has branding on it and I want to know if this is classed as a trade vehicle, and if so, does this mean she can't park at the property or is this essentially a purchaser covenant that is listed in all property conveyance documents but is maybe outdated and simply ignored now so many people have vehicle's in this way?

Do I need to do anything in order to continue with the purchase of this house?

Thanks in advance,
Ghandi

ey143

I would say yes, that is a trades vehicle. Anything business related. have you exchanged?

cte1111

My sister's business partner ran into problems with a covenant like this.

She used to park her small work van at her home. One of the neighbours thought that this brought down the tone of the neighbourhood. They had a covenant similar to this one for their houses and in the end she had to move as she needed to take the van home.

ghandi.manning

@ey143: No I haven't exchanged. I figured it would probably be classed as a trade vehicle, but wasn't sure what the implications would be.

@cte1111: This does not give me great confidence

Can anyone give any advice on this matter, can covenants like this be changed?

societys_child

How old is the property? If a new build you could have a problem* but if an older house it's possible everyone's forgotten/ doesn't know about about the covenant.
*Not sure what the covenant "owner" could do about it - tell you to stop it I suppose . . .
Another thought, is it possible to remove the sign writing and get some magnetic ones? It's just a "company vehicle" then, like any other company car.

G_M

What else would a florists business be but a trade? Unless you give the flowers away free and call it a charity....? So a florists van must be...

And there does not seem much ambiguity about the wording of the covenant. It kind of says you can't park a florists van there!

DTDfanBoy

The worst case scenario is that she has to park the van on the street, would that be a deal breaker for you ?

ghandi.manning

Okay, so I gather it is a trade vehicle as I said in my previous reply, but I want to know what I can do.. what my options are.. And before you say an option is to not move it, then don't, that's obviously an option.

But for example, @societys child has made reference to "the covenant owner". This makes me think I don't fully understand the meaning of covenant and didn't realise there was an owner. Any more information about covenants would help me a lot. Where they come from, what exactly an owner is and who is that owner, and can they be changed? And, as @DTDfanyBoy suggests, is parking it on the road a perfectly valid solution. We were planning on it parking on the road normally anyway, but would obviously like to have the option to switch it etc, or at least understand the implications.

@societys child, the house is circa. 1955 I believe.

societys_child

the house is circa. 1955 I believe.

I built 3 extensions on a house which had a covenant stating something about "no extensions". The deeds went back over 100 years so no idea who or when the covenant was added - although a neighbour (who wasn't affected )complained about an aspect of one of the extensions, planning dismissed the complaint, the covenant was never mentioned . . .

bouicca21

I'm not sure how easy it is to enforce a covenant - or how costly. My neighbours are incensed that someone has built a hideous but unfinished building in their back garden positioned in such a way that it prevents use of the shared right of way that runs along the back of their gardens. There appears to be nothing they can do about it.

Yorkie1

OP you need to ask your solicitor to tell you, from the wording of the covenants and the conveyances presumably referred to in the documents, whether the person entitled to enforce the covenant is just the original seller of the land or whether the right to enforce it has passed down with ownership of the land which is benefited by the covenant.

It is not easy or cheap to enforce a covenant through the courts but you don't really want a neighbour dispute over this.