Restrive covenant on ex-council house against garden sheds

Davesnave

I really don't think that councils have the time or staff these days to go around checking who has a garden shed in ex-council properties, regardless of what you've been told.

My council is supposed to check that I'm eligible to live in the house I occupy and it's supposedly bound to take action if I'm found to be breaking the rules.

Do you think they checked my eligibility when I told them I'd moved in? Do you think they'll ever check?

I suppose they'd have to if someone made it their business to report me, but I hear from good sources that they'd rather not. Enforcement would be costly, especially as so many others have broken the rules.

Your scenario is similar, but it's just a shed. They can say "Fine, that's not impeding anyone's light or breaking planning regs; we give that our blessing" and the problem's solved. I bet they would too.;)

patman99

If the Council refuse to allow the building of the shed, you could always look at applying to the Land Registry to have the covenant removed.

antrobus

patman99 wrote: »

If the Council refuse to allow the building of the shed, you could always look at applying to the Land Registry to have the covenant removed.

The Land Registry can't help.

The OP would need to apply to the Land Tribunal, now known as the Lands Chamber of the Upper Tribunal. It costs £800 just to make an application. Which is a bit pricey for a shed.

http://www.justice.gov.uk/tribunals/lands

Cottage_Economy

Not sure about that.

I have a restrictive covenant and for a while pursued the option to have the covenant removed. The procedure was to write to the legal department of the council and ask for the covenant to be removed. You say nothing about paying anything at this point or what you want it for. You just want it removed.

They come back, tell you that you can buy yourself out of the covenant, give you a price, which hopefully should not be too onerous as the council is not allowed to profit from restrictive covenants, otherwise they could be construed as unreasonably withholding permission.

The only reason we didn't go forward with having ours lifted was because we changed our minds on the building work we wanted to do.

Personally I think you should just put the shed up.

bryanb

My ex council house has a covenant that the front garden must be maintained as a flower garden, Haaaaaa...........

Cottage_Economy

bryanb wrote: »

My ex council house has a covenant that the front garden must be maintained as a flower garden, Haaaaaa...........

I'm not allowed to keep livestock. Or have a caravan.

evilcartman

Cottage_Economy wrote: »

I'm not allowed to keep livestock.

I have that one too. :rotfl:

I don't think they have one against caravans (will have to dig out the deeds again) but they missed a trick there.

Thanks to those who say "just put it up anyway" - but I think that since I've alerted them to it, that's probably not the best approach now. I think I'll follow the advice of going to the legal department.

DaftyDuck

Well, my house fronts onto a beach, and I'm forbidden from keeping bathing machines.

Also, I must not keep an unruly house of disrepute...




... at weekends :eek:

Well, this is Kent, and anything goes midweek!

Davesnave

evilcartman wrote: »

Thanks to those who say "just put it up anyway" - but I think that since I've alerted them to it, that's probably not the best approach now. I think I'll follow the advice of going to the legal department.

Hardly the actions of someone with the moniker 'evilcartman.'

Surely you should just say, "Screw you guys, the shed's going here!"

MisterBaxter

For a shed you will probably find they won't even charge for granting consent as it's only a letter, they may sometimes try to charge if you wanted to build a separate property for sale or rent, as they may try to share in some of the profits.

If it's a timber shed it could technically be removed so wouldn't pose a problem at sale time. Very few people ever bother with consent until they come to sell, and that will be on the advice of their solicitor. If I was staying in the property for any length of time I would have risked it, not sought permission and if at point of sale it caused a problem written off the shed. What loss can the council claim for a shed being erected in a private garden in any case, if thee is no money in it for them and it's not causing a nuisance to anyone else how much effort are they going to put into enforcement.

Definitely the legal team though, housing would have no interest as it isn't a housing property since it was sold off which probably explains why the housing person was vague.