Restrictive Covenants - Any legal beagles out there??

SamDunham

We're waiting to exchange and this morning our solicitor emailled a wad of paperwork out to me. In there was the title deeds and there's a restrictive covenant I'm not sure about. In our solicitor's 'report' on the deeds he merely states that they are written in pretty simple English and should be understandable. I'm still confused :huh:
Anybody out there that could help me please? Thank you to anybody that can help!

In the Restrictive Covenants section it states:

"Schedule of Restrictive Covenants (4) (b) (i)
No caravan or boat with or without trailer shall be parked on the Site for more than three consecutive days at any one time or for a period of fifteen days in any year unless screened from view to the satisfaction of the Council and behind the building line and in any case not on any open aspect of the Site (<< this I understand, included for completeness. The next para I don't understand)

(ii)
Save as aforesaid no van lorry trailer or other similar vehicle exceeding one quarter of a ton in weight shall be parked on the Site"

So, Does this wording refer to a van or lorry TRAILER? Or does it refer to a van OR a lorry OR a trailer? For instance, would this mean that we couldn't park a normal sized van (eg VW Caddy or similar) on our drive?

I have spoken to the local Council and they have assured me there would be no action they could take against us for doing so, and neither would they want to. Could a neighhbour or the original developer take any action against us? And if so, what is the likelihood of that happening? The estate was built in 1996 by Barratt.

One final question, the deeds mention a "van lorry trailer or similar vehicle", would a pick up truck be classed as a 'similar vehicle'?

bryanb

As I understand it only the person who has applied the restriction can enforce it. Presumably Barrats.
Not neighbours, council, etc.

nobodysdriving

I would ask the solicitors ( have you done this? )

I had a similar issue, on mine I could not understand whether they specifically wanted to prevent anyone from parking a motorbike.

I asked them and pointed out the clause I was referring to. 2 days later they sent me a 'revised' document showing they changed the wording of this clause and now it was no longer a mistery but it was very clear I 'can' park a motorbike or a car or a small van (for private use)

kaya

Every sold council house has a covenant forbidding the fitting of a satelite dish, nobody cares

Errata

Save as aforesaid no van lorry trailer or other similar vehicle exceeding one quarter of a ton in weight shall be parked on the Site"

So, Does this wording refer to a van or lorry TRAILER? Or does it refer to a van OR a lorry OR a trailer? For instance, would this mean that we couldn't park a normal sized van (eg VW Caddy or similar) on our drive?

For legal lawyerly reasons punctuation marks are not used in documents such as this. It means in lay terms
"no van, lorry, trailer, or other similar vehicle"

moneyistooshorttomention

I would translate that in laypersons language into meaning:

- They don't want any van bigger than White Van Man's one parked there.

- They are trying to minimise the chances of anyone who doesn't have normal work hours (ie standard traditional office hours of 9am - 5.30pm Mon-Fri) buying the place and starting their vehicle up in the middle of the night ready to drive off for work (ie someone who had to start work before 8.30am off a morning and/or some distance away and therefore the van would be revving up during "normal sleep time" and disturbing other people there). Someone who works standard traditional office hours WILL be disturbed by someone else's alarm going off at 6 a.m. or earlier of a morning and WILL be disturbed by someone revving up a car (or similar) engine nearby before, say, 8am of a morning.

If you don't fall into those categories then no problem. If you do...= investigate further.

SamDunham

Thank you for all your replies.
I have asked our solicitor for clarification, but just wondered if anybody had had similar on here.
At the moment my husband has a standard sized normal white van man van for work. I suppose we'll have to wait and see what the solicitor has to say...

brett84n

SamDunham wrote: »

Thank you for all your replies.
I have asked our solicitor for clarification, but just wondered if anybody had had similar on here.
At the moment my husband has a standard sized normal white van man van for work. I suppose we'll have to wait and see what the solicitor has to say...

We have similar in our wording, also says about satellite dishes, there are lots of dishes and also lots of other vans on the estate.

HAve a look around the estate to see if there are other vans parked up.

forgotmyname

Basically they dont want anything bigger than a small camping trailer or 250kg on the site whilst they build and sell all the properties.

Once they have sold them all they will have no interest in what you or your neighbours do.

They just didnt want the place to look like a builders shanty town.

mjoneseyjones

moneyistooshorttomention wrote: »

- They are trying to minimise the chances of anyone who doesn't have normal work hours (ie standard traditional office hours of 9am - 5.30pm Mon-Fri) buying the place and starting their vehicle up in the middle of the night ready to drive off for work (ie someone who had to start work before 8.30am off a morning and/or some distance away and therefore the van would be revving up during "normal sleep time" and disturbing other people there). Someone who works standard traditional office hours WILL be disturbed by someone else's alarm going off at 6 a.m. or earlier of a morning and WILL be disturbed by someone revving up a car (or similar) engine nearby before, say, 8am of a morning.
.

By 'translate into layman's terms' do you actually mean deliberately interpret the situation to fit your own skewed view on life, where anyone who keeps different hours to you, or lives their life differently to you is somehow doing something wrong? Because that's how this and every other post you make comes across.

searchlight123

my sister had exactly the same issue on her estate built in the 90's. very smart estate and there was a clause stating no van or commercial vehicles could be parked on their driveway.
my brother-in-law has a sign written transit sized van as he is a carpenter for a building firm, they ignored the clause.

a neighbour (anonymous) complained to the council who did come round to tell them it shouldn't be there. once they pointed out that there were other vans and commercial vehicles (eg black taxis) on the estate they never heard another word about it. however one of their neighbours became decidedly unfriendly towards them (so not so anonymous now is she??).

i don't think there's much anyone can do about it nowadays.