Restrictive Covenants - Any legal beagles out there??

brett84n

moneyistooshorttomention wrote: »

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.

I wouldn't have thought restrictive covenants are in place to stop people who have a distance to travel to work from living in a property.

brett84n

http://www.mylawyer.co.uk/how-restrictive-covenants-affect-land-use-a-A76052D76388/

DRP

moneyistooshorttomention wrote: »

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.

8 in the morning!!!?? :rotfl:

Sorry to disturb all those sleepy heads, but I (and many others i'm sure) have my alarm set for 510am and i'm out the door by 540!!

EmmyLou30

Well fortunately for you, restrictive covenants are rarely, if ever, enforced. I think they can only be enforced by the benificiaries of the covenant - so generally the builder who wants to keep his estate looking nice till he's sold all the plots - then he doesn't care. So the chances of enforcing them is slim so I doubt you'd have issue with the van.

The idea of restrictive covenants like that is like a previous poster said, to stop the residential area turning into an industrial estate with businesses being run out of garages, lots of unsociable hours of coming and going, and not causing visual disturbance with unsightly large vehicles. I personally have some on my home I'd love to be enforced like no satelite dishes and no parking on the roads of the estates, only on drives and in garages. The dishes are ugly unsightly things, but nothing I can do to enforce that restrictive covenant when all but 3 houses have them. Can you see anyone wanting to remove their dishes?! Most are tenants so probably have no knowledge of the covenant in the first place. People causing obstructions with their cars as they're too lazy to use a garage (or have it full with junk), or worse, having a tandem drive they don't use to its full as they can't be bothered to do the car shuffle every night as me and my husband do. Love to get that one enforced as the idea of a street without cars on it would be heaven. Totally never going to happen. To my mind if you can't fit your cars on your own property, or use a tandem drive correctly even when it's a faff, then you should buy a different house. Some might consider me overly precious and fussy but I just want to live somewhere that looks as nice as it can while not causing anyone any grief or obstruction in getting to their home.
So really, don't worry about your husbands van!

princeofpounds

It's not the creator of the covenant that can enforce it, it is the beneficiary of the covenant (who often tends to be the same entity).

It is quite normal to have rather draconian convenants on the deeds to houses surrounding things like satellite dishes, vans and so on.

If the developer is the beneficiary, they typically do this in order to make sure they can keep the site looking presentable, until they sell all the phases. They typically don't care a jot after this, and the covenant becomes essentially meaningless. One look around the estate should confirm this.

In the case of ex-council, then you have to be a bit more careful because the council doesn't always lose interest in certain matters, though I've never seen them care about minor stuff.

If someone did try to enforce a covenant, it gets quite complicated. For example, the covenant might be held to have lapsed, if enforcement has been lax for a long time. Or zero or token damages might be awarded, if it doesn't really have any negative effect on the beneficiary. Or it may not be held to be enforceable due to conflicting with laws, if it's really unreasonable. The point is, they are not laws.

princeofpounds

The dishes are ugly unsightly things

Give it 10 years, they'll be gone... most people will get their TV through the internet over cable.

SamDunham

Thank you everyone for your replies / advice.

It's not an ex-council house, it's on a new-ish estate built in the mid 90s by Barratt homes.

There are other vans parked on the estate.

We haven't got a scruffy van, it's 3 years old, not rusty or scratched or anything, clean, tidy and not even sign written. We'll be parking on our own drive at the side of the house, to be honest probably out of sight of the houses about. I think someone would have to be really miserable to make a complaint but I do know sometimes people can get a bee in their bonnet and make a fuss about these things!

The deeds don't say anything about commercial vehicles, just 'vans lorries trailers or similar.' Now my husband is thinking of just getting rid if the van and getting a pick up truck instead. Again this would be new, not scruffy and not sign written in any way. Whether someone would say this is 'similar' to a 'van lorry trailer' or not who knows?!

I did ring the council to ask their advice and they said basically that they don't care and we can park whatever we want on the drive, even if a neighbour did complain to them.

I'm probably worrying over nothing, I think it's just all the stress of being a first time buyer. So unsure of everything. Thanks again for all the advice

moneyistooshorttomention

princeofpounds wrote: »

Give it 10 years, they'll be gone... most people will get their TV through the internet over cable.

I didn't know that. Fingers crossed then.....

Land_Registry

The background as to how such restrictive covenants are imposed by the original developer has already been covered by others and as suggested the thinking behind it is to try and preserve the site as close to the original look and feel whilst all the plots are sold off.


Once they are all sold off then the benefit of the covenants will invariably have passed to each plot owner or indeed any owner of land once forming part of the development/estate i.e. what the developer owned at the time of the development.


So a covenant which initially benefitted just the developer now lies with 40, 50, 60 individual landowners. People often think the benefit is the developers alone so if they go bust or cease to exist then so too do the restrictive covenants - that is not the case as restrictive covenants run with and bind the land.


So what next? if if someone is able to demonstrate that as a landowner they have the benefit of the restrictive covenant(s) then they may be in a position to enforce them. To follow the enforcement through would require a legal judgement, so a court process.


It is though very rare for such matters to go as far as court simply because either their is no debate; one or both don't want to incur the costs involved in pursuing the matter or a lack of awareness as to the legal position.


Your solicitor will be well aware of the legal position and will be able to explain both the risks involved and the likelihood of someone seeking to enforce the covenants.


Your council would not normally have any interest in restrictive covenants unless of course they owned land which had the benefit.

SamDunham

Just thought I'd update this thread with the information we eventually got from our solicitor, just in case anyone else has a similar situation etc

1) Request permission from Barratts to have a van before we move in;
2) do nothing and hope the neighbours don't complain; or
3) simply don't park our van there or swap it for another vehicle.

We decided to go with option 3. OH is over the moon he now has a legitimate excuse to get rid of his much hated van and buy a new shiny nissan navara