Advice please on Land Covenants!

Land_Registry

Baxter100 - looks like most of the issues have been covered already but I'll add out perspective as well

The covenant was imposed by Birnbeck (Sixth) Co-Ownership Housing Society Limited when they sold it in March 1977 to Bath City Council. The benefit of that covenant invariably remains in place until such time as it is released/extinguished. Such a release/extinguishment would be on the part of the owner of the land which has the benefit of the covenant.

Identifying the benefitting land and therefore the current owner(s) is not always straightforward but you would normally start with identifying what land Birnbeck owned at that time.

Ownership of the land which has been 'pinched' would come under the adverse possession guidance G_M has already linked you to. If that claim was registered and the claimed land was already registered and bound by the covenant then it would remain bound. The existence of the covenant is not likely to impact on any adverse possession claim.

The issues surrounding the claimed land should, as you state, be covered by your solicitor although they will probably be unaware unless the seller or you tell them. They would normally send you a copy of the title plan and ask you to confirm whether what you are buying matches the title plan so when you say 'No' they would pursue it with the seller.

As jonathanrolande mentions where doubt exists indemnity insurance can often be sought and obtained to cover the risks involved should for example the original legal owner seek to reclaim their land.

Your solicitor will be able to advise on what options are available based on the evidence the seller puts forward. In the best case scenario you buy and register the claim at the same time. In other cases you might ask the seller to register their claim first but as with so many things to do with selling/buying a property what you have to bargain with or haggle over depends on the specifics, the buyer/seller and their legal advice.

Baxter100

Thanks for the detailed response - much appreciated.

I am struggling to get my head around the 'beneficiary' aspect of the covenant - is there a fools guide to explaining this? As I understand, the land was sold by Birnbeck (who appear to no longer exist - at least under the original guise from 1977) to Bath Council. Therefore the Council owns the land, but who or what is the 'beneficiary'?

Interesting that this would not normally be picked up by the solicitors, unless specifically told. What happens in the scenario when you buy a house, and then find out that what you bought wasn't as advertised?! Legal action against the previous owners, agents, solicitors?

Land_Registry

The beneficiary is the landowner who imposed the covenant on the sold land in 1977. The covenant binds the sold land invariably for the benefit of the land owned by the seller (vendor) at the time of the sale.

Covenants are rarely 'advertised' and the buyer's conveyancer would normally share the details with their client and explain their meaning. Your conveyancer would explain their meaning and legal impact, inc enforcement but it would be down to you as the buyer to decide if they restricted you in such a way as to make the purchase unviable

Many registered titles are subject to covenants but in many cases they have little or no impact simply because they covenant not to do things which most would not consider doing anyway. Issues tend to only arise when the covenant is more recent and is intended to restrict for a very specific purpose.

For example in Victorian times people were very wary of neighbours using properties for certain purposes which might devalue adjoining land/property so when the landowner built say 40 houses on his land he imposed covenants restricting the owners ability to run it as an asylum, a place selling alcohol and keeping chickens. The benefit of such covenants were then enjoyed by the 40 homeowners as they each then owned part of the original landowner's land.

There is no fools guide to covenants but MSE and other forums as well as online searches should reveal the basics for you

DRP

Baxter100 wrote: »

Thanks for the advice.

Good point about the owners, although we don't know whether they themselves are the ones who 'pinched' the land, or if it was already that was when they moved in. How do you go about showing that a piece of land has been in adverse possession for 12 years?

Google Earth goes back to 1999 in my area (BS31) - you may well be able to see the enclosing fence on that.

Land_Registry

Google Earth can help to understand the position of any fencing over time

Demonstrating how a piece of land has been in adverse possession over time will though require more detail as explained in the guidance G_M has already linked to