Unknown Restrictive covenant

konark

OP said

The house was only built in the last 6 years and I am the only owner.

Did you build the house on land you bought?

bouicca21

Is it possible that the terms of the covenant can be identified from the titles to neighbouring properties?

AdrianC

bouicca21 wrote: »

Is it possible that the terms of the covenant can be identified from the titles to neighbouring properties?

It's not impossible. But there would still be no guarantee that any covenant you unearthed would apply to your property, and that there wouldn't be any other covenants which you hadn't unearthed.

princeofpounds

There is still plenty of unregistered land in the UK, because it has not transacted since registration was compulsory, and some individual title documents may never have been submitted even if properties were registered.


Your deeds probably refer to a covenant in a title that is not registered, or simply incomplete. But your solicitor will not be able to find out what it is; it might be burnt, or sitting in someone's safe somewhere, or lost.


Perhaps you can get a hint from the reference to the covenant that has been found, but no more than that.


If it hasn't been enforced since 1934, it's not likely to be something to worry about - this is what the indemnity is for.

Land_Registry

AdrianC has covered it for you and whether neighbouring properties referred or not would not change things for your own title. Indeed making too many enquiries may invalidate the insurance option anyway.

These 'protective entries' as they are know are added when the deeds submitted when the land was first registered refer to these earlier covenants as existing e.g. subject to the covenants contained in a Conveyance dated dd/mm/yyyy made between (1) and (2)....' but that deed is not lodged as well.

The protective entry is made to show that the land is bound by them but we have not seen them.

Although the house has only just been built the land has existed for a lot longer. And there's no point guessing what they might have been as only the deed itself would tell you, if it ever surfaced.

Whether you or your buyer pay for the indemnity is a matter between the two of you and from reading numerous posts re such insurance there is no rule to that as presumably similar to agreeing a final purchase price etc etc

Ithaca

We had a similar issue which held up our purchase for a bit, only in our case it was caused by a typo in the original deeds (which had never been registered). The deeds referred to "documentation dated dd/mm/1926" when it should have been "documentation dated dd/mm/1962". It was clearly a typo, but there remained a technical (although vanishingly small) risk that someone could turn up with docs from 1926 and cause problems.

Our solicitor insisted on a £200 indemnity policy, our vendors' solicitor adamantly refused on the grounds that there was nothing to indemnify against. Our solicitor's main concern wasn't that the documentation existed but that once the property was registered for the first time it would be highlighted with a warning, which would mean we'd have the same issue when we came to sell. Because the indemnity could be passed along with the house if we sold, in effect the £200 was to prevent future arguments rather than to address any concrete risk.

In the end we agreed to pay the £200 ourselves just to move things along and complete the sale, but we had a very nice surprise a month after we moved when our vendors popped an envelope with £200 cash through our letterbox.

RayMead

I have an unregistered property in Cambridgeshire. I purchased in New 1971. Paid the mortgage off Some 30 years ago, This property is not registerd with the Land Registry. I have had the deeds but they have been lost by either a Bank or a Solicitor. Can anyone recomend someone that can reconstruct the Title deeds, and of course the cost.

Ray

xylophone

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/first-registration-of-title-where-deeds-have-been-lost-or-destroyed/practice-guide-2-first-registration-of-title-if-deeds-are-lost-or-destroyed