Restrictive Covenants

[Deleted User]

Hello,

We are in the process of purchasing a new build house and recently obtained our contracts for the property.
The solicitor asked us to "quickly read and sign" and wanted the documents in the post the same/next day to enable us to exchange contracts (conditionally) and pay them the 10% of the house price deposit.

We refused to do this until we had read the documents properly and we have found a number of issues with the paperwork primarily surrounding the covenants but also with other aspects we are concerned with. A friend (a solicitor in this field) wrote an essay to us on aspects wrong with the paperwork in the space of looking at a subset of documents for a couple of hours for us as a favour, so we feel like we are not being to out of line. It was also noted that the solicitors didn't seem to be acting in our best interests and although there were no lie, there was significant missing information and lack of pushing for information on aspects that could have big ramifications for us.

My question is, is there ever any movement or removal of covenants on a development if requested? Some of the covenants are incredibly restrictive and other seems outright stupid, but primarily our issue is they inhibit our ability to have our house as we want it, and we may as well buy a leasehold on the current contract!


Thanks in advance

G_M

newbieboy wrote: »

The solicitor asked us to "quickly read and sign" and wanted the documents in the post the same/next day to enable us to exchange contracts (conditionally) and pay them the 10% of the house price deposit.

There is no such thing. Either you Exchange Contracts, or you don't.

It was also noted that the solicitors didn't seem to be acting in our best interests

Let me guess. The solicitor was recommended by the seller ("because it's quicker')?

If so, you must be mad!

is there ever any movement or removal of covenants on a development if requested?

Yes, sometimes. You'll never know if you don't instruct your solicitor to ask.

Some of the covenants are incredibly restrictive and other seems outright stupid,

If you told us what the covenants required or prohibited, we could comment better.

A friend (a solicitor in this field) wrote an essay ...

Why not ask a professsional these questions, eg 'a solicitor in this field' rather than amateurs you know nothing about - like me?

PasturesNew

New build houses can have a raft of restrictive covenants. It might be possible to remove one, but it'd be complex. Did the developer put it there? Or is it part of the planning permission?

What sort of restrictions do you have an issue with?

If an estate has rules and then people turn up and break those rules it is annoying to those people who liked those rules. e.g. not parking a commercial vehicle in your parking spot or outside your house .... is annoying for neighbours if you turn up with your tatty works van and park it there every night/weekend when it clearly says you can't.

Not being allowed a shed is common - developers tend to shove this in while they're still building and want the estate to "look nice".... once they've finished if you stick a shed up nobody will probably say a thing, unless it's a whole pigeon loft you put in.

So what issues do you have?

robatwork

PasturesNew wrote: »

Not being allowed a shed is common - developers tend to shove this in while they're still building and want the estate to "look nice".... once they've finished if you stick a shed up nobody will probably say a thing, unless it's a whole pigeon loft you put in.

Exactly this. Your covenants may stop you doing an Irish Step Dance in front of your house dressed in a Hawaiian shirt during the hours of 1300-1445 but in reality if you did it, who would actually take action against you? Neighbours? House developer?

Lots of covenants are broken on new estates all the time, mostly with the (tacit or actual) agreement of the residents. Some of them may be sensible - regarding front fences for example where one resident decides he wants to live in Fort Knox and ruin the look of the street.

I would sack your solicitor and employ your friend, and answer Pastures' questions

[Deleted User]

PasturesNew wrote: »

Did the developer put it there? Or is it part of the planning permission?

What sort of restrictions do you have an issue with?

So the following are the issues with the covenant we have, whether they are developer led or planning permission led im not sure. the extent of our correspondence with our solicitor has been tiny, we have literally received a pack of contracts to sign (which were very late) with a two page cover letter with no useful breakdown or explanations.

The restrictions we have issue with are;

Installation of a Satellite dish is prohibited on the front of the property. However the only place we could place a satellite dish to get a signal for TV and Internet is on the front of the house (line of sight and direction of the target satellite). Effectively meaning we couldn't get Freesat/Internet.

Maximum of two domestic pets of any sort in the house.

Consenting to be a member of a management company and abiding by those rules. But we have no further information on what this entails, the management company aren't named either.

Paying any bill we are given on demand for any issue for shared services - we are paying a management fee every year and they "don't have" any plans for the shared services, (Drains etc). So we don't know what these are, if they go onto our property etc. There also seems to be no guidelines or structure on how this is managed to prevent big bills being put on us.

We also have a issue in the Japanese Knotweed was found on the site, it has been cleaned up apparently but we aren't going to be provided with a copy of the warranty/insurances for the work. There is also only one single line in a cover letter for the contract mentioning this, which concerned us as we know it can impact our mortgage.
The company that did the work also seems to have been created when the site started being built, and then dissolved a few months later once that bit of work was completed. The documents also reference a disc of information extensively, but we haven't been provided with this or the content appropriate to the contract.

We have asked these and a significant number more questions to our "proper" solicitor, however our faith in them to act in our best interests is increasingly reducing. We would jump to our proper solicitor, however a) we don't want to put them in an awkward position if anything goes wrong and b) they are extremely expensive and there company doesn't allow them to offer "mates rates" so they are doing bits for us for free as a favour but we are wary of putting them in an awkward position.

martinthebandit

I would be buying somewhere else, the bit about 'management company' would be enough to make me look elsewhere.

[Deleted User]

G_M wrote: »

There is no such thing. Either you Exchange Contracts, or you don't.

Let me guess. The solicitor was recommended by the seller ("because it's quicker')?

That they were, they (developer) are also covering the cost of the solicitors fees as one of the perks... we were wary but also know that legally they should work for us not the developer.

We would instantly move to another solicitor but we would now be looking at a significant cost of doing so (in the thousands) due to what work has been (albeit poorly) carried out, which is why we are looking to establish what should happen from people who may have been through this/know. :-)

moneyistooshorttomention

Whew - I can see a problem in selling the house on in the future with those there.

Item 1 - the satellite dishes = fair enough and I'd be thinking "Good - it's not as if anyone needs them anyway". So I can't see that bothering many/if any people.

Item 2 - maximum number of pets. That wouldnt bother me personally - but it does strike me as unreasonable and it's not as if many people would want to have hordes of pets. Most would be fine with 0, 1 or 2. But there will be the occasional person, I guess, with say 3 or 4 (rather than hordes of them).

Issue 3 - yep...I would want to know exactly what was what re charges and so would the vast majority of people.

Issue 4 - not being given full details of the JK treatment = very very unreasonable of them not to tell you everything about this. Distinctly suspicious to set up a company just for a few months to deal with it - and just how is a company that no longer exists supposed to come back again once a year for another couple of years in order to complete the treatment programme? I believe it's a 3-5 year treatment programme - and not just a one-off thing.

I would want issues 3 and 4 resolved without fail - or I wouldnt be interested in the house and I'm guessing that applies to most people.

You have 2 choices here as I see it:
- get independent legal advice as to what (if anything) could be done about the unreasonable ones of the clauses

OR

- forget that house and choose another instead (yep....and waste your time and fees to date unfortunately:(:mad::().

NeilCr

Could you not have the dish on a pole at the back of the house?. My Sky dish is fixed like that and works brilliantly

The pet one is unusual but I can, sort of, see the reasoning. I am a director of an estate and we are lenient with the "no pets" rule in flats but we did draw the line at someone who wanted two dogs and a cat in a flat with no direct access to the outside. Problem with some covenants is it's okay if they are breached by a little but that can lead to people breaching a lot. So, in your instance, three cats may be okay but seven large dogs may not be

I agree with the previous poster about 3 and 4. I'd want more information for sure

I think I'd be surprised if you got the dish and pets covenants taken away as they are going to effect other people. Some may already have purchased who are more than happy with them. In my experience folks can be highly selective about covenants. They'll break ones they don't like but can go mad if someone else breaks one they agree with!

robatwork

Faced with those covenants, the first 2 of which are reasonable and will almost certainly get broken in any case, I would want my solicitor to draw up a new list without 3 and 4 which aren't in any way reasonable.

You can then send that back and it's up to the developer if he accepts your revised covenants.

If your solicitor won't do it or developer won't budge then you're at an impasse, and one of you will have to budge or withdraw.

[Deleted User]

So we like to think that we are fairly reasonable.

The issue we have is that with regards to the sky dish, the proposed internet via landline is up to 2Meg. So the only real way to get remotely usable internet is via satellite (which is what the developer is using as they couldn't get a good enough line in).

The pet one is strange because we understand it from a certain angle, you don't want breeders and masses of pets everywhere, but some of the other covenants would apply in those circumstances. Blanket banning more than 2 pets seems excessive and against the spirit of having covenants to protect the value of the property/land.

This isn't a flat either, this is a four bedroom detached house on freehold that is £300k plus, so we also do want to protect our investment and purchase, but as highlighted our concern moves to actually selling the house on with these covenants applicable.

There are some others like not allowed a shed, we cant build any walls on our land, put up any fences which we have asked for more clarification on and less ambiguity.

As it stands we are going to lose a good chunk of money and a house that we love, but as mentioned above the risk is too great if things go wrong and if we can't sell the property. We know we were the first to buy on the development and they have only just sold the first four houses. We know they haven't been selling as quickly as they thought either and we think there is a degree of some of these issues (like the internet) putting people off.

I don't think we are being unreasonable, we just get wary when there are so many unknowns that could cost us a fortune in the future or make it extremely hard for us to sell if we needed/wanted to.