Restrictive Covenants

Bwwyn

Hi all,

I'm new to the forum so hope you don't mind me asking for advice. My partner and I are novice home buyers and are in the process of buying a newly developed cottage which is on an area of land shared by another cottage. The sale has been going pretty smoothly up until now but today we were sent some documents which outlined a number of restrictive covenants. Some sound reasonable, I suppose, but others are quite concerning for us. Two in particular are that we are not allowed pets and are not allowed to remove any plants from our front garden, nor put up any fencing or plant anything else in the garden.

I was wondering if anyone had any experience or knowledge around purchasing a property with restrictive covenants. These could potentially be deal breakers for us. What happens if you ignore the restrictive covenant? Are they really enforceable? And how easy is it to challenge them or make alterations? It might be worth mentioning that one developer owns both the properties and I imagine, set the restrictions.

Thanks in advance for reading.

davidmcn

Speak to your solicitor. Assuming this is a one-off development it's quite likely that the seller hasn't actually put any thought into the covenants, and their solicitor has just picked a standard document off the shelf to use. Could well be negotiable (unlike a big housing estate where everyone is stuck with the same conditions).

Bwwyn

Hi, thanks so much. Really useful suggestion. There are just the two properties and the other has yet to be sold so I was wondering if they could have put in the one about changing the garden to keep it looking uniform and neat whilst the other is on the market. I'll definitely go back to my solicitor and see if we can negotiate some of these points.

middleclassbutpoor

I have had some experience of these which unfortunately ended up in us pulling out of a sale.

Speak to your solicitor to ensure you understand them.

The restrictive covenants will be there to ensure to protect your neighbour.

Not being able to have a pet for example - maybe the neighbour wants to avoid cats coming into their garden or dogs barking loudly etc.

Personally that covenant may turn off a lot of people if they already have pets. It therefore restricts who you can sell it to in the future.

What if you want to 'develop' your garden - some nicer plants/trees/shrubs etc. Sounds like you can't do that. Even if you don't think you will do it - if its a nice garden, it may attract buyers in the future who see this as an opportunity and are turned off by this.

Basically - You need to consider these covenants from a resale perspective.

If you feel as though you will want to remove/change these - expect cost and engage with the owner of the covenant before you get too far into the process because you will soon get a feel for how 'nice' a neighbour they are going to be.

Finally - you will get covenants on new builds - no parking of vans, no sky dishes on the front etc... Once the developer has gone, most people just do what they want anyway. When it's like your situation, I don't think there will be much getting away with anything - they will be all over you when you breach and before you know it, you are in a dispute or have ill feeling between you and them.

Think long and hard.

Bwwyn

davidmcn wrote: »

Speak to your solicitor. Assuming this is a one-off development it's quite likely that the seller hasn't actually put any thought into the covenants, and their solicitor has just picked a standard document off the shelf to use. Could well be negotiable (unlike a big housing estate where everyone is stuck with the same conditions).

Thanks for your response. Luckily the developer doesn't live in the other property and it is on the market. So I suppose what you're suggesting could be that once it's sold and they're not involved anymore we could possibly get away with ignoring? I don't see why he'd care at that point...

middleclassbutpoor

It may be worth looking at who owns the covenants and whether your neighbour also has the same ones.

Im not sure if you mean newly developed as in new build or a renovated cottage which has been standing for some time. If it's the latter then those covenants may have been in place before the renovation.

You need to know who has placed the covenants on the property and whether your neighbour is going to have any 'motivation' to make your life difficult if you breach the covenants.

Davesnave

These sound more restrictive than the covenants normally applied to new builds.

As above, it could just be the developer attempting to maintain control till both properties are sold, rather than a long term thing, but I'd want to know much more, and to negotiate a time limit if that was the case.

Otherwise, I'd walk. There's plenty of property without such draconian restrictions, enforceable or not.

Bwwyn

Thanks for your response. The property has been re-developed and were previously commercial. Although, as I understand, sat empty for some years inbetween. Therefore I think it is most likely that these restrictions were put forward by the developer. Hopefully this means there must be some negotiating room? Perhaps once the other property sells?

quotememiserable

Yes, talk to him now, but I don't think he'll give a damn what happens once they're both sold.

Tom99

Do the two cottages actually share any land?
If not the a restriction on planting in your own garden would seem OTT.

Bwwyn

They are attached on one side but have separate garden areas which are fenced off from one another. I agree, given how long we plan to live there it seems mad we couldn't change the garden.