Ex Council House covenants

Jacquelyne

Hi everyone, we are hoping to exchange on our house any day now, however I have only just received a copy the covenants from my solicitor. Everything seems fine except for one which I'm not sure if I should be concerned about. It reads as follows -


To pay on demand to the Transferor a fair proportion of the costs of –
a) Laying, inspecting, repairing, maintaining, insuring, renewing and adding to the conducting media use of which is common to the property and adjoining or neighbouring premises and constructing and installing new media for use in common between the property and adjoining or neighbouring properties.
b) management and maintenance of the communal amenity areas and facilities, footpaths and car parking areas on the housing estate on which the property is situate including in particular but without prejudice to the generality of the foregoing grass-cutting, removal of abandoned vehicles, repair and renewal of playground equipment and fencing, lighting, resurfacing, gardening, provision of trees and plants and public liability insurance.


As I understand it, this means that if required, the council can bill us for a proportion of the costs to resurface the road, maintain the estate, clear up rubbish, repair utilities etc. Is this correct? And if so, is this something we should be concerned about if it means we could potentially receive a large bill in the future to pay for the whole estate to be resurfaced? A lot of the houses on the estate are now privately owned and so I assume that the same covenant applies to them as well.


I have asked my solicitor for clarification on this, but he has been painfully slow at coming back to me and I thought I might get a more helpful and quicker response by asking on here.

davidmcn

Are the roads/footpaths adopted as public highways? If so then maintenance is done by the council via their roads budget, you won't be sent a bill. But more likely is that if you have a shared path e.g. leading to your house and next door, that's going to be private with the bills split between the two properties. Similarly with service media, the mains services down the road are (almost certainly) not for you to maintain, but you might have pipes etc shared with your immediate neighbours which could be joint responsibility.

MEM62

It means that you are open to the cost of any works that the Council deem necessary. You will have no say in them matter and council's plough their own furrow in this respect. Costs can be significant and many owning ex-council houses have faced crippling bills.

Here is just one story. There are others.

https://www.theguardian.com/money/2017/jul/31/owners-ex-local-authority-homes-bills-thousands

Tread carefully.

Jacquelyne

Our house is mid terraced and we do have a right of access through our neighbours side way and across their garden (their house is also privately owned). There is a separate covenant that relates to the side access way and states that we should contribute to the costs and maintenance of the side way/access way if asked to. My solicitor picked up on this point and queried it with the buyers solicitors. The sellers confirmed that in in their 8 years of ownership, they have never been called on to contribute to any shared areas.


I'll have to check about the status of the road and pathways.

[Deleted User]

Above link refers to reburbishment costs of flats, not the same thing as roads around houses.

MEM62

deannatrois wrote: »

Above link refers to reburbishment costs of flats, not the same thing as roads around houses.

But the principle still follows, the council can spend whatever they like on maintain these communal areas and the OP will have to pick up their share of the bill.

James_Green_1982

I was looking through the local planning applications last night.
My search was related to business use, but I noticed quite a few applications for a council / ex-council estate nearby.
There were plenty of applications where the council had stated the applicant's plans were within permitted development rights. Even though all these houses were sold with RCs that would appear to remove permitted development (ie make alterations more onerous).

So basically the council were either ignoring, or not aware of, the RCs they themselves had put in place!

davidmcn

James_Green_1982 wrote: »

I was looking through the local planning applications last night.
My search was related to business use, but I noticed quite a few applications for a council / ex-council estate nearby.
There were plenty of applications where the council had stated the applicant's plans were within permitted development rights. Even though all these houses were sold with RCs that would appear to remove permitted development (ie make alterations more onerous).

So basically the council were either ignoring, or not aware of, the RCs they themselves had put in place!

Permitted development rights for planning purposes, and restrictive covenants, are entirely separate concepts (even where it's the same council who can enforce them both). Getting planning doesn't mean you don't still have to deal with consents required under your title.

James_Green_1982

davidmcn wrote: »

Permitted development rights for planning purposes, and restrictive covenants, are entirely separate concepts (even where it's the same council who can enforce them both). Getting planning doesn't mean you don't still have to deal with consents required under your title.

But if the RC states no extensions or rendering etc, how can a home owner exercise their permitted development rights to extend?

Jacquelyne

Our covenant states that we have to obtain permission from the council if we want to make alterations to the home but that is different from a planning application. Assuming permission was granted and we wanted to build a permitted development, we could go ahead without having to apply for any additional planning permission.

davidmcn

James_Green_1982 wrote: »

But if the RC states no extensions or rendering etc, how can a home owner exercise their permitted development rights to extend?

By getting consent in relation to the RC.