Restrictive covenant on freehold house.

markeeb

Hi all, I'm hoping you can help with something that seems legally tricky.

I live on a small estate in SE London built back in 1997 and is a mixture of leasehold flats and freehold houses. I have one of the latter but I also have this following restrictive covenant in my title deeds;

(22.01.1998) RESTRICTION:-Except under an order of the registrar no
transfer or other dealing with the land in this title by either the
proprietor(s) of the land or any chargee under its power of sale is to
be registered unless a certificate is given by the secretary or
director of the Parkside Place (Beckenham) Management Company Limited
care of Peverel Management Services Limited, 59/61 High Street,
Kingston upon Thames, Surrey KT1 1LQ or their successors in title that
the provisions of clause 15.1 of the Transfer dated 18 December 1997
referred to in the Charges Register have been complied with.

What this means in reality is that the successor (FirstPort) regularly send me bills but I'm wondering where the legal basis for this is? I have signed no contract with them. Any work they do carry out is sub-standard or imaginary, and they have refused to answer any correspondence for over a year now. As you can see there is nothing in that covenant granting them the right to carry out work on my behalf, so how are they able to justify billing me for this?

The second problem with this covenant is that if I don't pay their bills, then come time to sell the house or remortgage and they will not grant the certificate mentioned. This amounts to a form of blackmail over my title deeds effectively to force me paying these unsolicited bills by legal subterfuge. Really doesn't seem right to me.

So, please please please....can anyone shed some light on this as I'm clearly not going to get annywhere with the perps - FirstPort. (rated 0.5 out of 5 on TrustPilot!)

Thank you for any help that I may yet receive!
Mark

Sachs

If you're not happy with first port then you need to speak to the only resident in your estate who is a director of your residents association. Maybe offer to help him run the association, I bet he would be delighted to get some help!

AdrianC

Your house is freehold, but I bet there's something else in the paperwork obliging you to pay a service charge for common areas of the development - that's what the bills are for.

That covenant simply says that the management company need to be involved in any sale - precisely because of liability for that service charge being transferred to the new owner.

Sachs

It doesn't state the management company need to give permission. It states the residents association company needs to give permission, care of the management company. The Mgmt company is just the administrator. If the residents company wanted to it could appoint the OP as it's Mgmt company.

The obligations and responsibilities of each party are presumably detailed in clause 15.1

markeeb

Thanks both...interestingly I don't appear to have a section 15.1 in my deeds (Or indeed any other wording I can find Adrian). ! I have reached out to my original conveyancing solicitor to try and work out this gap but at the moment it's just another puzzle. As is the residents association...I've been here 10 years and don't know who they are. I will keep digging.

AdrianC

markeeb wrote: »

As is the residents association...I've been here 10 years and don't know who they are. I will keep digging.

https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/03416178/officers

Go and ask at number 27.

Sachs

Google the company, click on the companies House link, go to directors, see the guy's name and address, go round and introduce yourself!

Adrian beat me to it!

markeeb

haha...cheers guys! Awesome work...Mr Gandhi will be hearing from me very soon. Thank you both again.