Process to remove a Restrictive Covenant owned by a dissolved company.

deol

Dear Members,
I am in a process of buying a house(freehold). My conveyancer shared the title transfer document and in that document, there is an old covenant from the 1930s. This restrictive covenant which prohibits me from following.

• No House or Building shall be erected on the said land plot of land of less than the value of £550.
• No more than one house shall be erected on the said plot of land and no flats, factories or any building other than a private dwelling house shall be erected on the said plot of land.
• No Bricks or ties shall be made or burn upon, nor shall any earth, chalk, flints, clay gravel or sand be dug or removed from the land except as what may be necessary for excavating for foundations of buildings.
• The building should not be be used for any other purpose except for a private dwelling house.
• The purchaser and his successors in title shall keep every part of the premises not build upon as a private, ornamental or kitchen garden or pleasure ground.
• No temporary buildings of any kind shall at any time be erected on the said plot of land other than sheds and workshops used only for works incidental to the erection of permanent buildings and no hoarding for advertisements shall be erected on the said plot of the land.
• The purchaser shall not become entitled to any right of light or air which would restrict or interfere with the free use of any adjoining or neighbouring land or premises for building or other purposes.

This covenant is owned by a company which is dissolved now. 
Can anyone recommend a way to remove this covenant while buying the house and how much will that likely to cost me? 

GDB2222

Which of those covenants bothers you? Are you planning on going into the brick-making business, for example?

Seriously, especially if the company has been dissolved, those covenants are of no importance.

princeofpounds

If the company has been dissolved, then all its assets (i.e. these covenants) likely rest with the Crown under the Bona Vacantia rules.

The Bona Vacantia department do not enforce covenants, so there shouldn't be anything to worry about.

deol

GDB2222 said:

Which of those covenants bothers you? Are you planning on going into the brick-making business, for example?

Seriously, especially if the company has been dissolved, those covenants are of no importance.

Thank you for your response. I am thinking of building a garden room and My wife would like to use a room of the house a charity office. Which I think is against these covenants. 

deol

princeofpounds said:

If the company has been dissolved, then all its assets (i.e. these covenants) likely rest with the Crown under the Bona Vacantia rules.

The Bona Vacantia department do not enforce covenants, so there shouldn't be anything to worry about.

Thank you for your response. Just for the context, these covents are owned by "Metropolitan Railway Country Estates Limited" which was dissolved in 1933. Given in title it's not mentioned that successor if any for the MRCE would enforce these so I think now these covenants are obsolete. can I request them to be removed?  If so do you know if hat's going to cost a lot of money or it will be a straightforward process?

davidmcn

Has your solicitor suggested that the covenants are enforceable or anything for you to be worried about?

deol

davidmcn said:

Has your solicitor suggested that the covenants are enforceable or anything for you to be worried about?

My solicitor is not very responsive, I requested him to explain to me the impact of this, but he has yet to respond to my query, so I decide to seek some information here.

GDB2222

As the company was dissolved, it's possible that the rights of the owner of the covenant were transferred to another company, and they could have been transferred on numerous times. There's no knowing for sure. Far more likely, they became bona vacantia, but nobody informed the relevant department. In short, almost certainly nobody can prove ownership of the covenants, so nobody (not even the crown) can enforce them. 

In any case, the covenants were put in place when the area was being developed, for the benefit of the developer. That was so nobody stuck a brick works, for example, in the middle of their new housing development. Now, 80 years after the houses have all been sold off, nobody has any incentive to police the covenants. 

You should definitely wait for advice from your solicitor, but don't lose any sleep about it in the meantime. Do all your thinking on the basis that the covenants don't exist.

As to your two proposed uses, you'd be far better employed worrying about planning regs.

In theory, you'd need planning permission to start using part of the house as an office. In practice, there's absolutely no need if your wife is just doing some admin from home. It becomes trickier if there's going to be a stream of visitors to the house because of the office.

A garden room may need planning permission - it depends on how big it is.