covenant and commercial van

AdrianC

princeofpounds said:

General question here - is such a covenant really that enforceable?

The management company would have to go to court to actually do anything. There is no financial loss so monetary compensation seems unlikely. They could apply for injunctive relief but would it be proportionate and just for a court to award that? 

On the other hand I know that courts do not like wilful breaches of covenants (seeing it as a violation of property law). Would the real penalty be a potential costs award in favour of the management company?

Just wondering if anyone knows of any case law or similar examples here.

Who fancies facing the legal bill and uncertainty, in order to be part of the precedent...?

It's also not quite as clear-cut and binary as "car good, van bad". 
Let's say that two adjoining properties both have something like a Citroen Berlingo. One is a plain, unsignwritten van. The other is a Multispace people-carrier. Same size - no windows for a van, full-length windows for an MPV, maybe just door window for a crew van...?


Now let's say that a third neighbour drives a signwritten van this size...
Maybe it's also a "crew van", like this one, so has two rows of seats...
And, yes, a van this size could still be 3.5t, so still driveable on a normal car licence...

Would you regard them with the same degree of ambivalence or concern...?

Certainly one approach available to the OP is to do nothing until the court summons arrives. Not saying that's a good approach - personally if I committed to not park commercial vehicles, I wouldn't park commercial vehicles out of respect to my neighbours. But I'm curious on this issue of enforceability given it comes up from time to time on the board.

As you say, even ignoring the van itself, there's two sides to the issue.

There's the absolute letter-of-the-law enforceability and how far the management company are willing to go...
...then there's the fact you have to live alongside these people, all of whom bought their property in the knowledge (and quite probably belief and expectation) that vans would not be parked there.

Just the same as the OP bought the place in the knowledge that the covenant specified that... or should have done, since the information was available pre-purchase.

princeofpounds

AdrianC said:

I take your points Adrian, but I tried to separate my query from the specific circumstances of the OP and make it clear that it's not a course of action I would follow, despite raising it as a hypothetical.

But I actually think it would be really useful to understand more about the case law on covenants. We get questions about them all the time on here, and I think they are often given a rather broadbrush approach. To stereotype:

- Covenant saying householder cannot build an extension, extension exists. 'It's fine, get an indemnity policy, no-one's ever going to enforce it, developer won't care as they are off-site etc.'

- Covenant saying householder can't park commercial vehicle, vehicle is parked. 'Why would you even consider doing this? It's a clear covenant, inconsiderate to neighbours etc.'

OK, in those common and admittedly crude examples there is one obvious practical difference in that the extension has presumably been in place without opposition for more than a year, which can form part of a defence against enforcement, and an indemnity is possible. But that's not always a distinction that exists.

I often don't think we really get to the root of the matter on the enforceability of covenants, so I'm trying to prompt to see if anyone has that knowledge.

AdrianC

Oh, indeed - I think we're agreeing vehemently...

I'm merely illustrating why simple "case law" isn't that black and white, and why there's very unlikely to be anything forming a valid legal precedent.

princeofpounds

AdrianC said:

Oh, indeed - I think we're agreeing vehemently...

I'm merely illustrating why simple "case law" isn't that black and white, and why there's very unlikely to be anything forming a valid legal precedent.

Gotcha, makes more sense when read in that context.

Soot2006

OP, can you park it on the public road? That's what I did with my horsebox (3.5t but looks big) which had been previously nicely tucked away against my garage wall and screened by a hedge, not bothering anyone.  I then legally parked it in front of the neighbour who started off the complaint. Funnily enough, when I moved it back out of the way onto my driveway a few weeks later, I never heard a peep from anyone. 

MEM62

peppapig14 said:

I understand what you are saying but it is our private car in the sense we only have that for both work and personal use

No it is not, in any sense.  Whether it is a car or van is decided by the type of vehicle - not what you use it for.  The lease does not have to give an exhaustive list of what vehicles are prohibited.  It states that private cars are allowed and anything other than that may be considered as not permitted.   

ProDave

Genuine off the cuff question.

The covenant says you may only park a private car in the parking spaces.

What does it say about other parts of your property?  e.g. what would happen if you parked the van on your front lawn?  anything to say you can't do that?

davidmcn

ProDave said:

The covenant says you may only park a private car in the parking spaces.

What does it say about other parts of your property?  e.g. what would happen if you parked the van on your front lawn?  anything to say you can't do that?

Assuming the OP even has a front lawn, I would expect there to be covenants restricting what you can do with it.

Alan2020

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/car-derived-vans-and-dual-purpose-vehicles/car-derived-vans-and-dual-purpose-vehicles

Morrigan_2020

These new build covenants are so snobby, we need to get a grip on this before we end up with US style HOAs dictating what plants people can grow and how many garden gnomes they're allowed.