Caveat on house deeds

charlies_mum

We bought our house new 30 years ago and there were several caveats on the deeds including one regarding no caravans or commercial vehicles.

How do I find out if this still applies please ?

mods, sorry if it’s in the wrong place.  

SDLT_Geek

The house is in England?  You are talking about restrictive covenants?  If so, they are usually permanent, unless the wording of the covenant itself says that it only applies for a period.

charlies_mum

Sorry, yes a covenant.      There is no time limit, but as new people have moved in they are clearly unaware and caravans and commercial vehicles are everywhere.

Silvertabby

It's quite common for builders to apply such covenants to new build estates, but only for X years or until all the houses have been sold.  The reason being that they don't want prospective buyers to be put off by a heap of caravans and work vans.

Is your builder still operating?  If so, then they should be your first point of call.

charlies_mum

Our builder is no longer trading.     We did put our caravan on our drive years ago but were told by the council that we had to move it despite there being others on our estate.

user1977

charlies_mum said:

Our builder is no longer trading.     We did put our caravan on our drive years ago but were told by the council that we had to move it despite there being others on our estate.

On what basis did the council think they had anything to do with it?

charlies_mum

No idea, but we were told we had to move it.   Next door were doing building work so may have been spotted by a council employee or we were reported by a neighbour 

charlies_mum

Just googled and found an article containing this information 

” In reality therefore with building estate covenants when “push comes to shove” it is very often highly questionable whether such covenants are enforceable against individual owners who might seek to breach them.”

looks like we will be saving £700 a year storage and bringing our caravan home.  

AdrianC

charlies_mum said:

Sorry, yes a covenant.      There is no time limit, but as new people have moved in they are clearly unaware and caravans and commercial vehicles are everywhere.

There is a world of difference between "still applying" and "actively being enforced".

If the beneficiary of the covenant chose to enforce it, those residents would be in for a rude awakening.

Unless their solicitors were utterly asleep on the job, you can bet that any homeowners among them are aware, but simply gamble on non-enforcement. That may well be a very safe gamble.

charlies_mum

Wouldn’t the beneficiary of the covenant be the builders who are no longer trading ?     If we were reported by neighbours, my concern is that they may well still be here and could report us again

caravan storage is so hard to find, I don’t want to give it up then be told to move it again.   

Also does the council have the power to enforce the covenant ?

Jeepers_Creepers

Blimey, the council asked you to move your caravan? And you did so, even tho' other folk also had caravans parked on their drives? Is there any way your caravan might have been restricting access in any way? If not, someone was out of order - possibly some jobsworth acting on an irate call from someone else on your estate.

The council will become involved in instances of 'nuisance' or 'EH' such as the burning of waste products, but it sounds like a bit of a stretch in your case!

Anyhoo, as I suspect you are beginning to gather, these 'minor' covenants are often - usually - very hard to enforce. My in-laws moved into a brand new estate 25 years ago which had a covenant about not parking caravans on the front drive. 5 years ago, house next door went up for sale and the prospective buyer came round to check the area, and asked whether they'd be allowed to park their caravan on the drive - they were told 'Non, the covenants disallow it'.

They bought - and then parked their very large 'van on the drive. Quite a few neighbs were annoyed, especially those who had to avoid the slightly-sticky-out hitch. What could they do about it? Next to nothing. Even phoned up LP and they said "It's naughty, to be sure to be sure, but we wouldn't take on a case like this..." In the end, it was peer-pressure from a neighbourhood group which finally made them put it into storage.

So, what can you do about it? Especially if many others are doing the same with their 'vans and comm's? Pretty much next to nothing.

Which is actually probably the 'right' thing, since you, yourself, also used to park yours, and would likely have continued to do so until the council became involved (almost certainly wrongly, funnily enough...)