House Covenant

JayG81

Hi all, 

i am in the process of purchasing a house (freehold) which has the following covenant:  

“No further building or structure of any kind shall be erected on the property nor shall the dwellinghouse be extended or altered in anyway without first submitting to the Company detailed plans and obtaining approval….”

I understand the bits about no further building and no extension etc. But when it mentions alterations, how would you interpret that? 

I’m interpreting it as things like knocking walls through, removing parts of the building etc.. which I have no intention of doing. 

What about for example if you wanted to change the laminate flooring to carpet?  

My apologise if this is a stupid question but I’ve never come across this before.

Many thanks

lincroft1710

It is rather ridiculously vague as redecorating a room could be classed as an alteration or fitting new taps. How old is the house and who are the "Company".

JayG81

The house was built around 1990-1995 and the Company is fairclough homes who are still in existence 

TripleH

We looked at a property which, in the leasehold, stated you couldn't change the colour of the walls without leaseholder consent or hang flags up in the flat.

user1977

From the context I would view it as meaning material external alterations. What does your solicitor think?

lincroft1710

As the house is around 30 yrs old I doubt if Fairclough would be interested unless they make a charge for approving alterations. Have a look round the estate do other houses appear to have alterations?

JayG81

lincroft1710 said:

As the house is around 30 yrs old I doubt if Fairclough would be interested unless they make a charge for approving alterations. Have a look round the estate do other houses appear to have alterations?

 Not that I could see. I’m not fussed about external alterations to the actual building or anything like that, as I have no intention to. It was internal things, like changing laminate flooring to carpets. I wouldn’t want to knock down any walls or anything like that 

user1977

I've never seen somebody argue that such conditions cover changing the floor coverings in a house. If they wanted to control that for some bizarre reason, they'd have to be more explicit about it.

Gavin83

I would also take that to mean external changes. They won't care what you do internally. To be entirely honest given the period of time since construction I doubt they'd really care if you did anything external either but you would at least need to seek permission for this.

lincroft1710

As others have said, the covenant most probably relates to external alterations, but the wording is not clear and a pedant could even argue that external alterations include new windows or rainwater goods, which are often just normal maintenance. Even if by some stretch of the imagination it did include internal alterations, who is going to know if internal alterations are carried out? 


What does your solicitor say about it?

JayG81

lincroft1710 said:

As others have said, the covenant most probably relates to external alterations, but the wording is not clear and a pedant could even argue that external alterations include new windows or rainwater goods, which are often just normal maintenance. Even if by some stretch of the imagination it did include internal alterations, who is going to know if internal alterations are carried out? 


What does your solicitor say about it?

Cheers for your reply and everyone else who replied. 

I’m currently waiting on a response to my query from my solicitor to get her interpretation of it.