Works completed that look to have breached restrictive covenant

Section62

simon_or said:

Gezmc1 said:

Good afternoon,

I was hoping for some guidance on the following situation please. My son bought a property and has renovated this, converting the garage into a liveable bedroom (done to regs and planning - as in a Conservation area). He wanted to check something to do with his assigned car parking space, but whilst checking the title register he found the following: "not to build or permit to build on the property or make any alterations or additions affecting the structure construction or external appearance of any buildings or boundary walls which shall at anytime be erected on the property....without explicit consent of the company and the local planning authority."

The covenant is from 1989 and I can't find any trace of said company or the directors who signed the covenant. 

He spoke with his original solicitor who confirmed this has breached the covenant. Is this anything he needs to worry about? Or anything he should now do as a result of the breach?

Many thanks in advance.

You'd have to have a seriously disgruntled neighbour to kick up a fuss about an internal garage conversion.

Have a walkabout the estate and check if you can spot any other garage conversions, I'd be surprised if there were none at all for a well established estate.

If "He wanted to check something to do with his assigned car parking space..." is an indication the parking in the development is severely restricted, that might be the thing which causes a neighbour to get seriously disgruntled that someone has converted their garage parking space into an extra bedroom.

That doesn't mean the disgruntled neighbour necessarily has any sway, but parking stress is one of the things with the ability to turn friendly neighbours into sworn enemies.

Gezmc1

Thank you for all your replies, very much appreciated. 

The parking in the development is restricted, that is correct. Two of the six properties, don't actually have allocated spaces. My son's has one allocated space.

None of the 5 other neighbours garages has been converted.

With all this in mind, I will definitely tell him to keep his head down and remain friendly with the neighbours.

ABFG

Not a lawyer but my understanding is that if a covenant specifies that permission is required from a specific company/person to do something and that company/person no longer exists, that the covenant is discharged but it depends on exact wording. (See here for link https://parissmith.co.uk/blog/restrictive-covenants-whose-consent-is-needed/).

No idea on the part about the PD and local authority.