Dumb Deeds Question...

Temrael

Hi,

We are due to complete a week today (fingers-crossed). _party_

The company mentioned on the deeds - who sold the house originally (I believe they are legally known as the "Transferor") was dissolved in the 1980s.

My solicitor says that they are the only people who could "police" the restrictive covenants on the deeds. Does this essentially make all restrictive covenants (can't keep chickens, can't put washing out etc.) on the deeds null and void?

For example, it says on the deeds I can't put up aerials etc. but I want Sky installed.

a) From a practical point of view I'm guessing I can do what I like? As no one is about to tell me not to. Is that right? To be clear the house is not listed or in a conservation area or anything like that.

b) Legally how does the law handle situations like this? Where the Transferor is no longer in existence?

Adv-thanks-ance.

Bossyboots

I think you should change the title of this thread because this is far from being a dumb question.

Usually things llike this pass to the "successors in title" but I am not sure that there are any when a company becomes defunct, unless in the breaking up of the partnership those rights are conferred on one of the former directors. I will see if I can get an answer to this next week if no-one else comes up with anything in the meantime.

In reality though restrictive covenants seem to be something to largely be ignored. The terrace in which we live and the identical block opposite have a footpath through the top which is for the use of all the owners in each terrace. We have all fenced them off and so far no-one has raised an issue. It is an entirely useless covenant and no-one understands why it should have been put in place.

Temrael

Thanks for the reply.

I'm hoping the title of this thread will get people to read the post to see just how dumb my question is. Anything to get a few more reads/opinions.

It does seem as you say to be a bit of a grey area, many of the restrictive covenants on the properties where I live now are ignored. People flagrantly keep rabbits for example, though the deeds forbid such disgraceful behaviour. Heh.

RiskAdverse100

It is often the case that restrictive covenants of this kind were extremely important to the person or company who originally imposed them but of no use to anyone else.

They are very common in new developments containing houses. In each transfer of a plot the new owners are prevented by the use of restrictive covenants from doing a whole list of things. The reason for this is to prevent houseowners from doing anything that could have an effect on the sale of the other plots. So the developers won't want caravans parked at the front, ugly extensions from being put up and tv aerials or Sky dishes visible from the front as it could put buyers of unsold plots off.

However, once the last plot has been sold and the developers have left town, they couldn't really care less what anyone does. But the restrictive covenants remain in place.

In some developments these covenants can in fact be enforced by one houseowner against another. The covenants have to be worded in a particular way for this to be the result though. What you end up with is called a building scheme.

Where a company has the benefit of covenants that only they can enforce, and the company is dissolved, then the covenants are to all intents and purposes useless and they can be breached without any problems.

To be able to enforce a restrictive covenant you need to own adjacent land that benefits from the covenant. So, even if the company was still in existence, if it did not own any other properties nearby it would be very difficult to prevent you from breaching covenants.

Restrictive covenants which are still enforceable can be removed from the title registers of a property although it can be an extremely expensive procedure.

New developments that comprise a number of separate plots of land will often be subject to old restrictive covenants. Instead of trying to get these removed it is fairly simple to take out restrictive covenant indemnity insurance and the paperwork sent to buyers will include a copy of the developers' insurance policy. This will benefit all individual plots along with future owners and any lenders.

I wouldn't worry!

RiskAdverse100