When we bought our house our attention was drawn to a couple of restrictive covenants, which we were ok with. We now want to extend, and want to re-check the covenants to ensure there's nothing there we're breaching. We don't appear to have the docuemnts in our email chain with our solicitor at the time, so figured we'd just pull them 'fresh'.
I've paid for the £3 deeds from the land reg, but these just confirm that covenants exist, not detail what they are. What do I need to do to find out what is actually in the restrictions? I figure its some form or other I need to fill in. We're in mid sussex, if that makes any difference.
Ours were hand written on bit of scroll-like paper. I doubt it was anywhere digitally and no idea who else has a copy. I'm not especially worried about breaching anything on there, mostly because but the family and big house whose land it's on are all long gone. If it's a more recent estate then it might be more if a concern. I'd speak to the local land registry office. They've been good when I've dealt with them.
This can be a bit difficult. In an ideal world, if they directly impacted your land then they should have been noted on the title register at the Land Registry (i.e. what you refer to as your deeds).
Have you tried contacting your conveyancing solicitor? They should have copies and should be able to provide those to you, if not for free, then for a nominal charge. That's probably the easiest way.
You can do a documents search at the LR - it's a bit fiddly, but you should be able to search for documents held against your title no, and if they're scanned, you can get a copy. These would be things like prior conveyances which would include the relevant covenants (so if your house was on land hived off from another, the vendor could have included covenants against overdevelopment etc in the conveyance).
If that doesn't work, then if the relevant sections aren't on your title register, then it may be worth looking at the title of the property that may have the benefit of those covenants - e.g. if you are at number 5, and number 4 has a right of way across your garden, take a look at the title register of number 4 (or whatever you think the property which may have the benefit of the covenants is/are). You can also do a docs search against those properties too.
If the LR says the docs are held in paper form, you can request copies and they're generally sent out pretty quickly. Every so often there's an issue (for example, they can't locate the doc) and they're pretty helpful on the phone.
thanks for the help. House was built 6 years ago so everything should be digital, and the covenents in question were something like "can't extend into the roof") - because the original house that our street was built in the garden of was a kids home and they didn't want overlooking (fair enough - although our house has no aspect into their land at all - its got another new build between us, the same covenent was applied across all houses in the street). That house has now been converted into flats and the old charity has moved, so the benefactor still exists, but is no longer at the same place.
all the land reg title says is..
This register contains any charges and other matters
that affect the land.
1 (14.10.2014) If insofar as affected thereby the land is subject to the
rights granted by a Deed dated 22 September 2014 made between (1)
Asprey Homes Limited and (2) South Eastern Power Networks Plc.
The said Deed also contains restrictive covenants by the grantor.
NOTE:-Copy filed under xxxxxxx.
2 (06.03.2015) A Transfer of the land in this title dated 26 February
2015 made between (1) xxx Homes Limited (2) xxx Management
Company Limited and (3) Hugh xxxx
contains restrictive covenants.
NOTE: Copy filed.
3 (06.03.2015) The Transfer dated 26 February 2015 referred to above
contains a provision as to the grant of rights in the events therein
mentioned.
it's only number 2 I care about, so they have a copy, I think? I'll ping my old solicitor an email..
Covenant No.2 is where you signed away your soul to the Devil (Developer!) and are now liable to £1m land rent/year for the next 50 years! 🙂
Seriously your conveyancer should have found out what you were signing up to before purchase. I'd go back to them and ask for clarification.
Something that recent shouldn't be hard to track down.
I've just been dealing with one from 1971 for the house we are buying.
Yep, looking at that there should therefore have been a copy of that transfer filed against the title number so should show up in the 'documents' section of the portal.
We had 2 restrictive covenants noted when we bought this place in 96. At the time, the Solicitor, who was useless, and was later convicted of murder, said they are of no relevance to you.
It was only recently, when I got the full title deeds and a pile of paperwork from the Building Society that I actually saw some of the paperwork for them. One was from 1896, but the bit of paper said a record of the restriction was not kept! The second, from when it was built in 58 said the front garden fence must not be above 3 feet high.
No-one would enforce it now.
We cannot make candles or tan leather. I can confirm that the kids have made candles! But our house was built in 1850 so can't imagine anyone will be along to enforce it 😀
We can’t keep chickens, breed dogs, have a caravan on the drive or name our house among other things. No one checks or cares.
An indemnity insurance policy is a couple of hundred quid and covers you to carry on living your life without worrying about it.
Our previous house had one that specified how big your brass plaque could be if you ran a business!
We can't serve the lords supper to anyone not baptised by full emersion, amongst a few other similar things. There's also a few references to things that men can do but women can't
We moved into a new house which has quite a few covenants associated with it. Turns out these are only enforcable as a civil matter. One of covenents we have around the use of the property.
"Not to use the property for any purpose other than as or incidental to one private residential dwelling and nto to use the property for any trade or busines"
turns out the developer has sold one of the properties on our estate to someone that is going to airbnb it. This should be enforced by the management company (which is currently the developer)
This is a fun game! Our old house had clauses ensuring that the farmer could let his cows drink from the spring, dating back to 18-something. When the field was sold to a developer who build some houses on it at no point did anyone think about removing that clause as the spring is on ground that hasn't been built on.
Going through this at the moment (solar panels) so can tell you what the solicitor told me.
The benefit of the covenant stays with the land, so that’s the developer typically until the company is dissolved, at which point it passes to the owners of the new houses collectively. They may not even know about this. None of the owners of a 7-plot development where I’m looking to buy had any idea that there are restrictions on what they can do outside of planning regs.
It can be enforced at their expense through the courts, but is expensive and often likely to fail (although with solar panels there’s some debate about whether it counts as a “reasonable” change). All that can be achieved is a demand to stop doing whatever you’ve done or revert it back, not punitive damages.
If any of your neighbours have breached the covenants themselves, they aren’t going to be able to enforce it. As my solicitor said, the person who’s built an extension is not going to argue about your roof having a black splodge on it.
You can make the changes and provided you don’t receive a written complaint within 12 months you can get a cheap indemnity policy to cover the problem in perpetuity. I think they’re mainly to stop someone making unattractive changes (one of them is genuinely “not to hang washing to dry in view of the road”) while the developers are trying to sell the remaining houses as opposed to genuinely restricting improvements.
Hope this helps someone else.
Sounds like you got the land registry document but not the map which it goes with - normally it’s £3 for each one. Get the map and that should show you if any specific covenants apply to certain areas or the whole area. As has said before there should be more documents on top of that if they have been filed.
I had a 2 up 2 down terrace in Coventry with a small back yard with a covenant forbidding the manufacture of house bricks. Not sure how or where I would have been able to do this.
Sounds like you got the land registry document but not the map which it goes with – normally it’s £3 for each one. Get the map and that should show you if any specific covenants apply to certain areas or the whole area. As has said before there should be more documents on top of that if they have been filed.
The "map" (the title plan) doesn't show what covenants apply - it may, in conjunction with another document such as the transfer, be used to illustrate by reference to coloured areas, what particular covenant applies to where. The title plan itself isn't usually much use other than to indicate the general boundaries of the title.
Also be aware that often the colours on the title plan are not the colours indicated in the document - this is usually noted in the transfer or on the title register where it will say something along the lines of "the area coloured blue may only be used for exercising elephants etc (the area is tinted pink with purple spots on the attached plan)".
I'm thinking about putting a covenant on my garden to try and ensure it doesn't get built on when we sell. Partly to protect the neighbours who we like and would be negatively impacted, and partly just to protect a lovely little bit of land that if built on would be a loss for diversity in the little corner of Sheffield its in.
(We could probably make a fair whack by getting permission and selling it separately ourselves, but its not happening.)
My dad lives in a cottage that was built by a local dairy to house dairymen, their farmers and families in the 19thC . He's not allowed to sell milk at the garden gate apparently
I’m thinking about putting a covenant on my garden to try and ensure it doesn’t get built on when we sell. Partly to protect the neighbours who we like and would be negatively impacted, and partly just to protect a lovely little bit of land that if built on would be a loss for diversity in the little corner of Sheffield its in.
And how do you plan to enforce this covenant?
How will you demonstrate a financial loss if it is broken?
Just keep it and rent it back at a peppercorn rent for perpetuity if its that important to you.
Indiana Jones ?
Ark of the restricted covenants innit?
Still in the big warehouse probably.
Ancient covenants were often made for moral or religious principled reasons. Modern ones are typically to protect the developer against homeowners turning the place into an eyesore before all the houses are sold. After that, there's nobody who has an interest in enforcing them.
