The only people who can 'enforce' a covenant are the ones who put it there in the first place. :wink:

tony

 

Paul and Ann,

You may get a few opinions on here but without a full set of facts and a copy of the actual wording of the Covenant and the registered title it relates to, I don't think you can expect anything that your friends can safely rely on in their defence.

It's also a difficult area because as far as I am aware there hasn't been a test case yet on whether the definition of "caravan" in the Caravan Sites and Control of Development Act 1960 actually applies to the typical restrictive covenenant of this sort because in practice they seldom refer to a motorhome or motor caravan as such.

Their best bet is to consult a local solicitor. It will cost, but that's cheaper than ending up with a Court order to pay the Claimant's costs.


SD

 

A covenants that has been put in a legal documents, whether eduring or not is there for a reason. It is irrelevent if the original covenant owner is no longer trading, the benefit of such a covenant is still enforceable. In my opinion, if there is a covenant that clearly states motor car or small van, then this definitely does not allow for the parking of a motorhome.

With regard to taking your friends to Court, this would prove to be a long and very drawn out affair, and could become very costly.

The arguement that your friends could have, being as that the motorhome in question is only 16 x 6 surely, this is no bigger than a commercial van. Are there any commercial vans parked on the estate. If your friend decides to pursue and not remove the motorhome then he should look around the estate at all the vehicles that are parked to support his arguement.

If it were me, I would definitely remove the vehicle.

Jenny

 

Get some vinyl trade name and stick it on darkened windows. How about Sew n' Sew van furnishings. :lol:

 

Might I suggest you produce the full wording of the covenant and then post your question on the MottleyFool Legal Board crossed posted to their Property Board which is frequented by solicitors and property experts who often provide helpful advice. The wording of the covenant is vital here.

As a general comment Covenants are not always what they seem and not all are enforceable. Normally its the person who imposed the covenant ( the builder) who is the enforcer but as a general principle a covenant CAN be enforced by the courts if a beneficiary (the neighbour) of the covenant objects. The agreement is enforced by granting an injunction forbidding the landowner to break the agreement.

Its an expensive and complex process if the neighbour wishes to go down that route but if you lose you will be liable for his costs as well as your own.

 

In my humble opinion, the solicitor is not at liberty to enforce a covenant until the "offence" is proven by an independent court. To me , you are being bullied and I would stay calm and friendly and explain that you did not realise that the covenant was being broken.
Ask them how they have reached this presumption,and explain that your vehicle could actually be defined as a caravan and is therefore not a vehicle. Also, you may also wish to mention that you can legally park it on the public highway in front of your property.
I would ignore the month ruling as they cannot enforce that either- maybe mention it in your reply.

 

I am surprised that the neigbours did not call round and have a friendly chat rather than get a solicitor to write a letter.why is that.
Your friends must have known about the covenant when they bought the property.
I rather like the idea of company stickers on the cab doors,which you take off when you get down the road. making it a commercial vehicle idea.
What about them buying a cover for it. I would strongly suggest inviting as many neighbours as possible round for a G &T and say you missunderstood, ask if having a profesional fitted cover would be ok.
try to work it out between you rather than conflict via a solicitor.

cabby

 

May I also suggest the local Citizens advice bureau.

 

Park your vehicle outside their house, on the road. As long as it is taxed and insured you can park it on any highway. If asked state that until the question of the covenant is sorted out you will not park it on your drive as you do not want to inflame the situation.

?????

 

The law relating to restrictive covenants is complex. The only people who could enforce this particular covenant would be the builder who imposed the covenant or a neighbour who had the benefit of the covenant. They could only fall into this category if they were the first owners of their property AND they bought their property before your friend. If either of these conditions is not satisfied then they could not enforce the covenant.

I would be pretty sure that the neighbours have been to see their solicitor and he has agreed to send a "frightener".

 

Frteigtner

I agree with the last poster, letter is intending to be intimidating, frightening or similar.

Most people are very scared of letters from Solicitors. I for one am not. I had one from my Neighbours Solicitor and I, in very polite and long worded english told them where to go. I also tripped the solicitor and my neighbours up which I think, was rather embarrassing for them.

The only thing you have to be very careful of is to get your facts right and be extremely careful with your words.

I would be very interested to read the letter that this Solicitor has sent your Friends!.

Do they have legal cover with their home insurer?
Could they build a Garage to house it?
Could they claim the vehicle is a Private Light Goods they use for work?

Some people are just nasty, jealous (green eyed monster) or just far too much time on their hands.

I guess your friends get great enjoyment from their camper and just want to get on with their lives. And with all the troubles, misery and other peoples misfortune in life, there will always be some spiteful, hateful 8astards who want to rain on other peoples parade.

Good luck.

TM

 

The law relating to restrictive covenants is complex. The only people who could enforce this particular covenant would be the builder who imposed the covenant or a neighbour who had the benefit of the covenant. They could only fall into this category if they were the first owners of their property AND they bought their property before your friend. If either of these conditions is not satisfied then they could not enforce the covenant.

It all depends upon the wording in the original Covenant, the Title Deeds and subsequent Sale & Purchase Agreements. In effect when a purchaser signs a contract to purchase a property they are agreeing to abide by the Restrictive Covenants contained in the Contract. The Restrictive Covenant will bind the land owner to its terms unless the clause specifically states a period of time which it is to end, or otherwise. In my last house which was built in the 1930's there was a restrictive covenant by virtue of a "building line" beyond which nothing could be built. I was the 5th owner of the property and the covenant applied to me as much as it did to the people I bought the house from and the people I sold it to.

 

Vans

I think a lot of the Camper/Caravan/Boat/Motorhome covenants are put in to protect the builder. After all, many would be put off buying a house next to a homeowner who has a rotting cruiser and or caravan on the drive next to where there is an empty plot.

Quite often the rest is just pure snobbery/jealousy. My mate moved into a new build in Cheshire. He had a An Audi Q7 and a nice shiny white VW Van. However, the stuck up pillock across the way from him complained to the site office. My mate soon had a letter from the House builders lawyer insisting he removed his commercial vehicle from the estate. He had to go out and buy a VW window van version and ordred it in black. Best part was, the people who complained had two rusty old heaps that looked a bluddy mess.

So with all these new home covenants, where are we all going to park one day?. We cannot buy a new build because they all have the same restrictive covenants on them.

TM

 

Peribro has the answer, covenants run with the land, and yes when you have the property transferred to you, you also sign that you will abide by the covenants. If you do not, you are in breach and Court action could follow. I also believe that the letter your friend has received is what is called "a frightener", whether the neighbour would take any further action remains to be seen, so to speak.

If, as is said, the covenant does not restrict parking of certain vehicles, it states what sort of vehicles ARE ALLOWED TO BE PARKED. Much different from a covenant restricting parking of a certain type of vehicle, which is usually the case. BUT as Westkirkby has pointed out, a motorhome whilst it is covered by the road fund licence, can be parked on any public highway, as long as it is not breaching any parking restrictions, which would be enforceable by the Council/police, so yes, it can quite rightly be parked on the roadside, whether outside your friends own home, or that of their neighbour. Obviously, if the road has yellow lines or parking restrictions this would not be possible, well it would but then your friend would run the risk of getting parking fines.

The covenant was put in the original legal documents, for the enjoyment of what would appear to be a quiet cul de sac of only 14 properties.

Jenny

 

I posted a link to some case law about this on another thread. It related to a case where the original covenant was put in place by the developer but the developer subsequently went out of business.
This particular case related to needing the developers permission to make alterations to the property but the principle in law is there.
As has been said it depends on the exact wording of the covenant but I would not assume that a solicitor understands the issue - I found this out when my daughter was buying a house, her solicitor had to go and read up on this point of law even though he specialises in property law!

Bottom line - look carefully at the deeds and the wording of the original covenant before deciding what to do next

Chris

extract from the legal advice relating to the case:
"If the covenant requires the consent of a company that has been dissolved, what then? The 2004 case of Crest Nicholson Residential (South) Ltd v McAllister, confirms that if a covenant requires the consent of a dissolved company then effectively the covenant is discharged. You can check the current status of any company by having a look at the Companies House website at http://www.companieshouse.gov.uk/ , but it is important to ascertain whether the company has been dissolved or whether just its name has changed."

 

I would consider parking it on the road. Then I would tell all your neighbors that you are sorry that you have to do this because Mr X has complained about it being on your drive.

 

see here

See Here for a good set of replies

 

replies and covenants

More Here

and here

Even more

and another

yet more still

More troublesand yet more

Simply type covenants into the MHF Forum Search

 

The covenants on new build properties that i have purchased in the past have only been enforcable for ten years by the original developer

the last home we had we put a caravan on the drive to the anoyanvce of our neighbour but it was inside the building line and was ok.


Dave p

 

As I understand European law does not define a motorhome as a caravan and you can therefore muddy the waters with definitions

 

I can see both sides to this argument, but not in this particular case, the van in question appears to be shorter than my lwb transit I use for work and I`m sure its a lot prettier, however if I lived on a small cul-de-sac I would`nt be happy if someone parked a mh the size of mine on their driveway.
About 20 years ago, we bought a house on a cul-de-sac, it was new and built to our spec. we bought the largest plot at the bottom
so that we could accomodate all our vehicles on the driveway, all the other purchasers had bungalows built with a single garage and room for just one car on the drive. most of them had 2 or 3 cars and obviously used the garage for their junk etc. parking was a nightmare.
In the next couple of years we are looking at downsizing our house and one of the considerations will be , can we park the mh there?
I`v seem some big mh`s tucked up the side of houses on estates and they look ok but i`ve also seen mh`s, boats and caravans on driveways at the front of houses in full view of all the neighbours, blocking their views etc and they dont.
Also as far as parking it on the road, I`d be careful about that, we used to own a car hire company and on collecting returned cars often had no room at the depot for them, so we would park them up in nice quiet streets, you would`nt believe the number of times the police would call and ask us to move them because someone had complained it was causing an obstruction, they never were but the people always think they own the road outside their own house, and the police hadnt physically checked, but we did always shift them to avoid them being damaged.

 

As I understand European law does not define a motorhome as a caravan and you can therefore muddy the waters with definitions

There's no such thing as European law, only national transposition of EU Directives and Regulations. In the UK, a motorhome is definitely captured by the legal definition of caravan - under section 29 (1) of the Caravan Sites and Control of Development Act 1960 a caravan is defined as

"... any structure designed or adapted for human habitation which is capable of being
moved from one place to another (whether by being towed, or by being transported on
a motor vehicle or trailer) and any motor vehicle so designed or adapted but does not
include:
a) Any railway rolling stock which is for the time being on rails forming part of a railway
system, or

b) Any tent."

The OP's mate needs to see a solicitor regards enforceability of the covenant rather than relying on internet opinions. I'm sure we'd all be interested to hear the outcome.

 

Sounds like

I can see both sides to this argument, but not in this particular case, the van in question appears to be shorter than my lwb transit I use for work and I`m sure its a lot prettier, however if I lived on a small cul-de-sac I would`nt be happy if someone parked a mh the size of mine on their driveway.
About 20 years ago, we bought a house on a cul-de-sac, it was new and built to our spec. we bought the largest plot at the bottom
so that we could accomodate all our vehicles on the driveway, all the other purchasers had bungalows built with a single garage and room for just one car on the drive. most of them had 2 or 3 cars and obviously used the garage for their junk etc. parking was a nightmare.
In the next couple of years we are looking at downsizing our house and one of the considerations will be , can we park the mh there?
I`v seem some big mh`s tucked up the side of houses on estates and they look ok but i`ve also seen mh`s, boats and caravans on driveways at the front of houses in full view of all the neighbours, blocking their views etc and they dont.
Also as far as parking it on the road, I`d be careful about that, we used to own a car hire company and on collecting returned cars often had no room at the depot for them, so we would park them up in nice quiet streets, you would`nt believe the number of times the police would call and ask us to move them because someone had complained it was causing an obstruction, they never were but the people always think they own the road outside their own house, and the police hadnt physically checked, but we did always shift them to avoid them being damaged.

That sounds just like the situation we have.

We have a large plot, lots of parking and we almost always park everything on our property.

But, the parking situation for the bungalows that surround us can be a bit tricky to say the least.

Very poor planning and arrangements by the house builders.

 

Re: Sounds like

I can see both sides to this
Very poor planning and arrangements by the house builders.

Trevor, it is the local councils who determine how many parking spaces per dwelling based on no of bedrooms etc , they then interpret these numbers/calculations onto their criteria and change the parking layout/plan accordingly, it is not always the builders/developers fault

the problem seems to be that the regulations relating to parking which are enforced by the planners are somewhat out of date, they havnt allowed for 2,3,4 or even 5 car house-holds, plus the likes of us who have m/homes.

it is unfortunate all the same

cheers

 

Is there something peculiarly outstanding about the visibility of Rimor NG5's

http://www.motorhomefacts.com/ftopict-74191-covenants.html

http://www.motorhomefacts.com/ftopict-65440-covenants.html

Or could there be some link between these posts?