Selling a property - Broken Covenants

[SimonMac]

It seems I should have obtained permission from the council to park a car on the front of the house I’m trying to sell. This has been picked up by the buyers solicitors, how much of a ball-ache will this cause?

[Mordac]

It seems I should have obtained permission from the council to park a car on the front of the house I’m trying to sell. This has been picked up by the buyers solicitors, how much of a ball-ache will this cause?

Quite a biggie if they own a car. When you say "on the front", do you mean "adjacent to the front, on some sort of driveway"?

[SimonMac]

Quite a biggie if they own a car. When you say "on the front", do you mean "adjacent to the front, on some sort of driveway"?

Front garden

[Mordac]

Front garden

So you've tarmacced your front garden in order not to have to pay your local council several hundred quid a year for a parking permit. You can probably see why they're getting sniffy about the planning permission thing. Down my way (SW London) they will now usually refuse, because it's such a nice little earner for them to charge you for the permits, and fine you on a daily basis if they make any sort of mistake. Subsequently, houses with existing OSP now come with a fairly hefty premium.
In short, you're almost certainly buggered.

[SimonMac]

Selling a property - Broken Covenants

So you've tarmacced your front garden in order not to have to pay your local council several hundred quid a year for a parking permit. You can probably see why they're getting sniffy about the planning permission thing. Down my way (SW London) they will now usually refuse, because it's such a nice little earner for them to charge you for the permits, and fine you on a daily basis if they make any sort of mistake. Subsequently, houses with existing OSP now come with a fairly hefty premium.
In short, you're almost certainly buggered.

Close but not quite, paving slabs laid down and kerb dropped (by the local house association who took over the estate as part of a PFI). No parking permits needed.

Hoping to be able to plead ignorance (big shock from me I know) as when I bought the property my solicitors didn’t find the covenant (that in itself begs a question why not), or didn’t make me aware of it

[OwlHoot]

So you've tarmacced your front garden in order not to have to pay your local council several hundred quid a year for a parking permit. You can probably see why they're getting sniffy about the planning permission thing. Down my way (SW London) they will now usually refuse, because it's such a nice little earner for them to charge you for the permits, and fine you on a daily basis if they make any sort of mistake. Subsequently, houses with existing OSP now come with a fairly hefty premium.
In short, you're almost certainly buggered.

Also, if everyone tarmacs their front garden then come the next drop of rain, it all washes down in no time to a lower-lying level, and people start drowning and being flooded out.

I'd ban tarmac in private dwellings, in favour of gravel over earth, or at least some kind of large underground water trap.

[MarillionFan]

You’ll need to take out covenant indemnity insurance to cover it. cost £170

Go and google it

[Whorty]

You’ll need to take out covenant indemnity insurance to cover it. cost £170

Go and google it

This /\

We bought our current place 3 years ago. Covenant said no building on the 2 acre paddock (we've since converted this to a garden). The previous owners lived here from new - about a year into their living here they applied to the council for planning permission to dig a lake. Council gave permission and we have all this paperwork. However, planning permission and covenants are completely separate so the previous owners, despite having planning technically broke the covenant.

Our solicitor picked this up but as MF said, a simple indemnity policy (the seller must buy this) should suffice and keep any buyer and their solicitor happy.

Going back to the paddock/garden situation - the 2 acre 'paddock' had always been used as a garden by the previous owners so we were able to convert this from cheap 'paddock' land to much more valuable garden. All we had to do was prove it had a change of use for over 10 years. Not sure if you can use this same for your parking, I guess it depends when you had the work done - if over 10 years ago this will also be a positive.

Edit : does the covenant have any financials attached? Our garden has a covenant around building extra houses, so should we get planning permission to build more properties we would have to pay the covenant owner a fixed price per new house. Worse case may therefore be you have to pay the covenant owner something.

[Mordac]

Close but not quite, paving slabs laid down and kerb dropped (by the local house association who took over the estate as part of a PFI). No parking permits needed.

Hoping to be able to plead ignorance (big shock from me I know) as when I bought the property my solicitors didn’t find the covenant (that in itself begs a question why not), or didn’t make me aware of it

If your previous solicitor didn't spot it, sue him/her. They are very well covered, so no need to shed any tears on that score.

[GreenMirror]

Also, if everyone tarmacs their front garden then come the next drop of rain, it all washes down in no time to a lower-lying level, and people start drowning and being flooded out.

I'd ban tarmac in private dwellings, in favour of gravel over earth, or at least some kind of large underground water trap.

I would get the UK population down to a sustainable level. About 40 million.