Restrictive Covenants

[SKILL]

Quick, ish, hopefully, question

So I'm looking into buying a house and fairly late in the stage the issue of a restrictive covenant has come to light (ex-council house).

The covenant basically states any extensions/outbuildings must have permission. The seller didn't follow this and hasn't had any issues for a number of years, and has offered to buy indemnity insurance (without me asking).

Now I'm half-thinking loft conversion, way down the line, which I believe would breach the covenant, and/or void the insurance (without permission at least, and not sure why they'd ever give me permission).

So after speaking to my solicitor last week I asked them to ask the seller to get retrospective consent rather than insurance. Which they've 'not agreed' to do.

So what to do, buy anyway and hope for the best, or put an ultimatum to the vendor of retrospective consent or '...' (dropped price? no sale?) We haven't exchanged yet but it's all in place to do so.

And obviously I've had an email from the solicitor earlier but not had a chance to speak and nothing will be done until Tuesday at the earliest, fun 4 days ahead...

 

[SKILL]

The problem I have is that it's an outbuilding that breached the covenant, and my understanding is that the covenant holders could get an order for me to knock it down.

Now the insurance would cover the costs, and even some 'compensation' in some arbitrary loss of house value bit, but ultimately I'd end up with a big pile of debt for a house that no longer suits my needs, hence having to either rebuild the outbuilding (with permission ) or move which isn't exactly cheap.

 

[SKILL]

It's a council based covenant, rather than builder/land owner, although not sure how much difference that makes.

I will be speaking to my solicitor on Tuesday but got the latest update via email only just before an extra long weekend, great for the stress levels

The more I think about it the more I don't think the risk is worth it, so unless my mind changes drastically I'll be offering the option of getting the retrospective consent or a big (as in insulting, I want the consent more than I want to save the money) drop in the price.