Storage of our Caravan
We are currently keeping our caravan on our front garden our neighbour has complained. our deed are as follows: No wooden hut, shed caravan, house on wheels,adaped for or intended as a dwelling or sleeping room shall be errected placed or used or permitted
to be errected placed or used upon the said land or any part thereof. what are your interpretations of these deeds. Thanks in advance for any help
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It would appear that your deeds prohibit storing your caravan on your garden. However what are the neighbours going to do about it? Who are they going to complain to? Who is going to enforce any action if they do complain?
The ball would appear to be in their court so it might be worth just sitting it out and seeing what happens.
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I'm no lawyer, I'm too honest, but it seems to be a clause to stop you actually sleeping in the vehicle alongside your house not to actually own and keep a vehicle and park it there.
Barrackroom Lawyers - your opinion?
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A caravan is intended as a sleeping space and therefore contravenes the covenant, even if it's only 'placed' there and you don't actually sleep in it when it's parked in the garden.
We have the same covenant on our house - but we chose to stay friends with our neighbours and store our caravan elsewhere. At the end of the day we prefer to live happily here with no cause for dispute.
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The covenants are usually in favour of the developer to protect them when developing a site. If as is usual the covenant is in favour of the developer legally he is the only party who can enforce it. If he has left the site he is not going to be interested.
You do need to check the wording however to see who it is in favour of.0 -
We have the same covenant on our house but before we purchased our first unit we checked with our council who informed us that we could place what we liked in our garden as long as it was not used as a DWELLING we also spoke to all our neighbours
before purchase and none raised any objections.0 -
If you trawl through the discussions Nossys you will see this has been discussed before and might be helpful to you. As others have already said it depends how old the covenant is and if the builder is still around. Otherwise I wouldnt worry about it too
much. Our 30 year old covenant says that no one shall leave any vehicle on the drive overnight, that includes a car!! They are all supposed to be put away in the garage. We once had one that said all the front doors had to remain painted blue, that lasted
all of twelve months! Our neighbour once said they weren't happy with our caravan on our drive. We suggested they could pursue this further as we weren't about to move it, they chose not to pursue it and we still remain friends. It is your house and your drive
and I expect that you pay a lot for it. Unless the van is an eyesore (which I am sure it isn't) or is really a nuisance to your neighbour then I would invite them to take the matter further, I doubt they will get far.0 -
If you trawl through the discussions Nossys you will see this has been discussed before and might be helpful to you. As others have already said it depends how old the covenant is and if the builder is still around. Otherwise I wouldnt worry about it too
much. Our 30 year old covenant says that no one shall leave any vehicle on the drive overnight, that includes a car!! They are all supposed to be put away in the garage. We once had one that said all the front doors had to remain painted blue, that lasted
all of twelve months! Our neighbour once said they weren't happy with our caravan on our drive. We suggested they could pursue this further as we weren't about to move it, they chose not to pursue it and we still remain friends. It is your house and your drive
and I expect that you pay a lot for it. Unless the van is an eyesore (which I am sure it isn't) or is really a nuisance to your neighbour then I would invite them to take the matter further, I doubt they will get far.It might get them to go to their solicitor who will almost certainly tell them not to waste their time but first I would check the wording for myself.
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We have a similar covenant. Ours has another clause about no hedges. We keep our caravan on storage but are seriously thinking about bringing her home as a lot of houses have hedges and we have been told the covenant is now unenforcable.
If anyone wants to get the covenant enforced they have to persuade the original builder to enforce it. If it is to be enforced all aspects have to be addressed - so anyone who has a garden shed is also in trouble! Plus the person asking for it to be enforced
has to be sure they are whiter than white.0 -
We have a similar covenant. Ours has another clause about no hedges. We keep our caravan on storage but are seriously thinking about bringing her home as a lot of houses have hedges and we have been told the covenant is now unenforcable.
If anyone wants to get the covenant enforced they have to persuade the original builder to enforce it. If it is to be enforced all aspects have to be addressed - so anyone who has a garden shed is also in trouble! Plus the person asking for it to be enforced
has to be sure they are whiter than white.If the covenant is only in favour of the builder and he has left the site the builder now has no reason to spend money enforcing it.
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99% of these "Covenants" are of no effect. Put in by the developer during the completion of the estate, they would have been intended to keep the estate looking pretty to prospective new buyers. But once the estate was finished, all the houses sold etc and the developer moved elsewhere there is never anyone able to effect the covenant. Speaking as an elected local councillor I have been involved in several of these issues. The Council will almost certainly not wish to become involved now if they were not involved initially. Why should they?
There may be a local bylaw against residential use, but that is very different matter from merely storing the van on your own property and occasionally spending a night in it for domestic expediency. Residential use really means living in it all the time- using it as an extension of the house.
However at the end of the day it might be better to discuss this with the neighbour to find out what is troubling them. You might be able to settle it amicably.
TF
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I made similar enquiries when I wanted to park my caravan on my drive. In essence there are 2 main controls covenants and planning laws.
Covenants
These are applied and enforced by the developer and are designed to keep the development looking attractive to potential purchasers during the building/sales phase. Once the developer has moved on to the next project they tend to loose interest in covenants and their enforcement. In which case I wouldn't worry. Sometimes the covenants are applied by a land owner as opposed to the site developer and these are more difficult as the land/estate owner retains a direct interest in the 'amenity' of the general area and might take action (i.e. they do not 'move on')
Planning Law
If you are merely parking your caravan on your land (not on the adjacent road) then it is considered ancillary to the use of your property and the council will not be interested. However if you live in it or rent it out as living accommodation they could get quite excited, but even then only if they get complaints.
I keep mine on the drive with no problems.
Hope this helps.
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Same situ here some time back, our neighbours had their van out all their time on their land? For so long, it went green:( It did look a mess, but we could not see it from our house. I cannot say what others thought about looking out on to it on a daily basis. We have ours on the drive a week before we we go and up to a week after we return. We feel storage is best, safe and doesn't advertise when you are away, buts that's our choice. I can agree the above and see its merits. I would sit tight and see what happens. If its not in the way, or a mess you might get away with it. I also agree the best way fwd is to chat about the situ, we have no complaints about ours when tis home, but we treat our direct neighbours to a thank you meal at the seasons end:)
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Go round to the complainer and knock respectfully on his face and ask him why he/she has complained, see if there is a suitable solution.
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We had someone complain about our caravan being on our drive,
But only because we were one of many that complained to the authorities about him stripping several cars on his drive for 3 years.
But when we spoke to the authorities about it, they just said as long as it's not blocking natural light into their house, there ain't a damn thing he can do about it!
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