beneficial owner of covenant is a closed Limited company-enforcable?

[Rob Wisbech]

hi

investigating some old covenants 1940/1950s and the beneficial owner of one is a Limited Company that has since closed down.

 

is this enforceable ? as i cant see any "successors in title " mentioned.

 

thanks

Rob.

[Madasahatter]

If the covenant is made between two named parties and there is no mention of successors in title, then if both parties are no longer in existence/living then the covenant would be unenforceable as there is nobody to enforce it.  A Solicitor can get this removed from the deeds.

 

However, covenants are not straight forward, so you need to get expert advice, which is unlikely to be available from an internet forum, given the lack of detail you have provided.  You might wish to do a little detective work.  If the property you are reasearching was maybe a housing estate development or a 'land grab' from a larger estate then you can download the deeds of neighbouring properties.  The title deeds are available from the land registry site, but don't use any third party sites as they are a rip off.  The fee, as I recall, is £3 for a downloadwd copy.  The land registry title documents were digitised around 2000, so if the property you are searching for hasn't been bought/sold or been subject to a mortgage or charge within the past 20 odd years the deeds will likely still be in paper format.  You will require a different route to get sight of titles in paper format.  Sight of neighbouring properties title deeds may throw some light on whether any properties are linked to yours by way of covenants.  That could add complexity.

[Rob Wisbech]

thanks Mad , i checked my neighbours deeds and she also is subject to the same restrictive covenant .

[Mr Punter]

If this is a property you are thinking of buying you can normally obtain insurance at very competitive cost.  Covenants not to build are very common but once the developer has finished and the company dissolved they are of little consequence.

[Conor]

Speak to your solicitor.

 

We found an ambiguous covenant on our property dating from 1920, it was hand written and barely legible and solicitor couldn't trace the originator of it... So we had to cough up something like £350 for an indemnity policy.

Edited October 9, 2022 by Conor