Covenants in plot sale contract

[AshleyFae]

Hi folks,

 

I'm new to self building and in the process of purchasing my first plot. I've received the draft contract and two potential red flags have stood out to me. I will be discussing with my solicitor, but keen to get more input from other self builders.

 

#1 - water meter

 

The Transferee covenants with the Transferor and his successors in title, for the benefit of the Retained Land and each and every part of it, with the intention of binding the Property and each and every part of it, to:

pay without any deduction set off or counterclaim to the Transferor on demand such charges for the water used by the Property as recorded by the Water Meter as the Transferor may from time-to-time demand on the basis of charges 30% above the charges for domestic water supplies made from time to time by the local water supply company (including any standing charges) being at the date of this transfer Yorkshire Water Limited;

 

As per the definitions, it seems like the water meter will be placed near where the red "x" is on the attached image. Compare that to our plot location outlined in red.

 

Context for this:

 

We're buying this as a serviced plot, and that's definitely reflected in the price. It's a surprise to us that the water meter would apparently not be on our property at all, and that we'd be billed for water by the sellers directly (+30%). In the image I've also drawn in roughly where the water main supposedly is as per the searches we got back. So it seems like it's quite close to us from the south, and weird that instead of directly connecting there the sellers are connecting from the west.

 

1. Is this a weird arrangement?

2. Is it worth us just sorting out water ourselves since it seems to be close by? Annoyingly Yorkshire Water requires a £500+ application fee to even get a quote, so not sure how much it would cost to connect ourselves.

 

#2 - planning conditions

 

The Transferee covenants with the Transferor and his successors in title, for the benefit of the Retained Land and each and every part of it, with the intention of binding the Property and each and every part of it, to:

without prejudice to the generality of clause 6.7, within six (6) months of the date of this transfer, comply with condition 6, condition 7, condition 8 and condition 9 in each case of the Planning Permission (to the extent that the same relate to the Property) (the Conditions) to the reasonable satisfaction of the Transferor and, should the Transferee fail to comply with all or any of the Conditions, the Transferor may take any necessary steps and actions to comply with all or any of the Conditions and the costs and expenses incurred by the Transferor in doing so shall be paid by the Transferee to the Transferor on demand;

 

Context:

 

Our plot is part of a larger site that has full planning permission granted as a whole (some barn conversions + new builds all in one application). The seller is retaining some of the land for themselves and implementing the planning permission, then selling off a couple new build plots including ours. Our intention has always been to submit a new planning application to change the design.

 

The above covenant seems to be that we have to help them meet their planning conditions, as they've made no effort to sever their planning interests from the plots they're selling off. The conditions referred to are:

 

6. The development must not be brought into use until the vehicular accesses to Plots 4, 5 & 6 have been set out and constructed in accordance with the 'Specification for Housing and Industrial Estate Roads and Private Street Works" published by the Local Highway [...] [truncated a bit to describe gates not swinging open onto highways, etc. -- all standard stuff]

7. The development must not be brought into use until those parts of the existing open area of existing access onto the road along the southern side of the site which are not required to form the two new vehicular accesses have been permanently closed off in accordance with the approved plans. [Approved plans show a new stone wall on the southern edge of our plot, with an opening for vehicles and a separate gated entrance.]

8. There must be no access or egress by any vehicles between the public highway and the application site at the two vehicular accesses to Plots 4, 5 & 6 until splays are provided at each access giving clear visibility of 43 metres measured along both channel lines of the village street from a point measured 2 metres down the centre line of the access. In measuring the splays, the eye height must be 1.05 metres and the object height must be 0.6 metres. Once created, these visibility splays must be maintained clear of any obstruction and retained for their intended purpose at all times.

9. No part of the development must be brought into use until the access, parking, manoeuvring and turning areas for all users have been constructed in accordance with the details approved in writing by the Local Planning Authority
and as shown on Drawing Number 2591 / 23 A. Once created these areas must be maintained clear of any obstruction and retained for their intended purpose at all times.

 

In short it seems like we'd have to immediately sort out access for our plot, including constructing a stone wall (noted in #7 about closing off the site -- this references a stone wall illustrated in the plans, which is not there currently). This is clearly because they want to be able to occupy their own build and be able to meet those planning conditions.

 

1. We're not keen on having to do work immediately; this is unexpected and the first we're hearing about it. (We don't even live in the area yet.) It particularly seems inconvenient to us to have to build a wall before our house is even built; would make access during the actual build potentially more annoying.

2. Seems to us the seller should have made efforts to sever their own planning interests from the wider site somehow.

 

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Would very much welcome any thoughts or feedback here! Thank you!

[Redbeard]

7 hours ago, AshleyFae said:

2. Is it worth us just sorting out water ourselves since it seems to be close by? Annoyingly Yorkshire Water requires a £500+ application fee to even get a quote, so not sure how much it would cost to connect ourselves.

 

Can you? You'd probably need to ask your sol'r since, by doing so, you would be fettering their 'funding stream'. What about water disposal? What are the drainage arrangements? Are they seeking to get you to pay +30% on top of disposal as well as supply? (Or is drainage private?).

 

7 hours ago, AshleyFae said:

2. Seems to us the seller should have made efforts to sever their own planning interests from the wider site somehow.

 

Arguably it's a sound decision *not* to, for them, insofar as they can charge you if you don't do them. 

 

Or have I understood this wrong?

[Oz07]

How bad do you want this plot? Is it keenly priced? I know where I'd be telling them to go with to 30% markup on water. Aren't even static home sites regulated in what they can make on you for utilities?

 

The second piece doesn't sound great either. 

 

Hopefully it's a buyers market where you are and you can say no thanks to these. 

[Conor]

Most water companies won't allow sub metering, you'll need your own supply.

[AshleyFae]

1 hour ago, Redbeard said:

 

Can you? You'd probably need to ask your sol'r since, by doing so, you would be fettering their 'funding stream'. What about water disposal? What are the drainage arrangements? Are they seeking to get you to pay +30% on top of disposal as well as supply? (Or is drainage private?).

I don't think there's anything preventing us from seeking water supply on our own. But yes, definitely a solicitor question to be sure.

Surface water drainage is via an attenuation tank flowing into a combined sewer. No charges for that other than a share of maintenance.

 

1 hour ago, Redbeard said:

Arguably it's a sound decision *not* to, for them, insofar as they can charge you if you don't do them. 

Well we haven't agreed to anything at this point, and there wouldn't be anyone to charge if we walked away from the sale over this. I think my reading of the situation is not that they're maliciously trying to make us pay for those things, but rather they went "oh crap.. just realized we can't occupy our buildings until those things are done on other plots!" And the easiest way to solve that problem is to try to force us into doing it on a schedule that works for them, rather than trying to amend the planning conditions.

 

We were always going to build a wall on the boundary and sort out access ourselves (and pay for all of it). So it's not really a fight over who's paying; we just want to do it on our build schedule rather than theirs.

 

1 hour ago, Oz07 said:

How bad do you want this plot? Is it keenly priced? I know where I'd be telling them to go with to 30% markup on water. Aren't even static home sites regulated in what they can make on you for utilities?

 

The second piece doesn't sound great either. 

 

Hopefully it's a buyers market where you are and you can say no thanks to these. 

We do want the plot quite a bit, but we're not prepared to do things we're not comfortable with. I think we wanted a sanity check that these points weren't "reasonable" before pushing back on them. After thinking about it more I think we're prepared to try to argue for changes and if they won't budge then maybe we'll walk away. Hoping they're eager enough for the sale to be willing to make changes.

 

1 minute ago, Conor said:

Most water companies won't allow sub metering, you'll need your own supply.

That's interesting. Haven't had a chance to talk to our solicitor in detail about this stuff yet. Wonder if that's something they would know.

[Russell griffiths]

 

  3 hours ago,  Conor said:

Most water companies won't allow sub metering, you'll need your own supply.

 

i agree with this, normally if there was 5 barn conversions on a site you would see 5 new covers with 5 meters, in a new patch of tarmac outside the site.