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Quote: Originally posted by The 2 Tops on 07/8/2007

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If a neighbour has a complaint about the use of a property, it should be up to the local authority to decide if it is reasonable.  I think covenants issued by developers are an infringement of personal freedom.    I appreciate that there must be limits to what people can keep on their property, but the local authority is still the best placed to decide whatis, and what is not, acceptable.

If a car manufacturer said you must only fit the expensive removable towball to their models to maintain appearance, would you still buy their cars.   Not a brilliant analogy, but you get my drift?

Bertie.

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In a roundabout way they often do, usually as it voides the Manufacturers warranty!

Agreed, I spoke to the Council about it and as long as it doesn't get lived in by anybody then the Planning office aren't interested.  I asked if it comes under any other departments and was told no.

 

As metioned in a post above, if the developer didn't have an interest in the area they wouldn't be interested anyway; the house has been built almost 20 years!

The neighbour is a busy-body with nothing else to do, I guess he is more agreived because he has to keep his caravan behind the front of the house (But then he has space to do that, which I don't) 

Most frustrating is that we have had to stare out of our front window at his caravan for the past 10 years, just because it is behind the front of the house doesn't make it any less of an eyesore.

Paul

We made the same decision - to keep our van mostly in storage and only to bring it to the house from time to time.  I thought initially that this would be somewhat inconvenient, but quite the opposite in fact.

Over the 3 years we've been vanning, we have brought it to the house less and less and in fact our current van has never been to the house!

Once you get used to the discipline of keeping certain stuff in the van all the time and packing all the rest into the car for each trip - it soon falls into place and we don't see any benefit in trying to negotiate all the parked vehicles in our Close to bring it home.

Onlookers can't easily tell when we are away vanning   It is much more secure in the storage and out of harm's way in virtually every respect.  Even though we could keep in on the driveway, I wouldn't choose to and I think the storage fees are well worth paying for, especially as ours in indoors which has lots of extra benefits.

This isn't the first time this topic has come up on these message boards and from what I've seen in the past, if the issues are not handled properly, can lead to very nasty neighbour disputes - all in all - best avoided.

We too have a covenant not to park caravans (or commercial vehicles) beyond the building line of the house i.e. between the end of the house and the start of the pavement.  This covenant does not expire, is set out in the Lease, and even if the freehold is purchased, the covenant continues. 

My understanding is that on leasehold property, the owner of the freehold can choose to enforce the covenant.  On freehold property, it can still be enforced by a neighbour adversely affected, who can prove this, via the courts.  If you can check your deeds, you will find that the freeholder needs to give permission for all sorts of things, not just parking caravans, such as alterations etc. etc. and some freeholders do enforce these covenants if you are in breach of the terms of the Lease.

The thing to bear in mind is that the covenant is supposed to be there for everyone's benefit - to stop stupid people parking dirty great big caravans in front of other home owners windows and other such daft things, and on the whole, to keep the place looking as it should - a residential street - not a storage facility for caravans. 

Our local authority takes the view that if there is no one actually living in the van, its not in breach of any local planning regulations and therefore, they don't care what you do with it (so long as its not parked on a public road). 

Ours is in storage and even though sometimes this is a pain, its more secure and I feel happier with it being there, out of the way.

IMHO, I do not think there will ever be a satisfactory answer to this thread.  The subject is steeped in history, and too many conotations are applied to the rules; not least by local authorities themselves. 

I am fortunate in being able to park our van between house and garage, and behind high gates.       But if it was alongside the 2 metres high boundary fence (as the arrangement was years ago), only about two feet of the van would show above the fence.  This could not be construed as an eyesore.   There are many covered side entrances that look a lot worse, and they are permanent.

Bertie.