dogs in freehold property.

[maggie01]

When I bought my house 2yrs ago my contract said no dogs. It is a freehold property and there are quite a few dogs around here.

I had two shih-tzus at the time and had to get permission from Barrats who built the propery 15yrs ago.
I was told I could keep the dogs for the duration of their life and then I could only keep cats.

I was desperate to find a house so agreed to this.

I have lost one of my shih-tzus this year and the other one is 10+. Can the builders tell you what you can keep in a freehold property.

[brenda]

This sounds like it is some sort of covenant to keep the development dog free.I am not a legal person , but wonder how enforceable this would be.
Had a similar thing a few years ago with a Wimpy house, it was stated that all doors and windows had to be white , and that no fences or walls were to be erected , where the property bordered the pavement.After about a year everyone seemed to do their own thing, doors and windows were painted in colours other than white, I did mine dark green.Low walls to edge the properties were erected and so on. No action was taken by wimpy against any of us ,no correspondence arrived telling us that we had been naughty.
So I think the restriction placed upon you is pretty well unenforceable.
It may be that other Abers more knowledgeable than myself would be able to help more.
But for me I would take the risk and if I wanted a dog in my home I would have one.

[maggie01]

Yes we had the same thing about building walls etc in our last house because it was open plan but it seems a bit unfair that there are quite a few dogs around here and I know they didn't get permission because I have mentioned it and obviously their solicitor didn't pick it up or they ignored it.

[chrissa1]

As Brenda said, I'm no legal eagle but I would have thought that it was a covenant, but I don't know how anyone can enforce this stipulation 15 years on upon you. How would anyone at Barrats know if you bought another dog? I would have thought they had better things to do with their time during this recession and the fall in the house building market than make sure that no dogs are allowed to live in ONE of their thousands of homes. I would get your dog maggie and let Barrats go shih-tzu themselves.

[buildersmate]

It will indeed be a covenant.
Barratt Homes will have no interest in putting such covenants on a build, which my well put people off buying their houses.
The covenant will have initiated from the local planning authority as one of its conditions on Barratt for granting planning consent for the development in the first place. This forces the company to pass the convenant onto successive titleholders.
The situation in which you might hear about is one if an anti-dog co-owner on the development decides to do something about it.
The original reason why this was thought to be a good idea probably relates to the mess dogs leave behind them.

[woofgang]

the dog one sounds a bit silly to me IMO. There is a covenant on our estate that no one may keep pigs, pigeons or poultry....now that's sensible!

[woofgang]

PS people seem to forget that cats poo too!!

[maggie01]

woofgang. That is my argument too. At least with a dog I can control where he/she goes. At cat is a free agent and if you don't like cats, can be more of a nuisance.

[cassa333]

The stipulation would have come from Barrats as a way of safegaurding the look of the estate when it was being built to help sell the houses. The same if often the case with not being allowed to park commercial vehicals on your drive in view of the road.

After the houses are sold they (Barrets) have absolutly NO interest on what pets you own.

The only people that would be interested in enforeceing these (Barrets wouldn't bother) is a neighbour who didn't like dogs. They would however have to take you to court themselves. There is no garuntee they would win.

Open plan though is often a planning requirement so would probably be the la that enforces this.

[buildersmate]

I had an overwhelming feeling of deja vue whilst reading that.

[cassa333]

Me too buildersmate but it's not often I actualy know an answer lol

[buildersmate]

You're far too modest.

[cassa333]

No honestly BM, mostly what I say I have got second or third hand but I actualy knew this one.

[maggie01]

Thank you for replies. When I moved into my house nearly 2 1/2 yrs ago, my solicitor had to write to Barrats for the permission. That was when I received the letter saying I could only keep dog for the duration of the lives of those I already had.

I was hoping they were going to write back and say it wasn't a problem.

I have one neighbour who could use it as an excuse to complain but it would be up to me to make sure he had nothing to complian about.

[cassa333]

Honestly don't worry about it.

It could well be that the bloke who wrote to you was having a bad day and wanted a laugh simply because someone had questioned it.

[buildersmate]

Barratt cannot just write back and say 'oh, that's OK now'. The covenant is written into the legal title and that will cost their legal bods time to get involved and sort out. They probably didn't want it there in the first place (as already discussed) and they are not going to spend their own time sorting it out for you now, I fear.