Andrew Francis explains how to clear off troublesome covenants
Take three cases.
First, your client is holding a site ripe for development in suburbia. But for the credit crisis, your client would have built and sold six houses on it and be sitting on a tidy profit. But the land is subject to a density covenant in favour of land retained by the former owner.
Second, your client is a rich investor snapping up small development sites held by developers who need to offload them and one site has covenants on it. These appear to impede profitable development, but because of historic breaches they may no longer be enforceable.
Third your client is a college which needs to expand its facilities on land affected by covenants. A local action group threatens to enforce them.
How should these three parties be advised? In the first two instances no-one has obtained planning consent, due largely to the cost of securing it. All advice must be given with an eye to the fact that money is tight.
In the current market the best practice
