A restrictive covenant is essentially a contract between two or more, often neighbouring, landowners where one landowner promises the other(s) not to carry out a specified act on a defined area of their land.
This usually occurs when somebody selling all or part of their land wishes to restrict what the purchaser can do with their land.
Once imposed the contract binds the land indefinitely regardless of how often the land changes hands or how obsolete the covenants become.
The most common scenarios for such covenants to appear on a register are on a large development of plots/houses where the builder imposes them on each plot purchase and/or in leases when a property is divided into leases which are sold with the covenants included within the lease itself.
Can they be varied/extinguished? - yes they can but it can be complicated and we would always recommend seeking legal advice/assistance not only as to how but as to the need to actually do so.
A covenant can be extinguished or effectively varied by either an order of the
Upper Tribunal (Lands Chamber) or by a deed of variation or release of restrictive covenants. The whole of the benefiting land must be precisely identified and all the persons having an interest in the benefiting land must be a party to the deed.
An application for the variation of restrictive covenants should be made using Form AN1 or UN1. An application for extinguishing the covenants should be made in Form CN1. Find our forms on
GOV.UK
Remember, do seek legal advice as identifying the benefiting land and/or getting the agreement of all potential landowners can be a complex process and before doing so it is important to understand the law re such covenants and how they might be imposed and/or breached
