How to deal with a restrictive covenant on your property

A restrictive covenant is a promise recorded in a property's title that stops the owner doing something with the land. Unlike a promise to do something, a restriction binds later owners, which is why a covenant imposed in 1923 can still stop you building a garage in 2026. This is general information about the law in England and Wales rather than advice on your own title.

What they typically say

The common ones stop you building on part of a garden, prohibit business use, ban caravans or trade signs, require the original landowner's consent before alterations, or limit the property to use as a single private dwelling. Estate covenants imposed by a developer often control fences, external paint colours and where you park.

The bite usually comes when you want to extend, convert a garage, run a business from home or split a plot. Planning permission doesn't override a covenant. The two systems are separate, and you can hold a valid permission and still have no lawful right to build.

Who can enforce one

Enforcement needs someone who holds the benefit of the covenant, normally the owner of land the covenant was designed to protect. On a housing estate that can be dozens of neighbouring owners, any one of whom could object.

Often nobody identifiable is left. The original beneficiary may have been a company dissolved decades ago, or the benefited land may have been sold off in pieces without the benefit being expressly passed on. That uncertainty is exactly what makes insurance possible and affordable.

Indemnity insurance, and the thing you must not do

Restrictive covenant indemnity insurance is a one-off premium policy that responds if a beneficiary successfully enforces the covenant against you, covering loss in value, damages and legal costs. It transfers with the property and typically runs for decades. Our wider guide to indemnity insurance covers how premiums are set across different types of title defect, not just this one.

Here's the rule that catches people out. Approaching anyone who might hold the benefit of the covenant can invalidate existing cover and stop a new policy being put in place, because insurers price the risk on the basis that nobody has been alerted. A polite letter to a neighbour asking whether they'd mind can end the cheap route permanently.

Cover is also harder and more expensive where you're asking an insurer to cover a use that doesn't yet have planning permission. Sequence matters: get the permission, then arrange the insurance, then build.

A policy doesn't prevent a claim being brought against you. It pays for the consequences of one, and that distinction is worth settling in your head before you rely on it.

Applying to the Upper Tribunal

If insurance is unavailable or insufficient, section 84 of the Law of Property Act 1925 lets you apply to the Upper Tribunal (Lands Chamber) to discharge or modify a restriction affecting freehold land.

There are four grounds. That changes in the character of the property or the neighbourhood have made the restriction obsolete. That it impedes some reasonable use of the land, and either secures no practical benefit of substantial value to the beneficiary or is contrary to the public interest, with money being adequate compensation. That everyone entitled to the benefit has agreed, expressly or by their conduct. Or that discharge or modification won't injure them.

The tribunal can order you to pay the beneficiary compensation, either for the loss they suffer from the change or to make up for the reduction in the price they originally received for the land when the covenant was imposed, but not under both heads.

What the application costs

Tribunal fees alone come to £2,346 on a contested application that runs to a full hearing: £1,025 to lodge the application, £1,281 for the substantive hearing and £40 to engross the final order. Gov.uk's published tribunal procedure sets out each fee and the stage it falls due, including £640 if there's a separate hearing on who's entitled to object.

Please note: figures shown are Upper Tribunal fees effective from 12 July 2026, and are separate from solicitor, valuer and counsel costs.

Those are payments to the tribunal, not the cost of the case itself. Add a solicitor, a valuer and usually counsel, plus the time. Objectors have one month from service of the publicity notice to come forward, and parties are typically given two months to exchange expert reports and witness statements. It's a proportionate route for unlocking a development plot and a poor one for a conservatory.

Reform has been discussed for a long time without arriving. The Law Commission recommended simplifying the regime in a report published in June 2011, and the government said in its 2017 Housing White Paper that it intended to publish a draft Bill implementing those recommendations. Nothing has been enacted, and no draft Bill has been published as of 2026.

Find the covenant before you exchange, not before you build. It'll be in the charges register of the title, and a conveyancer can tell you within a day whether the beneficiary is identifiable, which is the single fact that decides whether insurance or a tribunal application is your route. Our list of questions worth putting to a conveyancing solicitor includes the ones to ask about title restrictions, and it's worth getting conveyancing quotes early if a covenant search is likely to complicate the purchase.