We bought some land from the council in the 1980’s. The council included a covenant restricting its use. We now want to sell, but no-one will buy it with the covenant in place and the council want a lot of money to remove it. We are told that if the covenant holder has no adjacent land the covenant is void. Is this true?
There has to be some land that benefits from the covenant, but it doesn’t have to be adjacent necessarily. The document containing the covenant should state which land is affected. If it’s vague you may be able to argue that it is unenforceable, but you would have to go to court or the Lands Tribunal – both of which options are likely to be expensive. The council will accept less if it looks as though you could have the covenant overturned.