New research reveals the UK regions with the most restrictive covenants
Pure Property Finance has dived into HM Land Registry data to find out which regions in the UK have the most restrictive covenants, creating rules around how property developers and investors complete their plans.
Key findings:
- London has the most restrictive covenants in the country.
- East Anglia and Wales the least restricted.
The property brokers looked at the number of convents in each region compared to the population, to estimate the percentage of buildings in the region that have a restrictive covenant attached to them.
Property developers are less likely to have a restrictive covenant in East Anglia, with only 2,415 properties having restrictions. This works out, that on average, there is a covenant per every 1086 properties.
However, Greater London is the region that’s most strict with nearly 42,000 restrictive covenants on properties used by its 9 million inhabitants. This works out that there is a restrictive covenant per every 90 properties.
The full list of the regions, covenants, population, and percentages can be seen below:
Ben Lloyd, Managing Director of Pure Property Finance, who conducted the research, says:
“It’s no surprise that Greater London has the most restrictive convents, although it’s interesting that there’s such a big jump between Greater London and the area with the second most restrictive covenants, the Southeast of England. Considering how close they are geographically; it shows how different the rules and properties can be.”
Restrictive covenants are binding conditions written into the deeds or contract of a property or land which determine what an owner can or cannot do under particular circumstances. These vary on location and type of property.
These can include factors such as the property’s appearance (fencing, paint colours, etc.), , its use (such as running home-based businesses) or even the size of vehicle that can be parked outside (such as vans or caravans).
As Lloyd continues:
“Typically, covenants appear where there are high levels of development, high property density, or historic or high value buildings. So, developers looking for less restrictions may choose to build or refurbish property in East Anglia or Wales where covenants are less common.
“However, although work here may be quicker and more standardised, these are not necessarily the places where the greatest gains are to be made. Therefore, we would always recommend speaking to a property expert before investing.”
Pure Property Finance, originally launches as Pure Commercial Finance in 2013, is part of the Pure Advisory Group. The Group set up in 2020 also consists of Pure Structured Finance and Pure Wealth Management.
Kindly shared by Pure Property Finance
Main photo courtesy of Pixabay
