Caravan on driveway

a lot of this is "hot air", i have an actual hardstanding next to my bungalow EHU, water etc, and as well as touring in the caravan we use it as a 3rd bedroom for guests and and hangout for the grandkids when they sleep over. We have no neighbours on the side where we park the caravan and we do still have a substantial hardstanding to park cars etc, so no inconvenience to others in the close whatsoever, however, some "busy body" reported us to the LC for parking the caravan and using it for habitation. Guy from LC came round to take a look and said "no problem" there are some ancient laws re parking and using the caravan for habitation but he said the LC never inforce these unless you are causing an inconvenience to others, that was 4 years ago, "busy body" has moved

Your comment are of interest to me, we purchased a new bungalow 2 years ago, it has a restriction in the covenant 5 year regarding parking caravans, commercial vehicle etc on the drive, however, there is a clause allowing you to approach the developer for permission.

We wrote to the developer they refused to grant permission and would only enforce it whist building on site if anyone chose to object to use parking a caravan on the drive, they would inform them to instruct  their own solicitor's) but were happy for use to load and unload the caravan.

The sales staff informed us quietly once we are gone the developer is not interested, on our 45 property development there are at least 12 commercial signed vehicles. We are slowly pushing our luck, but holding on to the storage just in case.

I thought ,if you look at small print all estates say no caravans parked forward of building line , wife used to be a legal secretary . She reckons it goes back years . Where i live my caravan is in back garden ,so fine . bought a signwritten van home once ,next door told me you cant park a signwritten van outside ! Blow me down wife checked , its written into a lot of estates ,but common sense nobody complains .

According to my research (and it is just that - I am not a solicitor), that's one type of covenant.  If after 5 years, you are still in your house, then the covenant no longer applies to you and you can keep a caravan there. I also agree that, even during those five years, after the builder has left the site (or ceased trading as in our case), there is little likelihood of enforcement.

You can apply for a waiver to the covenant - to whoever granted it - but only if every occupant of the development agrees.  That's going to be unlikely and expensive to administer.

The complication comes if the covenant in granted in perpetuity (in our case, I believe that's defined as 50 years) - then the covenant is normally transferred by one purchaser to the next - and so on - meaning that the covenant remains with the land, not the owner. That new owner then has the right to fight any breach - anywhere on the development - and not necessarily in respect of a caravan in his view.

then the covenant is normally transferred by one purchaser to the next - and so on

Would that normally be within the deeds?

Yes ET - it's in the Land Registry Transfer Document

When we moved to our current Bungalow seven years ago we had a MH. In our last house our drive  and garage were  at the rear and accessed by a private road. When we move the layout was more conventional. We knew that there was a covenant covering caravans but at the time we had the MH. To create more parking space we paid to have another crossover and hard standing put in, with the intention of using that for the MH, however due to the angle of the crosover where it meets the pavement the MH bottomed out because of the overhang, so it had to go on the original driveway. That is when our problems started . When we move in I made the mistake of mentioning our plans to the neighbour on the original drive side, and two years after we had move in he asked me when we were going to put the MH on the other drive, as "his friends at the golf club take the Mickey out of him living next door to a caravan" when I told him that I couldn't get it on the other drive he didn't speak to me for over two years. He has started talking again, but his wife still wont talk to us.This as turned into a bit of an essay,  but my point is that now we have a caravan, theoretically we are in breach of the covenant, but as the place was built 62 years ago I'm guessing that it wont be enforced. 

I get the crooks know you are away argument,  just have to take all the precautions you can.

when I told him that I couldn't get it on the other drive he didn't speak to me for over two years. 

Not all bad then