What is it with new houses and Motorhomes?

gpat

gpat

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Been browsing new homes and thinking about moving.

Seems hardly any new houses have sufficient parking area for a motorhome. I get that, space is precious. However, even the ones that do (corner plots etc) have covenants on prohibiting commercial vehicles (understood), caravans (understood:LOL:) and MOTORHOMES (Scandalous). When we enquire it seems to be a blanket no!

Anyone had a good experience?
 
We may think our lovely motorhomes are beautiful to behold but I suspect that most people would rather not have them in the view from their windows. If these covenants were universally unpopular and lost them sales the developers would do away with them, the fact that they are now common suggests they are seen as a selling point.
 
Personally I'd not touch any house built since the 1990's by any of the large 'estate' builders.
The quality of the build is appalling, every corner cut.

The only 'modern' property I'd consider is where a small builder has created a house they lived in, or they build locally on a small scale.

Many of the properties, especially blocks of flats, constructed this century will be unlikely to make it to 50 years old, forget about lasting into the next century.

We have been in our Victorian terrace house for 30 years next month, a block of privately owned flats constructed after we moved in is now under consideration for redevelopment, as it may be cheaper than fixing it.
 
The only new house we ever bought had parking for 1.5 cars (go figure!) and no other ‘off-street’ space - plus it had a shed load of building issues, so we decided ‘never again’…..!!!

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Profit boxes as they are now called.

We had to go for a smaller MoHo. Glad we did though now, means we can get more places.
 
Our house, built in '74 has room for six cars on the drive or as we have now, 1 car and our moho. No hassle going to collect moho from storage when going away or when cleaning it. Cheaper to insure also! Yes, it does take some light from a downstairs window however, we tend to spend most time in the conservatory at the rear. We also had a covenant that prohibited caravans, motorised caravans??? and sign written vans from being parked on driveways on the estate. When thinking of moving a year or two ago, and after consulting a solicitor, we found out that the covenant passed with the builder who died in the 90's. Win Win!!
 
Having been in the housing business for 40 odd years before I retired, it's not the developers who decide the parking for each property. Parking requirements for new houses are set out in Govt guidelines to local authority planning departments. The local authority planning department can then use, ignore or set their own requirements, and its not the same for each local authority, so often a 4 bed detached house with garage will only have 2 parking spaces and that include the garage space which as many have said can only just fit in a small car. Most planning departments don't want people to use cars, they want public transport (don't get me started on that in non city areas), walking and cycling to be used so actively discourage more parking spaces. Any new development in the last 50 years will have insufficient parking for the occupants, even more so now as kids are taking longer to leave home, you only have to go there at evening or weekend to see the bottlenecks as people park half on and off the pavements outside their house. There is one advantage for us as one of our kids cars is parked on the road behind the motorhome on the drive so makes it slightly less attractive for someone to drive it away quietly:happy:

The covenants preventing motorhomes, caravan etc are only for the developer generally and that's to make the site more attractive when selling it., once the developer has left the site they are very unlikely to enforce the covenant
 
We bought our pre 1900’s house in 1999 with 2 acres and then bought the land around it .
13 acres later no neighbours to complain and parking a-plenty.
Made sure we will not have any parking/neighbour issues by selling it to our son and living in the annexe , win-win 🥳
 
Pausim said:
We may think our lovely motorhomes are beautiful to behold but I suspect that most people would rather not have them in the view from their windows. If these covenants were universally unpopular and lost them sales the developers would do away with them, the fact that they are now common suggests they are seen as a selling point.
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I had my neighbour pdf of several years moaning to me about my "eyesore" motorhome saying it blocked his view, (it does not) despite the trees which do block the view, while he backs his car off his drive. Then he asks me about the effect of my block paving on his garage floor!. Anyway i said there is no way am i movie itirminghm generally allow caravans and such like on drives there i slits he can do. He is more worry about my backing out the motorhome potentially for damaging his car parked alonside my own car , no that i would anyway. I can just about squeeze my 6metre motorhome on the drive this is for a house built in 1960.

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Maudy said:
We bought our pre 1900’s house in 1999 with 2 acres and then bought the land around it .
13 acres later no neighbours to complain and parking a-plenty.
Made sure we will not have any parking/neighbour issues by selling it to our son and living in the annexe , win-win 🥳
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Can't beat buying ground mate, they aren't making it anymore.
 
I live in a new build with a driveway that'll take three cars, or a car and motorhome. There's also a covenant that when I signed only stated "caravans". I originally had the motorhome in storage costing £80/month and decided to risk bringing it home (and spend the £80 on weekends away) 4 years ago and never been a problem. Covenants are a civil issue and there's plenty others being broken where I live.
I did check with my neighbours and they were fine with it being there so not really anyone else's business.
 
gpat said:
Been browsing new homes and thinking about moving.

Seems hardly any new houses have sufficient parking area for a motorhome. I get that, space is precious. However, even the ones that do (corner plots etc) have covenants on prohibiting commercial vehicles (understood), caravans (understood:LOL:) and MOTORHOMES (Scandalous). When we enquire it seems to be a blanket no!

Anyone had a good experience?
Click to expand...
We’ve lived inthe same house for 50 years! This been s we have along drive and as a bonus a back entrance which we put electric gates on when we got the Moho. This means although the bungalow is abit on the large side we’re staying put. 😂😂
 
From memory there was a case that in some multi bedroomed UK houses they breached E .U. laws as to small for habitation when the skirting's were fixed in place.
We're OK, parking for 4 cars plus MH, plus street parking.

Mike.
 
gpat said:
Been browsing new homes and thinking about moving.

Seems hardly any new houses have sufficient parking area for a motorhome. I get that, space is precious. However, even the ones that do (corner plots etc) have covenants on prohibiting commercial vehicles (understood), caravans (understood:LOL:) and MOTORHOMES (Scandalous). When we enquire it seems to be a blanket no!

Anyone had a good experience?
Click to expand...
Simple....don't enquire about it.

We live on a relatively new build estate (less than 10 years old) and have the usual covenants about commercial vehicles, caravans, MHs and satellite dishes (another common one). Almost every house has a satellite dish, we store our MH on the drive (have done since we bought the first one almost 7 years ago), there are another two houses within a minute's walk who also have MHs on their drives, and a few others further away. I've never even tried counting are many many commercial vehicles there are.

As I understand it, the only entity that can enforce the covenant is the developer....and they don't care at all once they've sold all the houses and are off the site. So choose your plot carefully: some do have decent parking, ideally look for ones where the MH will be tucked away down the side of the house (less chance of annoying the neighbours), and look at the quieter side roads rather than main thoroughfares.


Edit: actually I don't know if our covenant specifies MHs or just caravans....but as MHs are technically motor caravans it doesn't really matter whether its specifically stated or not.

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We bought a house and it said no commercial vehicles or caravans could be parked outside
Never mentioned Motorhomes so mine got parked there 🤣
 
DangerMousy said:
Simple....don't enquire about it.

We live on a relatively new build estate (less than 10 years old) and have the usual covenants about commercial vehicles, caravans, MHs and satellite dishes (another common one). Almost every house has a satellite dish, we store our MH on the drive (have done since we bought the first one almost 7 years ago), there are another two houses within a minute's walk who also have MHs on their drives, and a few others further away. I've never even tried counting are many many commercial vehicles there are.

As I understand it, the only entity that can enforce the covenant is the developer....and they don't care at all once they've sold all the houses and are off the site. So choose your plot carefully: some do have decent parking, ideally look for ones where the MH will be tucked away down the side of the house (less chance of annoying the neighbours), and look at the quieter side roads rather than main thoroughfares.


Edit: actually I don't know if our covenant specifies MHs or just caravans....but as MHs are technically motor caravans it doesn't really matter whether its specifically stated or not.
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I agree with you.
I'm sure our house has this covenant we have parked our Moho on drive for the last 10 years and are not the only ones. house being about 50 years old.
Our son has just moved on to a large new very nice estate Taylor Wimpey. They are just finishing the building program and there are vans caravans etc parking with no issue as far as we know.
 
Most of the houses on our avenue were built between 1930 - 1935. They all have a drive and room for a garage. The only flaw with this the size of the original garages that were built for cars of the time. The guy at the end has a Rover 75 but his dad had an Austin Chummy. Our drive tappers so the motorhome only goes part way up the drive.
I thought about down sizing but the the only place I fancied had a very narrow access road and don’t think I would get the motorhome along it. Even the bin men have to walk to collect the bins.
 
Victorian terraced streets aren't renowned for their surplus of parking. My first house was a 1950s 3 bedroom semi in suburbia only had room for a small car because the front garden was ripped up.

I'm currently in a 90s house with a garage and two side-by-side parking spots, one of which is just about long enough for my 6m motorhome. We have a covenant that says no commercial vehicles, vehicles with commercial signage or caravans... Doesn't mention motorhomes. 😅

Much of the cost of a property is the land. Parking spaces aren't as valuable as an extra bedroom and a separate diner. So developers cram on as much house as they can to get the most money for their investment.

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Covenants generally are not worth the paper they are written on as its the developer that enforces them and they are very unlikely to enforce. I am in a new build 2 years old one of our neighbour's parks a 6 wheel breakdown truck (the type that tows broken down lorries) outside his house, the developer is not interested even though the covenant states no commercial vehicles.
 
I am just about to move into a new build. I think my house seems to be the exception to the rule, nearly. The house is a three story town house with a large garage and a driveway for two large cars but I have seen neighbours with three cars! The house has been very nicely built (a smaller developer that goes for quality rather than quantity) and the attention to detail is wonderful. It even has triple glazing. The downside: no camper vans, caravans, boats or commercial vehicles allowed, however you are allowed to keep the camper, etc, on your drive as long as it is temporary (packing/unpacking over a few days) and is not a permanent fixture. In addition, no vehicles over 3T, which may cause issues with some current/future large e-cars. So my beloved van will have to go to storage, about a 20min drive from the house, but it is a small price to pay. I did enquire about the 'what-if's' and was informed that the council/traffic warden will pursue me if there are complaints!
 
1963 built house...... 8 metre motorhome on driveway (without shunting mostly) Large SUV and Toad on drive leaves room for a decent size van and possibly another car, all without moving a car up the side of the house
 
DangerMousy said:
As I understand it, the only entity that can enforce the covenant is the developer.
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It depends on how the covenant is worded. Some covenants may only be in favour of the developer and will lapse when he/she no longer owns nearby land to protect. Some covenants however run with the land and can be enforced by any future owner whose land might be affected. You can’t assume it is only enforceable by the developer without looking at the intention of the wording.
 
I am lucky as I live in a 1975 bungalow with parking for 5 cars and a motorhome and none of them block the windows. I am at the end of a small cul de sac on the end plot.

June 15 my Compass Avantgarde.jpg

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