Hi

Thanks for your question.

Indemnity Insurance obviously just covers you against your losses in the event that the council seek to enforce the covenant and require you do stop the build and reinstate the original building.

The problem here is that indemnity insurance is not available when you have revealed the works to the person with the benefit of the covenants ( in this case the council). Therefore if you have disclosed the works in your planning permission then this will probably mean that you are now precluded from getting indemnity insurance, because they are aware of the potential works.

A further problem with indemnity insurance is that most require that the breach of the covenant must have existed for 12 months minimum. If you haven’t completed the building then you don’t meet this criteria either.

Better to send of the application form and then appeal any refusal to grant consent on the basis that it is an unreasonable and disproportionate exercise of the covenant and the spirit of the covenant. I expect that they will be fine and give consent since the reasons behind the decision to grant consent are similar to planning anyway: environmental impact, continuity of the development/area etc.


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Kind regards,


Tom

Well, yes, obviously you coudl physically start the build but that does not mean they are any more likely to grant consent.

I would wait personally, simply so you don't expose yourself to sunk costs...

Kind regards.

Tom