Land with many covenents

Helloo..

I'm looking into buying some land, to build a house down the track.
Got a couple of questions:

1) The area im looking to buy in, has a lot of guidelines, i.e. have to build within 24months, specifics landscaping must be done, and colours, facades, styles have to be considered. Have you built in such an area, and how did you find such restrictions, Is the developer usualy a pain in the ***, and how negotiable are these kinda restrictions. I dnt think ill be ready to build in 2 years, maybe start but definitely not finish before 3-4 years from buying the land.

2) Would you consider a draftsperson/architect/designer prior to purchase of land.

3) Any things to check for prior to buying a newly released land or land in general.


Any advice greatly appreciated,

Rgs,
Esco

Don't buy the land. If it has covenants on it that you already know you will not be able to adhere to, you are just walking into headaches if you go ahead. Find an estate where there is no time limit to build. There's not too many around, but they do exist.

Also, you have to consider other residents. They have bought in the knowledge that they will not be living around building sites for years and years after they move in. Your next door neighbours would have every right to be p*ssed off if they were living next door to a building site 4 years after they moved in.

you can't negotiate with them. if it is within 24 months. you have to build during that time frame.

go to the volume builder and ask a quotation including cost to cover covenents.

We are building in an estate with LOTS of covenants. We like them though as it will keep the property value up.

I do agree that people may get irritated at you if you take years and years to build, but a builder said to us, what are they actually going to do if you don't start building when you are supposed to? Send you a letter? I know there are a lot of houses in our estate whose fascades don't fit with the covenants and nobody is making them change them.

We are building on land with covenants and haven't found it difficult. Although I don't remember there being a timesframe but I know other blocks have gone back on the market.

The architectural guidelines and facades and garden stuff wasn't a problem for us as it is the sort of stuff we are happy with anyway.

It isn't a problem if you like the general style of what is going in the rest of the estate. I liked our covenants because it required a driveway within 2 months, landscaping was not compulsory but encouraged to all be natives and local natives, so if it was within a specific list and minimums then we get a rebate. Colours they had a list and a list of pre approved profiles and colours. Our profile was put of this but was within the colours. Another covenant was no plain face brick. Either a combination of materials or some rendering or all rendered. That suited us as well as we wanted render

Check if the covenant says construction must start in the 24 months or complete.