Browse Forums Building A New House 1 Jul 31, 2016 9:57 pm I have just finished building a house in a private estate with a known project home builder. The same builder has built most of my neighbouring properties, they had an allocation of about a dozen blocks. One of the estate covenants is "the same residential Façade facing any open space or streetscape is NOT to be repeated more than once for every five blocks on the same street." Yet two doors down the builder is building a house identical to mine, only difference is brick colour". (they actually have the brick we were originally going to have!) Too late of course to have the house stopped and unfair to the owners, but certainly not impressed this was not picked up by the estate and certainly not impressed because I raised this as an issue when I signed for my house. I think this may have fallen through the developers cracks because the builder proposed two houses for every block, one single and one double story, hence I knew it was proposed for the block and as mentioned when I signed I did say I take it it now means the other block cannot have the same house. But feel having the same house two doors down has now taken away some of the uniqueness of my own place. So question is what can I do? I am guessing SFA, but cannot hurt to ask. Anyone else had the same or similar issue? Re: Neighbouring house not compliant with estate covenants. 2Aug 01, 2016 10:31 am Sorry no, I cant help. I am still on a learning curve myself. Ill be interested to hear the answer. The neighbouring block to us has built a large 2 vehicle shed on the fenceline to my property complete with concrete slab. It blocks out the light to a good 10m2 of land on our corner of our lot at certain times of day. I am shocked that this was allowed as all 'buildings, garages and sheds' must be 1.5m away from the fence line. I don't know if the developers pick and choose when to implement there convanant rules. Possibly when it affects them? Re: Neighbouring house not compliant with estate covenants. 4Aug 01, 2016 11:47 am Althom Why would you want to do anything about it? Fair question of course. Main issue for me is the covenants are there for a reason. Which is (was) to create a unique streetscape which in turn effects the character and value of the houses in the estate. Someone in the developer company has failed to do that and as a result this uniqueness is now lost to an extent. So does that mean I can now ignore the rest of the covenants that I don't agree with? Re: Neighbouring house not compliant with estate covenants. 5Aug 01, 2016 12:40 pm AJW One of the estate covenants is "the same residential Façade facing any open space or streetscape is NOT to be repeated more than once for every five blocks on the same street." This is loosely worded and ambiguous. If your street has 40 houses then 8 of them can have the same facade - it doesn't actually limit how they are spaced. Even if you took it to mean 1 in 5 can only have Y facade, if they were arranged like this; x x x Y x x Y x x x It is not exceeding 1 in 5 as it is 2 in 10. You can't add a Y to the above scenario, but it doesn't mean they care where those Y's are within. Do you think a lawyer would win in defence of this? I do. Re: Neighbouring house not compliant with estate covenants. 6Sep 29, 2016 8:35 pm Old topic but got a response from the developer. Their response was: Whilst the front façade design is the same as yours, their approved materials schedule is different. So different colours apparently make a different facade. Though from what I can see there only difference is the bricks are a more expensive version of mine, but similar colour. Roof, same and too early to see what the painted matrix boards will look like. Anyway didn't think it would make a difference, not could I see what could have been done anyway, but a horse poo answer if ever I saw one. So much for estate exclusivity and having 'higher' architectural standards. Maybe as we are amongst the last dozen houses in this estate their care factor dropped off. Re: Neighbouring house not compliant with estate covenants. 7Sep 29, 2016 9:46 pm AJW ..... as we are amongst the last dozen houses in this estate their care factor dropped off. Exactly The Harder You Try - the Luckier You Get ! Web site http://www.anewhouse.com.au Informative, Amusing, and Opinionated Blog - Over 600 posts on all aspects of building a new house. 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