"Cicero" wrote:
My solicitor was not very helpful and only acted under pressure from
myself.
He had either missed the covenant at the time of purchase or hadn't
considered it worth his time to explain it to me. Although my experience
may
be rare I think it is worth asking both solicitor and surveyor about such
things. If it doesn't concern the surveyor he will surely not be upset
about
being asked and may actually know about such things despite being outside
his terms of reference.

Certainly the surveyor may know some detail of "standard" local covenants,
where properties are part of old estates, but I wouldn't expect them to know
much about covenants etc. over an individual property.

In your case, I take it that your conveyancing solicitor paid for all the
costs
involved in the subsequent legal work? It doesn't matter whether he "missed
the covenant at the time of purchase or hadn't considered it worth his time
to
explain it to (you)" because his actions resulted in a material loss on your
part.
If he didn't pay for the costs then you should certainly pursue him for them
(unless it was too long ago or you don't want the stress).

Unusually for this group, I don't have anything against solicitors (I am
related
to one), but bad solicitors like this give good solicitors a bad name.

Al