4m x 3m Omlet pen, cube, new auto door still boxed and coop light

[kayandrob]

After just reading the post on the neighbours complaining about the chickens, how do you find out if there is anything about you not being allowed to keep them in gardens? I have searched our council's website and can't find anything, does anyone know any where to look? I hope our neighbours won't complain, I have told the lady we are joint with and she is fine about it but worried the others may have an issue with it!

[Electricbarbarella]

there was a thread on this quite ecently, I think the outcome was that it is very unlikely that you are not allowed but you could ring the council. I did nothing, i don't want to know. I think they would be very unlikely to enforce any rules unless the chooks were causing problems or you got a rooster.

[judith67]

I rang the council and asked them. I also rang the housing association as we part-own our home and they were fine. If you are privately owned then you dont need to worry about that, but you will need to check the deeds to your house as there are sometimes restriction in the deeds.

 

I was told there was no restriction on chickens but the council said if I wanted a cockerel I needed to apply for a license.

[kayandrob]

We own our house and I can't find anything to say we can't have chickens, and there is def nothing on the council's website, I just hope the neighbours are ok with it, the one side of us is a lady we get on with very well and is fine about the chooks, she looks after our cats etc when we are away, the other side is a young girl who rents her rooms out she is never in her garden though so hoping she will be fine, I am more worried about the neighbour next door but one they don't really talk to us, but fingers crossed we will be fine, will mention to everyone anyway about it, most are very friendly round here thanks for the replies xx

[chickenanne]

ASk you neighbours immediately either side from you - along the lines, of , "we're getting chickens, they should be great, no cockerel, only as pets, you shouldn't even known they're there but we thought we'd let you know anyway".

[Yolky]

The thing is if you were going to have a dog/child you wouldn't ask your neighbours permission would you? I have found my three girls to be much quieter than my children or any dog.

[Earthchild]

We checked the deed's to our house for a livestock clause - luckily there wasn't one, probably because our house was built in the 1970's. I believe these sort of clauses are commonly on older houses.

[batty hen]

Has anyone ever found out there is a clause in their deeds prohibiting livestock after they have already got their chickens. What happens in that sort of scenario. Just curious because we haven't checked our deeds and have already ordered the chickens - can't bear the thought now of finding out we're not allowed to have any.

[stoice]

We couldn't find our deeds to check so I hope all will be ok. I had heard on here in a previous thread that restrictions like that only really apply as long as the original building company is still trading. Anyone able to confirm this? I did email my council though. Their reply was ..." The Council has not made any local bye-laws relating to the keeping of domestic poultry.

Any such use would however be subject to the general law. For example:

planning permission might be required for the erection of a henhouse,

depending on where it is to be built, how large it is to be and how many

other sheds or buildings there are already on the premises. Also, if

the hens caused a nuisance by reason of noise, smell or escape of

effluent etcetera then the Council could in appropriate circumstances

make an order requiring the nuisance to cease. In extreme cases this

can sometimes lead to the confiscation of birds." I think it would have to be pretty extreme too as nothing is ever done about noisy neighbours re: music, barking dogs, revving engines.

[likeastar--x]

I got my chickens without consulting the neighbours, and they didnt even notice they were there for a good 2 months. the only thing they could possibly complain about is that they could potentially attract rats. just go round and tell them yours getting chickens, and explain to them that they wont be any bother. and give them a good supply of fresh chicken eggs - that will keep them happy!

[likeastar--x]

Also we checked the deeds and legally were not supposed to have chickens in our area (suburban). But the council came round for an unrelated matter and said nothing about the chickens, though they knew it was illegal. To be honest, unless neighbours complian theres little chance you'll be told to get rid of your chickens unless you have a cockrel (which on the most part IS illegal)

[Leicester_H]

unless you have a cockrel (which on the most part IS illegal)

Hi - not planning to get one, but interested to know where it states its ILLEGAL ??

 

H

Edited July 29, 2008 by Guest

[chooklady]

I e-mailed the environment people at my local district council, the lady there was very helpful. I asked her if there were any restrictions or rules regarding keeping chickens in our area, she said there was not and providing they were kept properly and cleaned out so they didn't smell or encourage vermin then there would not be a problem. She said if anyone did complain then they would have to investigate BUT as long as they were being kept correctly that would be the end of it.

 

She didn't mention deeds. My deeds mention not keeping anything other than domestic pets. But I had also heard the building company thing mentioned from 2 other sources, and it applies while they are still selling houses on your particular site apparently. That was good enough for me, so I ordered my cube!!

[Bohochic]

It's more often a restriction in new build houses, along with things like no washing lines in the front garden, or tv aerials on the roof (yep I had a house with all three of those restrictions once!) and is part of the convenant.

[Willow]

You can apply for a change to your deeds. See http://www1.landregistry.gov.uk/assets/library/documents/acd.pdf

 

I have no idea who many are successful etc just what is on

 

However if you already have chickens and no one has complained it may be best to not raise the issue...

[Hen Watch]

You may have already seen this but there is a useful bit in the Frequently Asked Questions section under Chickens / Council Regulations. Plus a link at the bottom to a post from last year about what others (including myself) have done.

 

http://club.omlet.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?t=12656

[Olly]

Ok, here's a little guide.

 

(1) Do you rent your house? If so, you need to check the tenancy agreement because it may prohibit keeping chickens. If not, still best to check with your landlord, because you could lose your tenancy. If they say no, then there's not much you can do about it. If there are no restrictions, proceed to (3) below.

 

(2) If you own your own home, then check if there are any restrictions on the deeds. You should have a copy somewhere from when you bought the house, either of the Land Registry entries or possibly of some original deeds.

 

(3) If there is no restriction - go right ahead and order your Eglu/Cube and chickens! The council do NOT usually have bye-laws about this sort of thing - I have yet to come across one that does. They will only get involved if there are issues about environmental health, i.e. noise, smell or vermin.

 

It's NOT illegal to keep a cockerel, but it's almost certain that you will get noise complaints and then the council will get involved. As far as I know, "Ooops, word censored!"ody on here has reported that the council took action against them for keeping a few chooks. Cases that you see in the paper usually involve cockerels, or large numbers of chickens. If anyone knows different, then please post on here!

 

(4) If there IS a restriction, then you have to decide what to do. If it was imposed fairly recently, and the developer is still in business, you may be able to contact them and get it removed. Bear in mind however that these covenants are imposed to protect everyone on the development/estate - they may not agree to do this. If it's an old one, then you're unlikely to be able to trace anyone to agree to waive it.

 

It isn't true that it only applies while the other houses are being sold - these things usually have no time-limit on them. However, if it's quite old, and if your neighbours have breached other covenants, e.g. satellite dishes, caravans parked outside, you have to make a judgment call about whether anyone will try and enforce it. The council don't get involved in this - it would be up to the person with the benefit of the covenant to take you to court. The cost of this will put most people off, although of course if they went to court and won, you could be ordered to pay costs.

 

In reality, if someone were going to take court proceedings, you'd have plenty of warning beforehand - solicitors letters and so on - before anything drastic happened. Be aware however that this COULD happen. Again, if anyone has actually had this happen, please post on here - I've not heard of it yet.

 

Summary:

Tenancy agreement - may prohibit it

House deeds - may have a covenant against it, if so you have to make a judgment about whether to risk it or not

Council: not likely to be interested unless you're causing noise or nuisance of some sort

 

Obviously it pays to be nice to the neighbours and keep them on side, as it were, but don't let them bluff you into thinking they will take some sort of action. There isn't much they can do unless they are prepared to spend lots of money on court proceedings.

[Egg Lou]

Excellent post Olly! well explained

[EileenH]

Our house dates from the 1950s and the deeds say that `livestock` should not be kept on site, only pets. However, our next door neighbour has a group of rabbits kept in hutches in a large shed and a run like a chicken run. Can`t see why they should be pets and two dear little chickens be deemed `livestock`.

I e-mailed our councillor who replied saying that a ban on keeping chickens would be a denial of our basic human rights!

Guess he`s a chicken lover!

(It`s just eight days to delivery now!)

[Leicester_H]

It's more often a restriction in new build houses, along with things like no washing lines in the front garden, or tv aerials on the roof (yep I had a house with all three of those restrictions once!) and is part of the convenant.

Hi

I understand from our neighbour (who is a planning enforement officer) that these sorts of restrictions are only enforcable for 10 years.

H

[batty hen]

Thanks for all the advice, I feel alot happier now Also we are very lucky to have some great neighbours who I am sure will appreciate some nice fresh eggs.

[Tara.F]

I am a council tenant and our tenancy agreement is very specific about what animals can be kept on the premises.

Chickens are definately NOT on the list.

If anyone finds about my hens I shall try to get them classified as 'small caged birds' but I don't fancy me chances

[chocolatedog]

We checked the deed's to our house for a livestock clause - luckily there wasn't one, probably because our house was built in the 1970's. I believe these sort of clauses are commonly on older houses.[/quote

 

I think livestock clauses are quite common on new housing estates - my friend would like to keep chickens, but as she lives on an estate that was built about 5 years ago, she checked and even though they own their house there are lots of restrictions - no livestock, no parking caravans on the driveways (yes, apparently it is true....) and no using the house as a business..... (I guess they're meaning as a commercial office rather than someone working from home....) etc. etc.

[kayandrob]

Interesting to read, I went through our deeds and there is nothing in ours to say about not having livestock, our house is about 7 years old so I guess we are lucky, one of our neighbours we get on very well with and thinks its lovely we are having them but haven't seen the other one yet, she is a young single lady so fingers crossed she won't have a problem, and have never seen her venture into her garden at all, she has only just had a lawn put down in the whole time she lived there.

 

Thanks for the replies everyone, got my fingers tightly crossed that "Ooops, word censored!"ody on here gets complained about for their chooks!

 

Kay

[Hen Huggers R Us]

Hi, we DID check our deeds and it did say NO livestock to be kept but we went ahead anyway, as far as we are concerned the girls are pets and not livestock.

We don't get on with our neighbours either side, but as one side have a dog and a kid who constantly kicks his football into our garden and then runs over it to retrieve the ball and the other side have a squawking parrott, two noisy dogs and a cat then I don't think either of them can say anything and neither has. One neighbour has more of an issue with my teenage son playing his electric guitar at full pelt!! They only play karaoke at 4am in the morning and we don't say anything, so I dont understand the problem.

 

I would say do it, life is too short to worry about what other people think you should do.