There are restrictive covenants on the new property, one of which is that it has to be landscaped within 3 years of construction. It is presently 18 months old.

What are the implications if the property is not landscaped within that time. The lot is leveled and ready for topsoil and sod but as it is over an acre, this could/will be costly.

Hi

Depending who put covenant in the official plan, if it was the city/municipal they could do the work and charge you for it.

I don't think it was the city as the property is outside city limits.

You need to obtain a copy of the restrictive convenant to ascertain what the penalties will be.

The copy I have only lists the 10 restrictive convenants with no penalties and is detailed as Schedule E in the P & S agreement.

As I have already chased my agent to get the vendors' agent to get the vendors to comply with getting final inspections and closing the open permits, I will get him to look into this too.

Having done all the leg work myself in finding out from Rural Planning whether there were outstanding permits on electrical, plumbing, framing and basement along with final inspection, the Realtor said ' oh yeah, that can sometimes hold up closing '.... there's $7,000 well earned, glad I'm not paying him.

Amazing what Google turns up. Found something where a resident was constructing a particularly large garage and a planning decision was being appealed and noticed this section :

"The Appellants have further argued the Province of New Brunswick, and presumably by extension Rural Planning, is obligated to enforce restrictive covenants between a developer and a property owner which are contained in a deed.

Even if the Third Party were in breach of any of the restrictive covenants contained in deed #XXXX, which was never established, as the deed itself recites these covenants are between the grantor (XYZ Ltd.) and the grantee (Mr & Mrs ABC), and subsequent purchasers. These are contractual agreements to which the Province, or its agents, are not party, and there is no legislation that obligates it to enforce these covenants."

So it would seem it would be between the owner and the original developer.

I will find out what the penalties are, if any are actually published.

Depends what is constituted as landscaping. Laying topsoil and turf is landscaping. If there are no specifics you may find you could well be able to argue it is done once the sod is down.

I believe, or at least I read it as the laying of topsoil and sod, none of which is currently done. Having costed it out at some $25,000 to get done, I am merely enquiring about it in case Spring arrives next year and the coffers are momentarily bare.

Use seed instead of turf. As little as $150 of seed will cover an acre.

What he said. We seeded 1/2 of our acre rather than sodding. Much cheaper and in many ways less hassle.

Don't you just feed the birds ?

Most seed is treated with a bird repellent. Seed makes the best lawn, so long as you don't forget to water it. Early spring is the best time to sow, summer too hot and dry and the top of the grass grows faster than the roots so it is hard to cut it without ripping it out.

You employ the Jasper Carrot and moles philosophy......

Was that on a new house ??

I know on the house that I have just bought - I have 6 months to have what they call Nursery Grade sods down on my lawn at the front of the house (It doesent say what I have to put in the back )

Not sure if this is driven by Paradise Town or the subdivision developers

Probably worth checking if it's the Town of Paradise (motto 'show us green space and we'll show you a new subdivision) to the developer. For us, it was an existing house and the back/side of the lot. We just had rock fill so had 15 loads of topsoil trucked in and spread to a depth of 6". (paid someone to do this). I then seeded and fertilised, watered a bit (but not too much because we are on a well). This was an exceptionally warm spring (05 IIRC) and about 6 weeks later we had a lush lawn!