Business allowed on property

[Gretta-and-Carl0]

Afternoon, I am after some help please. We’ve been Airbnbing our town house and realised we should really switch over to business rates as we’ve previously been paying council tax. However I have just checked my land registry document for the house and it states “not to carry on any trade or business on the property.”

please could I have your thoughts on this? 
Thank you in advance. 
Gretta

[Mike-And-Jane0]

@Gretta-and-Carl0 I would ignore it if you are the freeholder. I assume it is a covenant but who does said covenant benefit? If you don't know the answer to this then it is unlikely that the person benefiting from the covenant knows either!

I trust you are aware of the Furnished Holiday Let tax rules, the requirements regarding number of nights booked for business rated properties and the capital gains tax implications.

If you have a mortgage you need their permission to rent short term and finally I hope you have proper insurance covering short term rentals.

[Gretta-and-Carl0]

Thank you for your advise. We are ok with all the other bits but just a bit worried about the covenant as we’ve been operating for over a year and have only just looked as we were going to go from council tax to business rates. Our thoughts were to ignore but once you start looking into possible outcomes, it all gets a bit scary. 
Thank you again. 

[Mike-And-Jane0]

@Gretta-and-Carl0 what are the consequences of breaking a covenant? I would have thought the worst that can happen is compensating the 'covanentor' for their losses (which are likely to be zero) and you stopping breaking the covenant. I doubt very much the council will even check the land registry.