House Extension

c0rneL

Last November, I bought my first ever house, end of terrace. last week I received the paperwork, but when I looked at the paperwork, there are no mentions of the house extension. No information what so ever, it is like there is no extension at all.
I contacted the solicitor and he told me that he was not aware of any extension being built. I have no prove that he was aware, but I remember sending him the surveyors report(full building survey); especially the the legal points(driveway access, and extension).
I am not experienced in those matters, my concern is what can be the worst case scenario?
I mention that the extension looks relatively old, not having any paperwork, I just estimated at least 10 years old. It appears to comply with the permitted development (i.e. 3 meters from the back wall of the terraced house, less than 50% of the floor surface, just ground level).
Can someone give me some piece of mind, because I am worried. My solicitor told me that he is not responsible, the sellers already got the money. Am I responsible of an extension that I never built? are there any laws to protect me from this situation?
Thank you

Doozergirl

There is no situation

If the extension is more than 10 years old then you are well past any type of action from either planning or building control.

I recommend a chill pill

TomsMom

Ditto what Doozergirl says.

The only other thing I can foresee is if you come to sell in the future and the extension is not registered with the land registry then a good solicitor will pick that up. We recently bought a house with a number of extensions (four in all) that didn't have any planning consent, building regulation approval, etc. Our solicitor noticed that only the original tiny cottage had legal title, none of the extensions did, nor did the garden! He got it all sorted and had it all registered on one title to make it easier for any future re-sale.

planning_officer

Yep, just for extra reassurance - if the extension is older than 4 years, it becomes lawful.

It may well have been permitted development anyway (before 1 Oct last year, the PD legislation was different and was primarily volume-based, along with other criteria - but if it's less than 3m depth and single storey, it's very likely to have been PD at the time at was built, hence why no paperwork was supplied, as they isn't any!). But that's kind of irrelevant anyway, given its age - provided it's over 4 years old, it's now perfectly lawful!

ormus

my house has a triple extension! and we have no paperwork at all.
as it was over 5yrs old when we bought the house, we never worried.
but im still 80% sure that PP was never applied for, as its most unusual to get PP for this amount of work on a normal 3 bed semi.

c0rneL

I am more relaxed now that I know that it cannot be demolished. I still have a quick question: I have not proof whatsoever of when the extension was built. For what I know can be built 10 years ago, but how can I prove this, if challenged?

TomsMom

c0rneL wrote: »

I am more relaxed now that I know that it cannot be demolished. I still have a quick question: I have not proof whatsoever of when the extension was built. For what I know can be built 10 years ago, but how can I prove this, if challenged?

I doubt if it will be challenged but Planning Officer said in his post above that any extension over 4 years old becomes lawful so I wouldn't lose any sleep over it.

planning_officer

c0rneL wrote: »

I am more relaxed now that I know that it cannot be demolished. I still have a quick question: I have not proof whatsoever of when the extension was built. For what I know can be built 10 years ago, but how can I prove this, if challenged?

Old aerial photos? (Multimap, Microsoft Live Maps etc have dates on their aerial photography). Letters/confirmation from neighbours? Those kind of things can be useful - although I very much doubt if it will ever be challenged too - nobody is suddenly going to come forward to complain if it was built 10 years ago!

Anyway, if it was permitted development at the time it was built, and it sounds like it was, then you will never have to prove when it was built - if someone ever did complain about it and the Council came round to have a look, if they can see it's permitted development then it would be perfectly ok!