Extremely worried over old rear extension !

Mags269

Hi - PLEASE !! can someone put my mind at rest? We bought our detached house over 6 years ago. The house was originally built and lived in by the builder himself around 1970. I understand that he himself in the mid 1980's first added a small extension to expand the size of the kitchen, and soon after added a rear extension (not sure of the actual size, but would hazzard a guess of a normal garage-size) which joined up to the side kitchen extension. Very soon after it was bought by the owners whom we in turn bought from. Now my problem is that this extension isn't shown any any of the plans relating to the house when we bought it - i.e. land registry. I've even checked my local council's internet site to view details of my town's properties, and everything only seems to show the plan of the house as it was orignally built. Unfortunately at the time of us buying our house, our solicitor was nothing short of useless. Any query or question directed to her would produce a vague response to say the least. Initially she contacted me to say she couldn't find planning records for the extension, but that the vendors would pay "a fee". Then sometime after she called me to say that "the reason I can't find planning records is because there isn't any" ( ! ) I seem to recall that she said we would have to "agree on not moving again". Unfortunately I so desperately wanted this house I agreed without informing my husdand! Now I am genuinely sick with worry over what I've done. I did try to raise problem with hubby a few years, ago only to be told "don't worry, the builder originally built the house itself, he knew what he was doing". Actually although the extension is now over 20 years old, it seems extremely sound and apart from the flat roof occasionally leaking (it's still the original one), we've never had a problem with it. My question is - I realise that the council cannot now ask us to demolish it, but would we be able to request "retrospective planning permission?" - I'm just worried that without us having something in place, we ourselves would be unable to sell. Can somebody PLEASE put my mind at rest? ! !

Decadent_Fool

It would be best to engage with your local planning officer for an informal chat, just to talk things over and see the lie of the land. You're right in that without having something in place, you would be unable to sell, unless the buyers solicitors were as poor as yours.

If you're worried about the council taking it further (which they may), engage a solicitor to review the purchase files and ascertain just what the situation is. Money well spent, though it won't be cheap.

Having a friendly chat with the planning officer may be best, and try not to worry about it; what's done is done, now you need to just focus on resolving it with a clear head

Richard_Webster

First of all, Land Registry Plans. These are there to show the boundaries of the land included in the Land Registry title. Sometimes they are produced on new build estates with simply plot boundaries and they don't show any buildings at all! The Land Registry will update the plans every so often (but may be only every 20-30 years) and will use the latest edition of the Ordnance Survey for the area in question, which may then show the footprint of whatever buildings are on the plot at the time, but could quickly become out of date. So the Land Registry plan has nothing to do with extensions.

Unless your building is listed building work without permission become immune from enforcement action after 4 years (in some cases 10 years) so there is no necessity to obtain retrospective planning consent - if you really wanted you could apply for a certificate of lawful development showing the work to be 4/10 years old, but I really wouldn't bother, it isn't needed. The Council have got better things to do than go around randomly starting enforcement action that they are bound to lose!

As to building regulations, in practice you don't have anything to worry about. You might have to fork out £50-£75 or so for a probably unnecessary indemnity policy when you sell the house, but that's all - see my comment on this thread:
http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=1532183&page=2

Think about it, if the Council started trying to take you to court for work someone else had done 20+ years ago, they would be laughed at in the local papers etc, and probably in the national media too.

RLH33

Richard_Webster wrote: »

Unless your building is listed building work without permission become immune from enforcement action after 4 years (in some cases 10 years this only applies to uses other than residential) so there is no necessity to obtain retrospective planning consent - if you really wanted you could apply for a certificate of lawful development showing the work to be 4/10 years old, but I really wouldn't bother, it isn't needed. The Council have got better things to do than go around randomly starting enforcement action that they are bound to lose!

The quote above is absolutely right so, as the extension has been in place for more than four years, there is nothing that the Council could do about it even, after all this time, someone were to complain about it.

You could go for a certificate of lawful use but really this isn't necessary. I really wouldn't worry about it one moment more.

Mags269

Thanks for your comments guys. I'm not worried so much about the Council just turning up with bulldozers, but just about the implication if we ourselves wanted to sell. I realise that I've obviously made a huge mistake in buying this property in the first place, but obviously both the original owner of the house & his subsequent purchasers didn't appear to have a problem and wondered what they had to do. Without this extention appearing on any plans, the price of our property would obviously come down? I just wondered if applying for retrospective planning permission would remedy this?

Doozergirl

Mags269 wrote: »

Thanks for your comments guys. I'm not worried so much about the Council just turning up with bulldozers, but just about the implication if we ourselves wanted to sell. I realise that I've obviously made a huge mistake in buying this property in the first place, but obviously both the original owner of the house & his subsequent purchasers didn't appear to have a problem and wondered what they had to do. Without this extention appearing on any plans, the price of our property would obviously come down? I just wondered if applying for retrospective planning permission would remedy this?

Listen to Richard Webster. There is no problem. You don't need retrospective planning permission and your house is not devalued. It doesn't need to appear on the plans with the land registry for it to exist.

You've misunderstood your solicitor because this sort of thing is so common that it must one that must come up on this board here at least four times a week. As Richard says, the only cost *might* be an indemnity policy for building regs on the extension.

Calm down!

Doozergirl

Decadent_Fool wrote: »

It would be best to engage with your local planning officer for an informal chat, just to talk things over and see the lie of the land. You're right in that without having something in place, you would be unable to sell, unless the buyers solicitors were as poor as yours.

This is total scaremongering with no truth to it at all. Apart from the fact that any property can be sold, it would not even devalue the property.

Decadent_Fool wrote: »

It would be best to engage with your local planning officer for an informal chat, just to talk things over and see the lie of the land.

Yes, perhaps it would as they will confirm that they have no interest in making the OP knock it down and will also probably advise that retrospective planning permission is a bit pointless - if it's single storey it's entirely possible that it was built within permitted development in which case no planning permission was ever needed!

Mags269

Thanks for your posts Doozergirl & Richard. You have really lit a spark of hope! I've been struggling with this issue for so long now, and until today haven't even been able to discuss it with anyone (silly, I know). I just wish I could remember what my 'solicitor' told me with respect to not being able to sell. I've gone onto so many websites to look up this problem and have seen so much conflicted advice, which ranges from no problem whatsoever, to you have done something completely illegal - if you ever think about selling, you will have to drastically lower the price ! !So - just to get this right in my own head - if at any point we decided to sell - we should only offer to pay for indemnity insurance and hopefully shouldn't be a problem with our asking price?

Doozergirl

Mags269 wrote: »

we should only offer to pay for indemnity insurance and hopefully shouldn't be a problem with our asking price?

Yes. The question will probably be raised by your buyer's solicitor in which case you can pay for that policy.

There seems to be quite a lot of hearsay around issues like these and people seem to just spout off without any real knowledge of the subject. Don't talk about it with buyers on viewings - I promise that you've done nothing wrong at all, it's just that you can already see how people tend to panic about things like this when it's simply ignorance; a knowledgeable solicitor will raise the questions and just get on with it.

Milsey-Girl

Mags, just to put your mind at rest further, depending on the sizes of the extensions built they may not have even needed planning permission as they may have been built under 'Permitted Development.' Most residential properties have a Permitted Development allowance (for small extensions, fencing, sheds, etc). Please don't worry yourself any more about this, as others have said, there's not a chance that your Local Council will be concerned about this now and they couldn't take any action now due to the time that has elapsed. Sleep easy;)

Richard_Webster

Doozer and I are doing a double act here - and I'm just coming on to say that I agree with her comments completely.