Blooming Hell. If it's not one thing.......

JennyW_2

We're due to exchange any day now (or so I thought)! Now my buyer's solicitor wants to see paperwork for the extension on our house (this was done by the previous owners and about 11 years old).

All I have on file is a copy of the proposed work and a completion certificate - both issued by our local council. My solicitor is asking if I have something which grants the permission of this extension from the original land owners - this I don't have!

He's saying that he can therefore issue an indemnity policy in the absence of this bit of paper however I'm now anxious that our buyer wont be happy with this and pull out. Oh, if I didn't have enough to worry about.... what do you guys think?

It wasn't a problem when we bought the house so sounds like our solicitor at the time missed it?

suki1964

Your solicitor at the time didnt miss it, it just wasnt such a big issue back then.

Are you sure your extension ever even needed planing permission in the first place? If its less then 10% of the original floor space then it probably didnt. The paperwork you have should be more then enough. You can ring the council to ask if planing was ever required and granted but seeing as they signed the work off, either it was never needed or they did grant it and will have a copy for you. An indemity is no good, the extension is over the time limit, no one can get you to knock it down.

BTW we had the same problems ourselves in Feb with an overvealous solicitor working for the vendors. Planning was never required for our extension but she wasnt happy till she recieved a letter from the council to that effect

Good luck

JennyW_2

Hi Suki. Thanks for the reply.

My mistake - the extension is 7 years old - will we still need to issue one?

suki1964

I doubt it.

Ring the council tomorrow Im sure they will be better to advise re planning and wil be happy to send out a copy of the original permission if they have granted it. As you have a completion certifcate and the house was not previously a leashold then you should be fine. Solicitors are so scared of being sued nowdays they dot all i's and cross every t. And solicitors dont know everything about planning permission and are often not aware that its not always needed for extensions

silvercar

The original landowners would have to show a court that they still retained a beneficial interest in any development of yours, that they were the heirs of the original landowners and that they were acting reasonably. If they still owned part of the land that formed your plot and had acted equally on other developments they would maybe have a case, then they would have to show they had suffered a loss for which they should be compensated.

Went through exactly the same thing with my solicitor yesterday. The extension, the shed and the sky dish all break covenants put on the plot by the owners of the estate in 1937. The seller has refused to take out an indemnity in view of the time lapse. If all the above consitions were met, we could in theory have to pay one guinea to the landowners for permission which they would never get a court to refuse if it went that far.

My (very thorough) solicitor said dont lose sleep over it.

BTW building regs and planning permission are totally different to land owners covenents. 4 years is the time limit on existing extensions unless listed buildings etc

JennyW_2

and wil be happy to send out a copy of the original permission if they have granted it.

I have a copy of something called:

Building Act 1984
Notice of Passing of Building Plan

which was issued by the council, could this be the original permission?

PS: I thought I read somewhere that if I make enquiries with the local council it will invalidate an indemnity policy, or have I got myself confused?

silvercar

there are 3 things operating totally independantly:

Planning permission - extension over 4 years old so should be safe

building regs certificate - often called the completion certificate, should be what you have

covenants and special clauses on the deeds - this would be things like asking permission from the original landowners. I am guessing from your original post that this is what's missing.

See my comment earlier about why I see it is irrelevant. If your house was built a long while ago, chances are you won't be able to find the original landowners. If your buyer is being a pain, you could end up taking out an indemnity policy but many seller's solicitors refuse to waste their clients money.

Debt_Free_Chick

No - that's not planning permission, but confirmation that the works comply with the building regs.

But - as has been said - the extension might not have needed planning permission, anyway. There is something called "permitted development" - this is work, including some extensions - that you can carry out without ever needing planning permission.

Your type of enquiry pops up on this Board just about every day. It's seems to me that too many people (solicitors) are getting their knickers in a twist over this issue. All they want to see is the planning permission ..... they ignore the fact that (a) permission might not have been needed - ever and (b) that after 4 years (10 years for some work) no-one can take any action against anyone, in respect of work that did need permission, but it wasn't obtained. In this case, an indemnity policy is a waste of money.

I would ask your solicitor what the indemnity policy covers ... an indemnity against what, exactly? Then ask, what is the likelihood that this would ever occur.

Of course, your buyer's solicitor may have wound the buyers up - so it might pay simply to get the bloomin useless, pointless policy in place just to keep them happy.

Rant over .... but this is all getting ridiculous! I wonder what the next knicker twisting waste of time & money will be? :mad:

Debt_Free_Chick

JennyW wrote:

My solicitor is asking if I have something which grants the permission of this extension from the original land owners - this I don't have!

Just to be clear about what you're looking for ..... it's a simple letter of permission from the original landowner - nothing to do with planning permission or building control, which is controlled by the local planning authority.

It sounds like your deeds have a covenant which states that you need the original owner's permission to do certain things (the original owner being the one shown on the deeds).

You will need to look at the deeds or the title register on the Land Registry to see what the precise wording is and who the "original owner" is. You may even be able to get their permission now ... but you need to know who they are.

Cheers

JennyW_2

Debt_Free_Chick wrote:

so it might pay simply to get the bloomin useless, pointless policy in place just to keep them happy.

Rant over .... but this is all getting ridiculous! I wonder what the next knicker twisting waste of time & money will be? :mad:

it's a joke isn't it, fancy bringing up this enquiry so late down the line. :mad:

JennyW_2

Debt_Free_Chick wrote:

Just to be clear about what you're looking for ..... it's a simple letter of permission from the original landowner - nothing to do with planning permission or building control, which is controlled by the local planning authority.

It sounds like your deeds have a covenant which states that you need the original owner's permission to do certain things (the original owner being the one shown on the deeds).

You will need to look at the deeds or the title register on the Land Registry to see what the precise wording is and who the "original owner" is. You may even be able to get their permission now ... but you need to know who they are.

Cheers

I do have a copy of the deeds but it's very hard to read and it was back in 1963 - chances are they are now out of business or extremely old!